You know who gets up early and does the

[upaloopa]

farming where I live. Hispanic laborers.
They put chemicals on the soil to kill any living thing then they add chemicals to make things grow. They drive big tracters that plow neat rows and they plant the crop very densely packed. They irrigate the plants with rolling pipes. Then they


pick and pack the crop. Then they put chemicals on the soil to kill any living thing.
You know the rest.
No farmers don't bust their asses and drive Dodge trucks around here. Farm laborers bust their asses and couldn't afford a Dodge truck if they wanted one.
No Paul Harvey farmers around here.

[cherokeeprogressive]

1. I don't quite get your point.

[upaloopa]

2. The Super Bowl farmer ad is a myth

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. Most ads are. It's why they're called ads rather than truths.

[tblue]

4. Re: the Super Bowl ad for a truck

that was all warm and fuzzy about 'God made farmers.' That may be true, but the op is right. The people who really deserve our reverence and respect (along with decent pay and health and safety oversight) are the people who literally toil in the soil & crops. Farmers, yes, the ones who get down and dirty—by all means, let's honor them. But the lowly farmworkers also must not be overlooked. They sacrifice a lot so we all get cheaper food, but they don't profit from these farms. They barely eke out a living.

The big, industrial 'farmers' aren't really farmers at all. They don't need our love or any commercials telling us that they are gifts from God.

[cherokeeprogressive]

6. Some people get seriously wrapped up in commercials. I don't. n/t

[farminator3000]

5. sounds like you live in bakersfield or arizona. support a farmer's market? do they have them where

you live?

Still, organic farms and ranches in California are mainly concentrated in coastal areas, like near Chico and Santa Cruz. In the vast agricultural belt of the Central Valley, where almost half of the produce in the U.S. is grown, most farmers are still using traditional growing methods.

Recently, though, that seems to be changing.

-skip-

Though farmers can earn more by selling organic food products, going organic is not a simple decision. In addition to the cost of using specific registered pesticides, becoming a certified organic grower takes three years, and farmers have to find organic handlers to come in and process their crops. They are also required to create buffers between neighboring farms to avoid chemical drift. Tim Pelican, the deputy agricultural commissioner, said that growers often start and then drop out of the process, but new people always take their place.

“The whole use of pesticides is changing really rapidly, especially because of the water issue,” Pelican said, “so that may be why more people are going organic. It has a lot to do with the market too. If there’s more of a market for organic products, then more people are going to do it.”
http://www.cornucopia.org/2013/01/in-the-central-valley-organic-farming-is-slowly-taking-hold/

***

http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special26/articles/0103conserve-main03.html
Farming's changing role
It was on those in-state rivers that Arizona's early residents built communities, all the way back to the Hohokam, who lived where Phoenix now stands from about A.D. 300 to 1200. They moved water from the Salt River to their farm fields through a sophisticated system of canals.

More modern settlers unearthed the canals and expanded them. In 1903, a group of farmers formed what is now Salt River Project and began building dams and reservoirs to further control the Salt and later the Verde rivers. That's how agriculture shaped Arizona's water use from the start.

It's also how, despite the industry's intensive use of water, Arizona avoided becoming another Las Vegas, a city that has exhausted its supply of water for new homes and businesses.

[whistler162]

7. Yeah.... not your brightest moment there!

might want to delete the OP!

[Blanks]

8. It wasn't that many years ago when...

What he said in the commercial was true. Certainly not every farmer, but there were plenty of family farms (until the Reagan administration). The guy that I buy my horse feed from was telling me the other day that when he got off the bus; his dad was waiting for him to put him to work (he's in his late 60's).

All of the people that I went to school with had some exposure to the agriculture industry; I put up hay in high school. Farmers worked long hours; it wasn't always back breaking work, but they put in a lot of hours.

Paul Harvey was a bit over emotional in the ad, and I got kind of tired of him back when I used to listen to him in the late 80's, but it seemed fairly sincere when I listened to it 35 years ago in the hay fields.

However, I didn't like the commercial either.

[bigwillq]

9. Do they drive a Dodge?

[farminator3000]

10. that honestly doesn't quite make sense

1. there are no other types of people? just Hispanics?

2. the 'hispanic laborers' do not: apply chemicals, drive tractors AND pick and pack. if they do, they HAVE dodge trucks, because they are doing everything.

3. perhaps move to a hippie commune if you don't like your area.

4. if you substitute 'mother nature' for 'god', it reads a lot better.