Editorial

By The Capital Press

Denny Evans knows a lot about change. Seven years ago, the Chelan, Wash., apple grower became a victim of it.

His banker called his loan and his market dried up as apple packinghouses, facing competition from all directions, were forced to grow bigger and squeeze prices lower.

As price takers and with a mountain of debt hanging over them, many small-orchard owners like Evans were at the end of the economic line. The ground had shifted under their farms, and change had taken away their livelihoods.

Evans' son, Guy, documented the plight of his father and other apple growers in the film "Broken Limbs." It chronicled the many changes that had taken place in the apple industry. Once stable and profitable, the industry had been swept into the global marketplace. Facing low-cost overseas competitors and a domestic retail industry that itself was in the throes of change, the U.S. apple industry had to change or die.

Seven years later, the Evans family has embraced change. Far from being overtaken by events that they couldn't control, they have set their own course of developing direct markets and branching into growing grapes and making wine. To take advantage of the gorgeous views overlooking Lake Chelan, the family is even considering developing residential lots alongside its farming operation.

Capital Press reporter Dan Wheat last week wrote about all that has happened with the Evans family during the past seven years. What he found was heartening, a true-life story of a New American Farmer.

The term, coined by University of Missouri Professor Emeritus John Ikerd, describes farms that are ecologically sound, economically viable and socially responsible.

And a farmer who is willing to change.

Farmers should not feel as though they are alone in change. Every industry, from automobile manufacturing to newspaper publishing, is caught in a storm of change. Competition, consumer attitudes and any number of other factors have created change at a dizzying pace.

Along the way, many of those businesses that have not changed have died. The ones that have embraced change and looked for new ways to do business are surviving, and some are even thriving.

As is the case with all businesses, change is the only constant in agriculture. Farmers and ranchers need to find new ways to grow and market food and fiber. Sometimes those "new" ways more resemble older ways, and that works, too, as long as there's a market for the crop or product.

Any farm that has been in business for 100 years or longer has changed and changed again. No farmer or rancher is doing exactly the same things the same way as they were done a century before -- or even 10 years before.

The key for farmers is to identify their customers and meet their needs and expectations.

In that sense, the New American Farmers are a lot like the many generations of farmers who came before them.

Old or new, they embrace change and make it work for them.