32 CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Seed corn vs. feed corn

If you travel the Great Plains, you will see vast fields of corn, soybeans, wheat, and other crops—mile upon mile for hundreds of miles of food for the nation and the world. If you are lucky, you will see a seed corn farm—the place where the product is grown not for consumption, but to seed the next crop for production. Sometimes seed farms are labeled as such, but you can recognize corn seed farms by the crops if you are there in August, after the tassels are out: corn crops meant for seed are grown by alternating varieties, several rows at a time, and the tassels of one variety are gone (people are paid to “de-tassel” them as the tassels are emerging) so that only pollen from the other variety will pollinate its seeds, thus ensuring cross-fertilization and the hybrid seed that is desired. The visual result is stripes of corn field alternating between stripes with tassels (which stand taller and more delicately topped) and those without tassels (which are shorter and more bluntly topped)—the latter producing the only seed that will be harvested as seed corn.

In olden times, seed corn was often just a portion of the crop that was set aside to ensure there would be seeds to plant in the coming year. As such, seed corn filled a sacred role—it was a sacrifice made as a bridge to the future. I am sure that there were many times when famished farmers were tempted to dig into the seed corn to stave off hunger at winter’s end. But they resisted, understanding that they “would not reap where they did not sow” and that the grain for sowing was set apart from that for eating.

This same temptation is continually upon us even in the modern world, as our commitment to our future is constantly tested. The young adult must choose how much time and energy to commit to earning a living for today and how much to devote to the education that will open doors to opportunities for tomorrow. A philanthropist may have to choose between “giving a man a fish so he can eat for a day” and deciding to “teach a man to fish so he can eat for a lifetime.” A nation must choose between spending resources on current consumption and investing them on the infrastructure that will fuel future productivity. The world must choose between using natural resources for food and building and jobs right now, and preserving the planet for posterity. None of these choices requires sacrificing all of one for the other. But each requires a sacred commitment of hope for our future. Each of us must make individual “seed corn” investment decisions for our own lives. Some of us are called to commit more—sometimes nearly all—of ourselves to the future, as parents, teachers, clerics, and other servants. Sometimes the decisions are based on preference, but, as discussed in other chapters, they are often based on our gifts and “comparative advantages” (see the chapter on Economic Principles).

If we aren’t careful, it’s easy for the choice to be biased toward one direction—the here and now. Consumption of feed corn results in the immediate gratification of “Yum, this is good.” Service as feed corn, on the other hand, takes patience and perseverance and faith as you must wait for the passage of winter before you can be planted, wait for the time it takes to germinate and grow, and trust in the timely arrival of sun and rain. I hope that you always have the patience, the self-discipline, and the courage to preserve and honor the seed corn within and among you.

I end with a related story. There once was a type of hand well pump that used a leather diaphragm to provide the suction that brought the water out of the well. One of these pumps was on a well in the middle of the desert, the only source of water for many miles. Infrequently used, the leather diaphragm would dry out and need to be wetted to soften it so that it could fulfill its role. Next to the pump was a bottle, which held just enough water to wet the leather so that a thirsty traveler could bring water out of the well. The ethical challenge was that amount of water in the bottle was also just enough to get a traveler to the next well. The question is, if you came upon the well, knowing you would never pass that way again, would you risk emptying the bottle to wet the leather and preserve the resource for future travelers or would you drink it to ensure you would get to the next well, thereby imperiling those who came after you? It may seem an idle question, but it is not. And someday you will have to answer it.