God Made a Farmer

To start off I’ll say I’m a Chevrolet girl but that Dodge had won some significant brownie points last night at the Super Bowl with me. As a grandchild of a farmer, a forever national blue and corn gold jacket wearer and a lifetime believer in the FFA and the American farmer I give kudos to makers of the commercial. “So God Made a Famer” narrated by Paul Harvey is a beautiful speech that touched the hearts and souls of millions of American’s everywhere. Yet some people still find farmers frivolous and are still running their mouths about things they don’t know.

Do people not know without us there is no food before you? That we give life, our all to be worn and tired and broken and never rich just to give your family the needed nutrition to survive? Ridiculous people.

I was shocked and proud to hear the voice of Paul Harvey come across my television as Dodge showed pictures of real farmers working hard to give us all a better life. 2012 was one of the hardest years for farming since the Great Depression. The rainfall levels were that of the dustbowl and our crops withered and died before our eyes. Dust covered our cattle and water had to be pumped to our herds and our precious hay had to be fed almost all summer long when our stock is used to green pastures to meet their needs.

At the end of my life, when my body has failed, I pray that I have served my agricultural community enough that pretty words like these can be used in reference to me. Never has a Super Bowl commercial hit me in the heart the blur my vision the way Dodge did this year. I found myself thankful for Dodge for representing the unsung and un-respected backbone of America.

Paul Harvey, whose speech was originally given at the 1978 Future Farmers of America National Convention took America by storm then as it was delivered in the a Carter area where talk of God was little. Now 35 years later the condition is only worse but still that’s why I’m proud God Made a Farmer.

The pieces of the 1978 speech used in the commercial is below.

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.

 God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.

 God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year,' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse with hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, put in another 72 hours." So God made the farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to yean lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the leg of a meadowlark."

It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and brake, and disk, and plow, and plant, and tie the fleece and strain the milk. Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says that he wants to spend his life doing what Dad does. "So God made a farmer."