The first event I covered as an agriculture reporter at the News-Press was the annual field day at the Hundley-Whaley Research Farm in Albany, Mo.
Each year, it was a fun anniversary to go back and ride the hay wagon, look at bean fields and compare corn herbicides. This year, the ag reporter had another assignment, so I got called out of retirement, so to speak, to go back and cover field day.
Researchers were fascinating, as they talked about ways to catch bugs and apply fungicides and meaure nitrogen loss. A few times, the PhD types were corrected by the men in overalls and seed caps who noted that something that works in a 12-foot plot won’t necessarily work in a 200 acre field.
The farmers were supposedly not the experts, but they are the ones who do the work to raise the crops that feed the world. Recent events have shown us just how important these growers are, when we usually take them for granted.
When it comes to life, especially to our faith, it’s tempting to become an expert, sitting in the lab and explaining how things should go. How much more rewarding to be a farmer, getting dirty working in the field and raising a crop to the glory of the Creator.
“The hard working farmer must be first to partake of the crops.” II Timothy 2:6
