Author: Armstrong Williams

(NNPA) — t is clear that it when it comes to jumpstarting the economy, generating jobs and wealth for the average American, we are in quite a fix. After coming out of the Great Recession, the economy is experiencing anemic growth rate of around one percent, and labor force participation is at a thirty-year low. The problem is proving to be somewhat intractable, despite efforts by centralized government to goose the economic engine through financial manipulation.

The economic challenges facing average Americans cannot be solved by big government or big business. It is really about time that we look to the past for some solutions. One of the things we should take a hard look at is returning to the land. Around the turn of the 20th century, almost half of United States workers were directly involved in the agricultural sector – whether in terms of growing food or organic materials for textile manufacturing. As late as 1930, farming constituted about 7.7 percent of the U.S. GDP.

Today, less than 2 percent of American workers are engaged in agriculture. But more importantly, during the heyday of American farming, from 1900-1915, the majority of farm-produced products were consumed on the farm or by the local communities they served – with exportable commodities such as cotton and tobacco playing a supplemental role. Today, large farming operations control huge tracts of farmland that are almost exclusively dedicated to producing off-farm income. And American farming has become inextricably integrated into global commerce.

While farming has become less labor intensive and more mechanized and specialized it has lost some of the more robust features that made it the backbone of the American economy. Notably, American famers around the turn of the century grew at least five different commodity crops on average. Today’s mega-farms produce one major crop on average, and agriculture contributes less than one percent of GDP. Farming as a viable profession is dying out with the average age of an American farmer of 65. And it is becoming a far more extractive industry, returning less than 16 percent of revenue from farm operations to the farmer.

What does this all mean for the average American worker and the U.S. economy in general? First, it means that the core skills needed in farming have become virtually non-existent. Not only are farms largely mechanized, what farming labor remains is largely staffed by foreign workers — including millions of illegal immigrants from south of the U.S. border.

As someone who grew up on a family-owned farm in Marion, South Carolina and saw the wealth building benefits our farm brought to our community, I understand the critical importance of farming as a community-based enterprise. First was the real importance of work ethic and skilled labor. People in our community took pride in being skilled laborers – whether it was shoeing the horses, taking care of the livestock, or planting or harvesting – farm laborers developed specialized skills that made them valuable members of the entire community.

The community-supported agriculture model extended to include obviously local markets for a variety of crops – fruits and vegetables, preserves, and meat products. Farming as we knew it did involve some cash crops — we grew and sold tobacco, for example, — but we were far from a specialized farming operation. Farming created jobs, instilled youth with a work ethic, and tied people to land, family and community. This is a model that Europe has been careful to protect, no matter what the winds of globalization have blown their way. European countries understand the relationship between small-scale farming and national identity in ways that America — which industrialized much sooner in its nation’s history, can comprehend.

Our kinship with the land we inhabit is diminishing. Today’s school children are far more likely to recognize brand labels than common native plants. And yet our continued economic growth will require almost 70 percent more food production by 2050. This is a major overlooked opportunity for today’s workers. Farming is in need of just as many innovations as other industries – disruptive innovations in crop quality, soil quality, yield and distribution. There are medical breakthroughs ready to be discovered in the observation of plants.

Congress should really consider including provisions in the Farm Bill that provide incentives for young people to enter into farming. We should also allow guest workers from other countries to come to the U.S. to grow the labor pool and help transmit valuable lost skills to American farm workers. These investments must be made with a focus on innovation and sustainability. We do not need more large farming operations. We as a nation really have no choice, but to return to a community model of farming.

The reasons for this much-needed shift in emphasis are clear. First, we are going to have a greater need for food in the future, and this cannot be secured with large cash crop operations. Second, focusing on soil yields and innovations in farming that will improve quality require that more people enter the field, not less. Increasing the labor intensity of farming may seem to be less efficient up front than highly mechanized processes. But on the back end it could yield major technological breakthroughs that will help us meet our future needs.

Read Armstrong Williams, author of the brand new book Reawakening Virtues, content on RightSideWire.com and Come join the discussion live at 6-8 p.m. and 4-6 a.m. est. on Sirius/XM UrbanView 126 , Become a fan on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter.

