by "farmers" Mr. Rogers means people like himself who bought ton of land and lets other people farm it.
I've got one word for you, just one....Mushrooms! The corn/soy rotation is destroying the health and soil of America. Not to mention making the US fat. The Ogallala is being depleted faster then oil and the soil layer is eroding at a record pace. Talk to a pre 1980/1970's farmer and one now. Much different style. Farms used to have everything, corn, apple tree, beans, hogs, etc... It kept the soil and water in balance. Now is just corn/soy. Dump water, pesticides, and fertilizer and it will grow. Dont worry about the blue baby alerts, thats down stream.
Haha - my first thought was "so true"... next thought was "not!" However, in "farmimg" profits appreciation of the property (land) plays a very significant role. Shortie, you are not so far off. I am tempted to think Mr Rogers is quite forthcoming with his statement. So, by "farmers" he means people who own a farm and he implies "bankers" are people who own a significant share of a bank, not just work for one.
As an example, setting up a pig factory operation has a relatively high cost of entry and extremely low margins on the final product. Setting up a free range pig operation, on the other hand, is much, much cheaper and the product sells for much higher margins. Swap scale for quality, and the financial barriers to entry go down. The first organic farmer I personally knew was in former Yugoslavia - he bailed on the sprayers and chemicals and etc because he figured out that the cost of "manufacturing" food didn't outweigh the improved yields and commodity pricing. This was a guy who would happily spray DDT on his grandmother if thought it would help, so there was certainly nothing touchy-feely about his conversion.
My cousin got the bright idea, and he and 3 of his neighbors set up a big hog corporation. He bragged that from birth to death the hogs feet never touch the ground. It was a big operation and I mean it was high tech. But when the price of hogs went down the corporation went broke and he almost lost the farm which has been in the family since the 19th century. Meanwhile, I just saw on TV, there's a boy out in Virginia that has been smoking premium hams now for two generations. He says he can sell all he can smoke and always needs more producers. Some farm as far west as Illinoise (hopefully they have a good oil hedge on.) But the smoker requires his farmers to practice good animal husbandry. Like this one farmer, they raise Berkshire hogs and he slops them down by the house, but he leaves a gate open with 5 acres of woods up on a hill where they can go whenever they want and eat whatever they can find. Out here it would be acorns, i don't know what they eat in VA. They also feed them peanuts. at anyrate, because they're doing it right, costs are already cut, and customers demand exceeds their supplyl