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The biggest weakness our small farmers have in the business world is that they are the little players sitting at the poker table with a lousy hand, and nobody has their back.

First, you have to understand that farming is a business. Farmers make stuff grow, sell it, and pay their bills. Oh, and I almost forgot. They love what they do because it’s part of the American dream.

The dream is about to become a faded memory for some, to be recalled with anguish.

A revolution is coming that will further destroy the individualism of farming by making their failure part of the “salvation.”

What does that feel like? My metaphoric view is that it’s like taking one of the dozens of masterpiece quilts my mother made over the years and ripping it into tiny pieces with a boxcutter. You can’t mend the destruction of a masterpiece.

The rending has been happening for years as the mega-rich gobble up land to add to their massive ag business portfolio or corporations turn the land into affordable homes for the already affluent.

It’s just that now the downward spiral will be sped up.

Tariffs, and worse, are coming. This will further restrict the arteries feeding the hearts of small farmers while making the billionaires even wealthier. It’s like them walking into a glassware shop with a running chainsaw and clogging down the aisles. Bad things are going to happen, but not to the rich.

The whistling-past-the-graveyard sound you will hear will be coming from the deniers who believe that farmers have always been a bunch of complainers and crybabies. The whistling will only subside when they realize what they have lost. Then, of course, it will be too late.

Some of the head-in-the-sand consumers in our area buy hay to feed their animals. The day is coming when the small farmer who has been supplying them will say, “You know what? I’m done with this business. It’s not worth it.” And just like that, they drop out of the supply chain, and your hay costs go up.

Naive consumers that they are, they will think there will always be someone to sell them hay. And they are right. Just not at the price they have been paying.

Hay farmers, even those who think tariffs and ridding the country of cheap labor is the right wagon to be on, will be hit hard by the rising costs of equipment, fuel and repairs. They are nearly totally dependent on the fertilizer and machinery that is imported.

Farmers who grow food for sale in our area will not go unharmed. Their plans to add machinery that is a key building block for their future ability to produce milk, apples, vegetables or honey will soon be out of reach.

What’s happening now is similar to the game of building blocks called Jenga. You know, the one where you remove one building block and add it to the top of the tower without making the whole bunch collapse into a heap.

And who do you think is going to wind up at the bottom of the heap?

Larry McDermott is a local retired farmer/journalist. Reach him at hardscrabblehollow@gmail.com