Next week is National Ag week, a time for “recognizing – and celebrating – the contribution of agriculture in our everyday lives.” 

Isn’t that nice? After all the craziness and hoo-ha in the world, we’re finally getting a day to celebrate what we do. Finally, some respect. But National Ag week comes at a difficult time. This time of year, we’re all trying to make big decisions such as what to plant, how much to fertilize, what equipment to buy, and whether or not we’re nuts to keep
doing this. 

This can lead to mental wrestling. Mental wrestling can be exhausting and can lead to worn-out brains. Worn-out brains are no fun in any case, but when you go to coffee and put together a bunch of other people with worn-out brains, things are likely to get ridiculous. Nobody can seem to string two sentences together coherently and conversations are likely to sound like this:

“So, what do you think fertilizer
will do?”

“Nothing I wouldn’t do”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do it, Bob did it.”

“Bob’s a smart cookie.”

“Yeah, I’ll have a cookie.”

Anyone listening to a conversation like this would think people in agriculture are morons when actually nothing could be further from the truth. They are just smart, hard-working people with worn-out brains.

So, for National Ag week, we need to do things a little differently. Just like you do extra house cleaning whenever you have company, we need to present ourselves a little better for National Ag week. So even though you have been wrestling with numbers such as input costs and market prices, we need to dig deep and pull out a few fancy words, as well. 

For instance, when talking to the banker, never say, “I have no idea what I’m going to do.” 

Instead, say “My plans are nebulous at the present time.”

Instead of telling the equipment salesman that you can’t afford a new tractor, say “It is fundamentally fruitless to forbear frugality right now.” 

If there’s anything that is making your life miserable, such as prairie dogs, cutworms, or telemarketers, don’t call them filthy names, call them a scourge or a bane or a blight. 

You don’t have to talk that way all the time, just during National Ag Week. That’s so, if anybody comes around asking, we will all sound like geniuses. Then we can get back to doing what we do, which is working hard to feed the world. Or to put it another way, to “provide significant economic and moral contributions to the betterment of mankind.”

Sounds good, huh?