(NNPA) — Time is one of those magical dimensions of the human experience. At certain instances it seems like there is not enough of it. And at others, it seems like the moment lasts forever. The intellectual and emotional experience in the passage of time is one of those unique aspects about being human that sets us as a species apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Since were are blessed with that perception we should engage it and contemplate ways in which to make time an ally in our quest for personal and societal growth.

One of the interesting things for me, looking back over the past decade or so, is how quickly our business has grown. And yet, as I look back, it seems that a lot has remained the same. I still get up at the same time almost every morning. I rise well before the sun, usually starting off my day at around 4:30 in the morning with a prayer and call to my folks in South Carolina. I then arrive at the gym just before five a.m., and work out for about an hour before arriving at my office at precisely 7 o’clock. The end of my day is similarly bounded. It is exceedingly rare that I get in bed any later than 9 p.m.

And so as I look back on my work life, it is apparent that while our business has expanded and we have been able to manage an increasingly complex organization, we aren’t necessarily spending more time doing it. Time has gone from being our enemy in the early stages of running a company, to being our friend today. Why is that?

In some respects, it comes down to how we conceive of ourselves in the marketplace. If you consider yourself an employee, you are looking at time as a finite resource. You expect to arrive at work on time, to leave on time, and be paid on time. You essentially are tying your income to a fixed, linear relationship with time. But entrepreneurs view time much, much differently. For one thing, the entrepreneur’s perception of time is not linear, it is pivotal. For example, as an entrepreneur I am willing to spend a lot of my time not directly earning income. I spend it building relationships with key allies and future business associates. I give time to worthy causes and public issues that I support. And yet I see these activities as worthy investments of time because of the potentially outsized payoffs in the future. Two hours on the tennis court or having dinner with a key ally could potentially lead to opportunities to make millions in the future.

This is admittedly a difficult concept for many people with the employee mindset to grasp, let alone put into practice. The reason for that is that the entrepreneurial mindset exposes us to uncertainty. There is no guideline or formula or time-table that dictates when an idea or a relationship will bear fruit. That can be frightening to some people. But my entrepreneurial mindset is guided by a deep faith and belief in the laws of creation. I know for a fact that if you sow, you shall reap. I believe that in life there are definite seasons, and that the pattern is inexorable. The spring precedes the summer, which precedes the fall and the winter. In the spring one plants, and in the fall one harvests. In the winter, one relies for sustenance upon the storehouse of goods harvested in the fall that grew from the seeds planted in the spring.

It is somewhat counterintuitive to tell someone with an employee mindset to save some of their seeds and use them to plant a new crop. They are accustomed to having their needs taken care of by their employer. But we are experiencing a new economy in this country where jobs no longer offer either the degree of certainty of the financial rewards they once did. No longer can one rely on working the same job for one’s whole career. People need to become more entrepreneurial these days to survive. But what they don’t often realize is that doing so requires using mental and psychological tools that may be unfamiliar to them.

One of the major tools, to which we have already alluded, is the relationship with time. But another psychological skill is managing customers and clients. In a situation in which one is an employee, one essentially has only one customer or client. And the relationship with that customer is not generally subject to change – for better or for worse. But when you are an entrepreneur and the world is potentially your customer, you have to pay extra close attention to the creation and exchange of value.

Getting paid as an entrepreneur requires an extreme degree of concentration and emotional strength. You are not getting an automatic payment sent to your account on regular intervals. No, an entrepreneur often has to confront his client to make sure the payment is received. Doing this effectively requires both boldness and tact. It is not for the faint of heart. But the trade off is that if you are successful in managing this client-oriented relationship, you are in the driver’s seat in terms of how much you can earn from your time and effort. This is why entrepreneurs are willing to sacrifice the certainty and security of working for someone for the uncertain and potentially infinitely rewarding job of charting their own course.

Armstrong Williams is the manager/sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and Executive Editor of American CurrentSee online Magazine. Watch our Right Side Forum every Saturday Live Newschannel 8 TV 28 in DC, 10:30 am – 11:00 am and repeats 6:30 pm EST. Follow Armstrong Williams on Twitter @arightside.