Frank Vetter, a farmer in his 60s, put it this way:

"Farming has never been easy. It's always been very, very tough but in the earlier days farmers were willing to be poor. Farmers used to be able to make a living because they were willing to go without the luxuries and nowadays people are not willing to go without the luxuries. I mean, nowadays they have to have everything. You know, they go hunting in the fall, they go skiing in the winter and they take trips. And they have the biggest TV available and carpets wall to wall in the house and they have central air conditioning in the house and they have everything that anybody else has. I think that they should stop complaining. If they can't make it on the farm they should quit the farm and go to town and get a job. Go to the West Coast or whatever they have to do."