Greenfield, IA – Success can mean different things to different people. Many use it to describe an outcome or to measure an achievement. What’s really odd is sometimes you can manage to be both a success and a failure all at the same time. That’s how this wheat harvest season has felt for many of us. I’ll always remember it as the wheat harvest that nearly wasn’t.
The drought didn’t take the wheat in one dramatic moment. It took it a little at a time—one dry week, one missed rain, one withered plant after another. It spread like a plague, one state at a time. With each passing month the situation grew more serious, until eventually much of the run was called into question. Rarely have we ever seen so many states suffer so many challenges simultaneously in one season. It’s almost as if cancel culture was being applied to agriculture, and Mother Nature was doing her best to cancel as many acres as possible. Its years like these that tests the resolve of the men and women that grow, harvest and haul the grain we use every day.
Despite so many areas suffering crop failures, it was a chance to see success in the season. That success wasn’t measured in bushels or acres, but rather the simple fact that we showed up to support the farmers that relied on us. No one likes to combine 10 bushel wheat, but those bushels never counted more than they did this year. It certainly wasn’t all terrible. No one complained about the short elevator lines, fewer acres meant lower fuel bills, and less work overall meant more chances for crews to go sightseeing or build friendships that last a lifetime.
The harvest that nearly wasn’t ended up being the harvest that I needed the most. The thought of missing out on all those sunsets, skipping the towns that we think of as home, or seeing the customers and friends we’ve made over the years seemed unbearable. At one point it looked like that was a real possibility. While my harvest was short and the number of stops abbreviated, I still found myself in the field doing what I love. We all choose to view hardships as either tragedy or a chance to triumph. Seeing summer through that lens reminds those of us in agriculture we set ourselves apart by never quitting or giving up hope that tomorrow will be better. It wasn’t the harvest we wanted, but it was the harvest we had…and our love for the harvest was never more evident than this year.
