Farmer Asks Whether Government Can Start a Combine First
AMES, Iowa — Progressive politicians celebrating America’s anti-Trump election backlash have unveiled the agricultural equivalent of economic equality: every farmer will receive exactly the same access to a tractor, provided nobody minds that there is only one.
The revolutionary concept represents a significant advance in government planning, especially among people who believe planting corn is something that can be postponed until the appropriate committee approves the weather.
The Equipment-Sharing Authority and the Single Tractor Plan
Under the proposed agricultural program, private tractor ownership would be replaced by a democratically supervised equipment-sharing authority.
Every participating farmer would receive an equal allocation of machinery time.
Unfortunately, the tractor would arrive sometime between March and November.
Farmers requiring a narrower delivery window would be advised to contact the Department of Agricultural Patience.
A spokesman for the authority’s planning committee said the delivery window was “a conservative estimate” and that the committee was “confident the tractor will arrive during the year.” Asked which year, he said the committee would take the question under advisement.
The program’s intellectual foundation is straightforward.
Why should one farmer own a $400,000 tractor when everybody could share it?
The question sounds perfectly reasonable until somebody explains that farmers already have legitimate equipment-sharing arrangements, machinery cooperatives and custom operators.
These arrangements work because participants understand planting windows, logistics, repairs and the importance of getting a crop into the ground before winter.
Government collectivization would improve this system by adding fourteen administrators and removing the tractor keys.
Spring Planting in Iowa Under Collective Machinery Ownership
Consider spring planting in Iowa.
Twenty farmers need equipment during the same narrow period when soil conditions permit efficient fieldwork.
Under normal circumstances, they arrange machinery, labor and financing according to their individual operations.
Under the new revolutionary system, Farmer Number One receives the tractor in April.
Farmer Number Two receives it in May.
Farmer Number Three receives it in October.
Farmer Number Four is congratulated on successfully reducing carbon emissions by not planting anything.
The Department of Agriculture would describe the result as a historic breakthrough in sustainable agricultural participation.
The transcript of a public listening session in Story County captures the farmers’ reaction. A woman who identified herself as a third-generation soybean grower asked the panel how the schedule would handle a late spring. The panelist replied that “the schedule is designed to be flexible.” She asked what that meant in practice. “It means we’ll look at it,” he said. She asked when. The transcript records a pause of eleven seconds, followed by “[inaudible].”
The Real Frustrations Behind the Rural Vote
Of course, the actual political frustration behind the election is considerably more serious.
Farmers face debt, volatile markets, expensive equipment and years of promises from politicians who seem to visit rural America primarily when cameras are available.
The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service can quantify crop production with impressive precision.
Washington has yet to develop a comparable method for measuring how much patience farmers have left.
The American Farm Bureau Federation surveys its members on exactly this question, and the answer, in a margin note attributed to a Midwest field representative, is “less than they had last week.”
A farmer who supported Trump in one election may vote against his party in another without developing a sudden desire to surrender his combine to the state.
But ideological enthusiasts are not famous for appreciating such distinctions.
To them, a vote against Republicans is a mandate to reorganize agriculture.
What Happens When the Collective Tractor Breaks Down
The obvious problem with collective tractor ownership is that tractors break.
Under private ownership, the farmer contacts a mechanic.
Under the revolutionary program, a special commission investigates whether mechanical failure represents sabotage, class resistance or insufficient commitment to agricultural solidarity.
Repairs are authorized after public consultation.
The growing season ends during the appeal.
The final report recommends purchasing another tractor, provided Congress approves the appropriation.
Meanwhile, the farmers have discovered an alternative solution.
They bought their own equipment and returned to work.
Washington condemned the arrangement as dangerously productive.
Five Observations on the One-Tractor Revolution
- One tractor for everybody. You know what that is in rural America? That’s a Saturday-night argument at the co-op, and somebody’s brother-in-law ends up in the ditch.
- “The schedule is designed to be flexible.” Corn doesn’t do flexible. Corn does May. You miss May, corn does nothing. It just looks at you.
- Eleven seconds of silence followed by “inaudible.” I’ve been in that meeting. I’ve been on both sides of that meeting. The inaudible part is always the answer.
- Farmer Number Four gets congratulated for reducing emissions by not planting anything. That’s not agriculture, that’s a participation trophy you can’t eat.
- They bought their own equipment and went back to work. And the government called it “dangerously productive.” That’s the first time in history productive was a warning label.