Struggles Within Wheat Farming By Grace Cloughton

There are an abundant amount of struggles within wheat farming. Some of the struggles
include mother nature, input and output prices, equipment costs, technology, the government’s
outrageous laws, land values, and farmers’ mental health. In the following paragraphs I will
outline and discuss some of the struggles above within the wheat farming industry.
In dryland farming especially mother nature plays a key role in the production of wheat.
Moisture is something all farmers need in order to grow proper wheat. Without moisture
reduction of yield will occur. Farmers pray for rain to moisturize their crops, and hope for wet
snow in the winter for added water into the ground. Farmers also pray for snow to cover the
wheat when there is a big freeze and below zero wind chills, spring rains to grow the crop, and
nice sunny days with no wind to be able to spray the crop. You never know what kind of weather
you will get. Speculation of weather cycles and outlooks are great guesses but you never truly
know if the season will provide what you hope. In many cases the hope of crop abundance is
diminished with bad weather conditions.

Input and output prices are also a large factor of wheat production. Farmers have very
little control over prices of everything such as fertilizer, seed, chemicals, and fuel for machinery.
Equipment costs also continue to rise along with insurance costs. A farmer can comparison shop
for all of these goods but ultimately cannot control how much they cost. Prices for these goods
and the day to day operation costs continue to rise as the price of wheat continues to drop. This
makes it outrageously hard for farmers to make adequate income and continue to harvest the
crop that is so widely used. Its a constant cycle of gain and loss. Gain a little lose a lot, gain a lot
lose a lot and very rarely gain a lot lose a little. That’s what keeps farmers going, the couple
average years amongst the bad ones with occasionally a great year.

Outrageous laws in the agricultural industry are passed quiet often and farmers are
constantly working to override them and make for a more efficient and favorable outcome. One
law that was passed is HB 4002. HB 4002 requires agricultural employers to pay certain workers
for overtime hours worked. By way of illustration for the calendar year of 2023 and 2024
agricultural employees who worked more than fifty five hours in a work week are required to be
paid overtime by the employer. Most day to day operations are in the time span of twelve to
thirteen hours, six to seven days a week. The average amount of hours worked is well over the
amount of hours allowed before overtime pay is implemented. Employers are required to pay
1.5x the amount of the employees regular rate of pay. This law makes it very hard for farmers to
get the work that needs to be done finished on time without the additional pay they have to give
out to their employees.

As one can see the wheat farming industry contains many struggles. Each struggle
continues to make it hard on farmers to produce a crop that is widely used. Learning about the
struggles that wheat farmers face creates an understanding of why the mental health of farmers is
significantly stunted. I can only hope that these struggles become more far and few for the
farmers of America.

Our 2024 Oregon Wheat Scholarship awardees each submit an essay with their scholarship application. Learn more about the scholarship program at https://oregonwheatfoundation.org/scholarship-program/