That tells me they care. Taking the pressure off us touched close to home. They also want to make sure there are farmers around to rent from them again. With agriculture backgrounds, landlords understand the farm crisis. But with less of the general population having a link to the farm, the numbers of the naturally sympathetic are dwindling.
Farmers regard public support as crucial because they see public policy as a way out of their mess.
Nelson's harvest started in early August with oats. He finished in mid-October with soybeans. In those rare unhurried moments in the field, he's likely to grab a handful of black soil, put it to his nose and inhale deeply. And even though his trucks haul away millions of beets, he occasionally picks up a stray missed by the harvester, slices off its green top with the machete-sized knife he carries in his pickup cab and places it in a row to be dug the next round. The dirt-sniffing and stray beet salvaging habits come from his mother, Gladys, who died 18 months ago at age 81.