Good Morning all.
I have read your thread with sadness that you are also experiencing the same situation in the US, and shock at the response of some people in the article you have all read. This respondent is obviously brain dead. But I find this attitude here in the UK as well.
I wonder if they will eat their keyboards when the farmers are finally all gone. Here in the UK farmers are one of the biggest concern groups for suicide. Just by their lifestyle they are often left alone with negative thoughts and feel bullied by "the system". I have also watched when discussions have been going on between health professionals as people have made similar comments. e.g. "Why would farmers be at risk? All that good weather and all the lovely animals and freedom."
As for the water, it is also the same here and I remember an incident here. Locally we have lots of small hill farms and a lot of rain (that is an understatement of course, I am in Wales), one of the farmers here at the top of a very steep hill had been in dispute with the Water authority about their service for some time and in total frustration he spent a large amount of money digging an artesian well. What followed was a lengthy court battle and the result was that water that fell from the sky onto his land did not belong to him, it belongs to the state. The water authority took over his well and he had to pay them for supply.
It is a great sadness that the reality of many people's lives is not recognised and the pressures they face are not understood. Instead of the great advances in technology bringing people together, it seems to have in fact driven us all into little pockets of people with no engagement with others. We are driven headlong by television and the media to take on a particular mindset, and young people are frequently persuaded (but not exclusively) that they should adopt these new attitudes and as the education system has been eroded singlemindedness and independent thought are no longer a threat to the staus quo, and the people who suffer are those affected by the politics and economy of the time. But the new "IN CROWD" who have the right attitude and fit in with the masses will not even give it a second thought as they have wasted all of their mental energy chasing an illusion of success and riches.
Because of their solitary style in fact farmers are far closer to reality than all of the city dwellers, and they are closer to the natural rythms of the earth, their world is the true reality, and the city life is in fact the CON in this world.
God help them all and us if they are finally defeated in their lifelong struggle to feed us all. WE are all here trying to become farmers on a small scale in some instances. God help us too.
