Roger Marshall: “in the last few weeks, I have been back home, and many, many people were finishing up wheat harvest. It is absolutely…”

“in the last few weeks, I have been back home, and many, many people were finishing up wheat harvest. It is absolutely one of the joys of the entire year, when a year's work of hard work comes to fruition. Every corner of the State was speckled with combines, tractors, grain carts, and trucks, all doing their part in the harvest process. Inside those implements were fathers and sons, sisters, mothers, brothers, and my cousins, all working side by side to harvest the crop that will provide the financing for land payments, equipment loans, operating loans, and next year's inputs, like seed and fertilizer. Now, agriculture is a capital-intensive industry, much more than I could have ever imagined. Harvesting wheat requires at least four different pieces of machinery, many costing $250,000, $500,000, or more each. It takes years for a farmer building up equity to purchase a new piece of equipment or land. And for many families, it is only by passing down the land and equipment that a family farm can remain viable. This is the only way a young farmer can truly survive. Now, the common saying in Kansas is that farmers live poor but die rich. Across this great Nation, contrary to most people's beliefs, 98 percent of farms and ranches are family-owned-- 98 percent, family-owned. Those families produce much of the food, fuel, and fiber we consume here in the United States and around the globe.…”