Farming is a profession and a business based on carefully thought-out investments, labor, markets and production. It is an investment and there should be a return on investment.

Profits are needed to sustain the business and the lifestyle. There are chance elements in this profession that make it riskier than most businesses, weather and markets being the chief examples. Good managers work hard at minimizing risks in order to ensure a profit.

Persistence and long-term effort are also rewarded. There are good years and bad years. Farming is not a short-term enterprise; people expect to tighten the belt and make it through downturns and disasters.

Technology is monitored and upgraded to remain competitive. High capital investments in land and equipment are required. Use of borrowed capital is one of the costs of doing business.

Few other professions have their investments and labor as dependent on outside forces. Because of these variables outside the control of the farmer, the profession has elements of gambling: borrowing, paying back, emotion, big wins and big losses, uncertain outcomes.

Emotion is good, but can be seductive. The source of motivation to farm and pay the price of success is tied in with lifestyle and personal identity. Family farming is a way of life that is cherished. There is a pride factor in family heritage.

Land and life on the land are dreams of past generations handed over to the present stewards of the land. Too much of who a farmer is and how he feels about himself is connected with what he does. He may feel that it isn’t just the farm or the lifestyle on the line, but his very being.

For some farmers, farming turns into gambling. Some farmers become compulsive gamblers and share some of the same characteristics of gamblers who have lost control. They don’t know how to walk away, stop their losses and to preserve what assets they have left.

They keep in the game until someone makes them stop. They can justify what they are doing as persistence and tenacity, the valued rural formula for success. Here is how you can tell if a farmer crosses the line and becomes a gambler instead of a farmer:

A gambler’s calculations of profitability depend on wildly optimistic market projections and production estimates to project his income. These estimates are made with magical, private assumptions that ignore facts, recent history and current trends. Knowledgeable peers would find the projections to be more wishful thinking than realistic numbers.

A gambler’s projections of success are based on a set of ideal conditions outside his control. If the odds are against him and there is little of practical value the farmer can do through his own effort and management to affect the outcome, then chance becomes the crucial factor. Farmers tend to overestimate the value of long hours and hard work in overcoming high debt and high interest rates.

A gambler uses up his equity to stay in farming, borrows progressively higher and higher amounts, sells off property, rationalizes his values and sells mortgaged property, fails to pay taxes and engages in morally questionable or illegal strategies to chase his losses, in order to heal his problems.

A gambler puts everything back into his operation after a good year. He doesn’t reduce his debts. He rewards himself with new equipment, expansion projects and is careless or extravagant with his good fortune. He is now betting on two good years in a row.

A gambler is preoccupied with big-picture events such as market cycles, world conditions, weather catastrophes and other uncontrollable factors to give him his edge. He doesn’t put as much weight on his own direct management inputs and marketing strategies that are under his control.

A gambler feels his luck has been so bad that it has to change. “There can’t be three drought years in a row.” “Prices have to go up.” His assumptions are based on sheer hope.

A gambler plows available family resources back into the farm at the expense of his family’s welfare. He ignores the emotional needs of his wife and children and cuts corners when it comes to non-farm expenses. The survivability of the farm takes precedence over the well-being of his family.

A gambler jumps at ideas, tips, management strategies or new lines of production that are highly experimental. He becomes more and more impulsive in major decisions that revamp his operation and implements high-risk ideas.
A gambler be-comes depressed, restless, angry, exhausted, worried, preoccupied and has difficulties with sleep, appetite and concentration. Marital conflict is common.

His self-esteem is threatened. He escapes into long work hours and takes chances when fatigued.

 A gambler refuses to deal with financial details, denies problems, avoids considering alternatives and maintains a naively optimistic view that things will work out.

A gambler has no view of himself other than being a farmer. He has few hobbies, interests and no other dreams other than farming. He hasn’t experienced any other “action” that makes him feel so alive and so good.
A gambler can’t stop until it is all gone.

More than a few ex-farmers know the addictive nature of this profession and how they have run their lives into the ground. They half-seriously suggested there ought to be an Agriholics Anonymous.

Dr. Val Farmer is a clinical psychologist specializing in family business consultation and mediation with farm families. He lives in Wildwood, Mo., and may be contacted through his website at www.valfarmer.com

Farmer’s book Honey, I Shrunk the Farm can be purchased by sending a check or money order for $7.50 to: “Honey, I Shrunk the Farm,” The Preston Connection, P.O. Box 1135, Orem UT 84059.