The American farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything he buys at retail, sells everything he sells at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.
Most agree, whatever their party political position, that the West can and should open its agricultural markets more fully to the products of the poorer countries of the globe. They are agricultural societies that need our markets more than our charity.
Farmers and ranchers need long-term certainty about who they will be able to sell to and under what terms.
I have had the good fortune to see how my articles have directly benefited some farmers and helped build markets for their products in a way that preserves land from development. That makes me a hopeless optimist.
Little ol' boy in the Panhandle told me the other day you can still make a small fortune in agriculture. Problem is, you got to start with a large one.
This is where I would lodge my deepest criticisms. We have very whimsically been threatening and then backing off of tariffs. The people who are paying the price for the lack of strategy are North Carolina consumers who are paying more for durable goods and North Carolina farmers who don't have markets today.
It may be assumed as a fixed truth that the prosperity and riches of the farmer must depend on the prosperity and good national regulation of trade.
As the revenue of the farmer is realized in raw produce, or in the value of raw produce, he is interested, as well as the landlord, in its high exchangeable value, but a low price of produce may be compensated to him by a great additional quantity.
