WHO IS THAT EXECUTIVE IN OVERALLS? What is a farmer Farmers are found in the fields --plowing up, seeding down, rotating from, planting to, fertilizing with, spraying for and harvesting of. Wives help them, little boys follow them, salesmen detain them, meals wait for them, weather can delay them, but nothing can stop them. A farmer is a paradox. He is an overalled executive with his office in his home. He is a scientist who uses fertilizer attachments, a purchasing agent in a strawhat, a personnel director with grease under his fingernails, a dietician with a passion for fresh fruit and vegetables, a production expert faced with a surplus, and a manager battling a price-cost squeeze. He manages more capital than most of the businessmen in town. He likes sunshine, good food, dinner at noon, auctions, his neighbors, his shirt collar unbuttoned and above all, an above average annual rainfall. He is not much for droughts, ditches, freeways, weeds, the eight hour day, dusty roads, developement, insects, freezing weather, or helping around the house. Nobody else gets so much satisfaction out of modern plumbing, good weather, automatic furnaces, electric blankets, and homemade ice cream. Nobody else has in his pickets at one time, a three-bladed knife, a checkbook, a pair of pliers, and a combination memo book and general farm guide. A farmer is both Faith and Fatalist. He must have faith to meet challenges of his capacities amid the everpresent possibility that an act of God [a late spring, an early frost, flood, drought, ] can bring his business to a sudden halt. You can reduce his acreage but you can't diminish his optimism. Might as well put up with him. He is your friend, your competitor, your customer, your source of food and fiber. He is your countryman--a denim dressed, business, business-wise statesman of stature, And when he comes in at noon, having spent the energy of his hopes and dreams, he can be recharged anew with the magic words. "Dinner's on the table waitin' on you".