For much of our memory of U.S. agriculture, farming used diverse practices. In an attempt to use every resource, every bit of ground, every family member and every market, farms often grew many products. Of course, in some areas there was only one thing to do - graze catte or sheep, grow wheat and so forth. But in many areas, up until recent times farms grew nearly all their own food. They had cattle, hogs, chickens, horses, sheep, geese, and grew corn, oats, timothy, wheat. Farm families worked all year round at something.
If one enterprise went bad, often something else propped the farm up. Granted, not always, but often.
Now, we are a monoculture. Corn and soybeans. Wheat. Rice. We've gotten so good at doing some things that we feel we can't stay diverse.
So we live and die on one or two products. We got ourselves into this mess and we can't get out.
Along comes different trade rules and we're unable to adapt.
Is this Darwinism at work?
Does the government owe us a stable economic environment so that we can tweak and fine tune our corn production? Or does the government just owe us an opportunity to produce what the consumer wants , even if that means some lean years when we're out of whack?
