Thank You for All your Support!!!

Well the results are in for the winners of the Faces of Farming & Ranching! And unfortunately being a finalist was as far as I got in the competition. The winners are Will Gilmer, Katie Pratt, Bo Stone & Chris Chinn! You can find out more about the announcement and follow along with the campaign by going to the Faces of Farming & Ranching website. Congratulations to you all!!

I wanted to take a quick moment and truly thank all of you for your support. It was funny going through this process, mainly because everyone I saw during this voting period would come up to me to say hi and instantly proceed with “I voted for you today!”, “Shoot I forgot to vote!”, or “I’ve been trying to vote every day, but sometimes I forget.” The last one is my favorite mainly because I’m just about one of the busiest people you will ever meet, so forgetting to vote for me a few days here and there is no huge confession my friends J

I do want to say though that I’ve been amazed at how much people love this whole idea. I agree that agriculture has needed for years now to come together, and in a way that truly bridges that urban rural gap that we feel so strongly when we are fighting for our rights to farm in this country. But it’s tough battle, and I come from a state where it’s even more difficult because we are so diversified in what we can grow, a blessing and a curse. Not all farmers grow the same crops, (our county alone grows over 200 different crops), we don’t all use the same practices to get our crop growing and to market, and we definitely don’t all use the same market. And while being from a diversified state for our farm is a great advantage, at times it can leave us with more issues as a state, because as the saying goes, “united we stand, divided we fall.”

This group of farmers will do great and I’m excited where this adventure takes them over the next year. I’m also excited to see how this bridge gets formed to link rural and urban life. At the same time I will still keep doing what I’m doing to share my story of ag and continue the conversation about how we grow food for the world. As I said in my application video, “I have already signed up to be a dedicated agent to tell the story of agriculture!” So thank you everyone for all your votes, tried to votes, and sometimes votes, but mostly thank you for thinking of me and supporting me as someone who you would be proud to represent you as the face of farming in Oregon. This is just the beginning, I’m here to farm in Oregon, I can’t move the land and the soil, so I will fight to make sure that I can stay here and farm, and this legacy that was started to many years ago continues on!

Author: Nuttygrass

I'm a nut and grass farmer, EMT, Firefighter, and world traveler. I love a good laugh and a great adventure! View all posts by Nuttygrass