Thoughts from the Combine
The Pissed Off Farmer spent the week operating a big John Deere combine, harvesting soybeans.
Doing this gives you plenty of time to come up with endless random thoughts that have little or nothing to do with farming. I’ll share a few.
First of all, you have to marvel at these incredible machines. They can cut a swath nearly as wide as a basketball court, separate the seeds from the plant, and spread the straw in a near-perfect pattern.
Then the thought occurred to me: what would I do with these soybeans if there were no market for them? Soybeans are probably one of the few crops that need to be processed in order to be used. Corn, wheat, oats, etc., could be fed to livestock as is if need be, but not soybeans. That thought gave me a new appreciation for the processors and the technology that make soybeans a great rotational crop.
That leads me to this final thought: we as farmers are nearing the end of just growing a commodity and hopefully doing it profitably.
With gene editing, gene modification, gene splicing, elite genetics, etc., all turbocharged with artificial intelligence, we will be raising crops that possess attributes to fill a specific market. This possibility is not far off. Contract growing!
This could lead to a very significant value-added opportunity for rural America, or massive economic leakage.
Summary: Be prepared!
From the Field | October 2026
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