Thoughts on American Farmers from a Grateful Father
April 17th, 2008
The other day my daughter and I were having our usual chaotic breakfast together. Her mother is pregnant and enjoys getting a little much deserved rest before I head to work, so it was just the two of us. My daughter, who has just turned two, was having fun looking at the orange juice carton. She started pointing towards it saying “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy”, which peaked my curiosity, so I took a look. It was a picture of the Florida Natural farmer, you know the guy with the gloves. He really does look like a Daddy. That got me thinking about what is behind that juice and everything else we feed her.
It is not a hard choice to select Florida Natural for anyone who cares about America. It was founded by a group of farmers who realized the big juice companies, like Coke-a-Cola, were paying bottom dollar for juice, often from Brazil, while charging a huge markup to consumers. Rather than have their income subject to whatever the foreign orange crop surplus happened to be in a given year, they stand together to make a special product and take back some of that margin the other juice companies would pocket or send abroad. Plus, all juice really is not created equal, and Florida Natural tastes great.
They, like most American farmers, invest their time and money without any guaranteed wage and often physical risk injury to get the job done. Millions of Daddy’s and Mommy’s face years of hardship and drought so that we can live in plenty. Yes, crop prices are higher than usual lately, and that has passed through to bread and other foods. Hedge funds have been playing on real demand issues to push all commodity prices up lately. If that is benefit to farmers, that is fine with me. Let them have a good year or two to pay off their debt or whatever. Surely in a country that tolerates compensation of $21,198,510 paid last year to Wachovia’s failed CEO Kennedy Thompson, in spite of him being responsible for wiping out over $50,000,000,000 (yes, $50 Billion with a “B”) in total shareholder wealth, can tolerate farmers making a decent living.
That happy toddler and I had a lot to be thankful for that sunny morning. Good juice and other abundance at our table brought to us by farmers (Daddy’s & Mommy’s) from across our great nation. It is just a shame Mr. Thompson was never a farmer, as he might be a better business person today…
Todd Lipscomb
For American made products please visit www.MadeinUSAForever.com
Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 5:34 pmand is filed under Uncategorized.
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