Bauer Built Celebrates March 15, National Agriculture Day
Save for those who make a living hauling loads on a diesel, driving a tractor, or operating a round baler, chances are most haven’t had much occasion to hear about Bauer Built. Bauer Built provides maintenance and tire/treading services for commercial and agricultural vehicles: The trucks, tractors, and trailers that deliver the vast bounty of products grown on American farms. We make it our business to keep the great wheelbarrow of American agriculture running smooth. And our mission grows from our deeply rooted appreciation for the essential role of agriculture in America and is celebrated annually in the month of March with many Farmer’s Appreciation programs.
Nature’s Nation:
Often too close to notice, it can be all too easy to overlook the pervasive impact of agriculture on our daily lives. Each night into each morning, you sleep and dream in sheets and blankets of cotton. You wake to the ringing of an alarm clock; you grab your toothbrush, or maybe a disposable razor, and already your day has begun with a series of products very likely composed of plastics derived from corn or soybeans. You make your way to the closet, and draw clothes from a wardrobe almost wholly comprised of cotton and wool. Breakfast-time and you grab a carton of milk, or some orange juice. You pour a box of cereal, crack some eggs, and butter your toast. You go to the door, and put on a wool coat, grab a leather case or bag. You go out to your car; you turn the ignition, greeted by the low, soft rumble of an engine powered by ethanol fuel, and you’re off to work. Lunchtime, and you have a salad, or a burger stacked with lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese. You come home, and dinner is a steak, green peas, baked potato, and maybe some ice cream or even a slice of apple pie for desert. Later, it’s back to the cotton sheets and blanket… Once again, you settle down from a day and into a night almost fully comprised of products grown on American farms.
American Democracy: Harvested on American Farms
Pervasive as it is, the impact of American farming does not end with the country’s reliance on agricultural products. It’s not enough to say that America lives on the harvest of American farms. Agriculture’s influence lies still deeper in the American grain.
It’s no coincidence that the author of The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was also a Virginia farmer. For Jefferson, the ideals of American democracy applied to more than the country’s system of government. Beyond politics, American democracy was for Jefferson a way of life guided by deep commitment to the values of freedom, independence, and equality. Jefferson openly credited his vision of democracy to his life as a farmer. Jefferson considered the American farmer more than a symbolic “every-man” of democratic citizenship. Rather, Jefferson believed the actual work of farming cultivated the values essential to American life. Instead of dependence on factory wages, farmers lived and supported themselves on the products of their own labor. Since a farmer’s success depends on the ability to raise and manage crops, farmers answer only to themselves and the land they work on; they do not live under the rule of others who hold no attachment to the land that feeds them. Farming, for Jefferson also requires sound reason and judgment, the ability to organize the wild stuff of nature to its full productive potential. And, for Jefferson, farming instills deep appreciation for the value and beauty of nature, appreciation that leads to the careful use and tending of land. If America lives on the products of agriculture, America also lives by values ingrained in agricultural life.
The Jeffersonian ideals of freedom, independence, and democracy continue to embody the founding ideals of American life. Of course, Jefferson knew that not all Americans could take on careers as farmers. He dedicated much of his career to “growing” and expanding the values of the American farm into the broader scope of American life.
National Agricultural Day
Bauer Built’s deep appreciation for American agriculture drives our year-round commitment to meeting the maintenance and tire/treading servicing needs for vehicles across America’s agricultural farm belt. This commitment to American farms makes March 15, National Agricultural Day, a particularly important day at Bauer Built. We don’t wait for July 4th and Thanksgiving. National Agriculture Day celebrates American farms, and to celebrate American farms is to celebrate the very cultivation of democratic values in the grain of American life.
Categories: Bauer Built Blog, News
