Farmers Hate Daylight Saving Time and Me Too

By Dian Vujovich

The pitch I’d always heard about daylight saving time was that it was a move that somehow helped out farmers. Now I’m all for farmers and growing up in Minnesota knew a few of them.

Having had that experience, I know farmers are morning people. They’re up way before the crack of dawn because they’ve got work that needs to be done daily and early. One would think that the early morning daylight we all begin to enjoy in late February and early March is a treat for them. Particularly since all the farmers I’ve met were early-to-bed folks too.

Turns out, according to Rachel Maddow, farmers hate daylight saving time for that very reason—-it doesn’t serve them or their profession. Turns out too, however, that the benefits of the spring-ahead hour are financial ones just not farmer-financial ones. The added hour of sunlight allows people to do all sorts of things like go out more, drive, shop and do any variety of spend-money things in the late afternoon and evening.

All this twice a year time change does for me is knock me out of whack for two out of 12 months. That means for one-sixth of my yearly time I’m more discombobulated than ever. So while the move is good for merchants, it screws my timing up and we all know how important timing is.

If I ruled the world, we’d have one time and stick with it year-in and year-out. Period.

Two BTWs: First, in 2009, we sprung ahead on March 9th, or about a week earlier than we’re doing this year. (That’s a good trivia question and could win you a bundle if you’re a betting person—which every investor basically is.) Next year, 2011, it will be March 11th.

The second BTW, it’s not “daylight savings time” as so many of us refer to it as but rather “daylight saving time” or DST.

For more DST info check out the chart at: http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/b2.html.

Happy late afternoon and evening shopping!