Damion Mason

I recently received something from Susan Allen, a very important part of our team here at the Ag information network of the West. It was a speech by farm and business motivational speaker,Damion Mason. Here's what it said. "A couple years ago the "Occupy Movement" camped out and played bongo drums protesting Wall Street's "Wealthy 1%" Their gripes were the sort of emotionally charged, rich-versus-poor stuff the media loves. Think of a a bearded pot smoker demanding someone pay off his student loans because nobody values his degree in Egyptian Art Studies.

I see a different 1% under attack, and it's equally absurd. I'm talking about farmers.

Yes, farmers are just 1% of the U.S. population and that's being generous. Of the USA's 320 million people, there are 3.2 million farmers operating 2.1 million farms. 57% of those farms had less than $10,000 in agricultural sales in 2012, the most recent year for data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service.