Kansas Farmers Ask for a Different Kind of Liberty
DODGE CITY, Kansas — Republican economists have unveiled a revolutionary explanation for agricultural financial distress: Farmers who lose everything are not experiencing bankruptcy. They are experiencing an unprecedented level of economic freedom.
The discovery has been greeted with understandable confusion across America’s farming communities, particularly among producers who previously believed that economic freedom included the ability to pay their bills.
A Kansas wheat grower became the first participant in the initiative after his banker informed him that his operating loan was approaching a difficult conversation.
The farmer asked whether the bank could postpone the conversation until wheat prices improved. The banker replied that the free market would determine his future.
“Fantastic,” said the farmer. “Can the free market make my tractor payment?”
Apparently not.
Financial Independence Through Having Nothing Left
Republican consultants explained that bankruptcy offers numerous advantages. A farmer who loses his tractor no longer needs to purchase diesel. A farmer who loses his land no longer needs fertilizer. A farmer who loses his house no longer needs property insurance.
And a farmer who loses everything has achieved complete independence from financial responsibility.
“This is liberation,” explained one particularly enthusiastic consultant.
The farmer asked whether liberation came with a place to sleep. The consultant suggested renting. The farmer pointed out that rent was also expensive. The consultant recommended entrepreneurship. The farmer asked whether the consultant had ever operated a business. He had managed social media accounts for three congressional campaigns. The farmer offered his condolences.
The financial squeeze is not merely rhetorical. USDA projections anticipated production expenses holding near their current high levels while net farm income was forecast to slip. Agricultural economists describe this as pressure on operating margins.
Farmers describe it as working all year so somebody else can afford a boat. Democrats saw a political opportunity.
A candidate proposed expanding agricultural assistance and addressing corporate concentration.
The farmer liked the general direction but requested assurances that new programs would not require hiring three accountants, two lawyers and a compliance officer. The Democrat promised simpler paperwork. A 47-page eligibility questionnaire arrived the following morning. One Republican legislator suggested farmers should diversify their income.
The wheat grower explained that he already had three jobs: farming, equipment repair and explaining to his wife why the first two jobs never made money.
“Have you considered consulting?” asked the legislator.
“On what?”
“Financial resilience.”
The farmer stared at him long enough for the legislator to reconsider his career.
Farm Stress Is Reshaping the Rural Republican Vote
The anxiety in Ford County has numbers behind it. The Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer found that 35% of producers expect to be worse off financially in a year, against 22% who expect to be better off. The Brookings analysis cites American Farm Bureau figures showing farm bankruptcies rose 46% in a single year. A Republican strategist told reporters that rural turnout would hold. Asked what he based that on, he said “history,” and then excused himself to take a call.
From a Court Filing
A filing in Ford County District Court lists the defendant’s occupation as “farmer.” Under assets, it lists a combine, a half-section of wheat ground, and “optimism (depreciating).” The clerk who processed the filing declined to comment other than to say she had seen a lot of those lately.
Section 14(c)
The restructuring agreement offered by the bank runs to nineteen pages. Section 14(c) provides that the borrower “acknowledges that rainfall, hail, and commodity prices are outside the lender’s control but inside the borrower’s liability.” The farmer initialed that page last, he said, because his pen ran out.
Word From a Legislator’s Office
“The senator believes in freedom,” a spokesman said, “including the freedom to bring your own solutions.” Asked whether the senator had brought any of his own, the spokesman said the office would circle back after the session.
Meanwhile, the bank proposed a restructuring arrangement under which the farmer could keep his operation by working another twenty years and avoiding all unnecessary expenditures.
Unnecessary expenditures included restaurants, vacations, retirement and occasionally lunch. The Republican Party continued praising the virtues of economic freedom. The farmer finally agreed. Freedom was wonderful. He simply wished he could afford some.
Five Humorous Observations About Bankruptcy and Freedom
- Bankruptcy as economic freedom. Sure. It’s the same way a fire sale is a “decluttering event.”
- They say if you lose the tractor you save on diesel. That’s financial planning wrapped in a motivational poster.
- A consultant who managed social media for three congressional campaigns is lecturing a farmer on business. That’s a guy who’s never opened an envelope he had to pay.
- Forty-seven pages of eligibility paperwork for a farm program. You know who has time for that? Nobody who farms.
- The bank says I can keep the place if I work another twenty years and skip lunch. Pal, I’ve been skipping lunch since the tractor payment started.