The Source Of Wealth In Agriculture

By: Jon Stika

If you have spent any amount of time around a 3-year-old child, you know that their favorite question is, “Why?” A young child asks this question over and over in order to understand everything in the world around them because everything is new to them. As we mature, we begin to take a lot of things for granted and don’t question the world around us as deeply as we did when as children. But there seems to be an awakening of desire to question some very basic concepts in agriculture that have not been challenged for quite some time.

When we examine the source of wealth in agriculture, we often count the number of head of livestock or bushels of grain that come off of each acre of land. While these may be the products we sell in the marketplace, they are not the source of our wealth.