Category: Country Life

A few Facts & off to the Capital again…

Since I’ve started to follow the US Farmer and Rancher Alliance, I have been learning so much about how to tell my ag story, why it’s important and some key ways to go about doing this most effectively. So while I was back in New York and attended one of their events, I wanted to share a few facts that really stuck out to me that go along these lines.

  1. 25% of Americans have questions about their food.
  2. 49% of consumers think that agriculture is on the wrong track.
  3. 75% of consumers like farmers, but 42% of them don’t like how we farm.
  4. 95% of farms are family owned and operated in the United States.

All of these facts point to us as farmers to start to restore relevancy, and to do that the USFRA says we need to start using trust and transparency. I have an idea what that might look like for a company like Monsanto, and I have an idea of what that might look like for a farm or ranch that is trying to keep things in the closet about what they are doing. But for me, transparency and trust is something that I hope this blog tends to address. I am proud of what we are doing our here, and how we are treating the land. And it’s something that I want to continue.

It goes beyond a blog however so I say all of this while in the back of my head rolling around is the testimony that I will give later today at the Oregon capital all about protecting our farmland. I’m off to Salem again, this time it isn’t GMO’s or pesticides or our right to farm. This time it’s a four land highway, a toll road no less, that is threatening to come right through the heart of our beautiful farmland that we have here. Class one and two soils, that I feel we need to protect. And because of all the facts above, I know that I need to be out there, and let people know how we are growing their food and that we are making the most of the great wonderful soil that we are so lucky to have and cherish. If you’re around come listen to Senate Bill 2696 this afternoon at 3pm, it might be interesting to see farmers get up and tell legislatures why this is so important to stop!!

National FFA Week!

It’s National FFA week right now, so I would like to share a bit about what FFA is all about, and what it meant and still means for me today…

396362_335600149816030_8373019_nThank you “Keeping it Real: From the Lens of a Farmgirl” for your tribute this week to FFA!

This is the start of the FFA creed.  A creed that for many of us FFA Alumni, will forever ring in our ears the moment someone says, “I believe in the Future of Agriculture…”  As freshman coming into FFA, it was I’m pretty sure the first competition that we had.  How can you take the creed, memorize it, and then repeat it for judges in a way that truly makes them believe in what you’re saying.  As a freshman in High School, I was probably more worried about my hair do or outfits than the future of agriculture.  But now, after coming back to the farm, seeing how threatened our industry is, I feel that the FFA creed has so much meaning!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with FFA (yes it USED to be called the Future Farmers of America, but now just goes by the three simple letters.) it is an organization that was founded in 1928.  It’s goal was to bring together students, teachers and those involved in agriculture to ensure that agricultural education would not be left behind.  It all began with 33 young farm boys, today millions of students have donned the blue corduroy jackets that many of us fondly remember.

2013-02-21_14-46-21_800One of the MANY times we wore those blue & gold corduroy jackets!

In a small town like St. Paul, where 75% of the students grew up on farms and worked on them all summer, something like FFA was a great fit.  We learned practical farming skills, like welding and tractor driving, although the shop skills section wasn’t my strong suit.  I actually managed to weld my piece of metal to the welding table during a shop skills competition…oops!  We also received a lot of leadership training (skills that I still call on today to use while in leadership roles).  And made a lot of friends from across the state, even across the country.

2013-02-21_14-45-10_807National FFA Convention in Louisville Kentucky

Being a member of FFA during high school (like I said I wasn’t too worried about farming back then) wasn’t just about how to farm or drive a tractor.  It was about learning to speak in public, taking responsibility, learning sales techniques, guiding people to get something accomplished, how to think on your feet.  So much of what we did as FFA students wasn’t about farming at all, it’s about life and being successful in any industry!

2013-02-21_13-46-39_885Senior Year, our St. Paul High School FFA Officer Team

I’ll leave you with one of my most memorable moments from FFA.  It was my sophomore year and I decided to raise a pig for the county fair!  Now for all of you livestock farmers and ranchers out there, in my own defense, I grew up on a CROP farm!  I pretty intensely underestimated not only the work that was going to go into this pig, but also how smart the darn thing was.  When I got to fair I was off hanging out with friends, probably the main reason I wanted to take a pig to fair anyway if I was to be honest.  When all the sudden I see a pig running up and down the aisles at full tilt!!  This thing was going nuts, with about 10 FFA students running behind trying to get a hold of the thing before it lost control out on the sidewalk.  We laughed and watched as the pink animal took laps around the show pen, snorting and squealing.  I was very thankful my good little piggy was back in her pen, probably sleeping the hot day away.

It was an hour later when I returned to my pig’s pen to check on her for the night before going home.  There she was, laying down but looking a bit pooped out, almost as if she had been running up and down the aisles all afternoon perhaps?  Well if the 3 peices of wire through her gate latch wasn’t a clue, then maybe the duct tape that was wrapped around the 3 wire chunks would have given it away.  But the real obvious sign that this little piggy was causing trouble all afternoon was the FFA advisor standing just a few feet away, arms crossed, saying, “So this is YOUR pig!”  So it turns out pigs can open simple pen latches, nope they don’t even need opposable thumbs to do such a crazy thing, that’s just how smart they are!  To this daughter of a crop farmer it was a tough and embarrassing lesson!  But those are just the crazy random things that FFA can teach a kid, pigs are brilliant and being responsible is a big job!

Happy FFA Week!

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On the 8th Day…God Made a Farmer

Watching the intense Super Bowl game yesterday was one thing, but seeing the commercial from Dodge using Paul Harvey’s speech “Farmer” was a definite highlight.  I’m a sentimental person by nature, and watching this commercial with his famous words capturing all that my family has lived for in the past, and what I hope to carry on in my own legacy; it truly made me stop in my tracks and take note.

Although so many who are generations from the farm may not understand what this all means, and how much truth there is in these words, please take note that we “farmers” are still out there.  And it’s still true…

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So God made a farmer.

Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life “doing what dad does.” So God made a farmer.

If you missed it, here it is!

Here is the full version, also very good!

Thank you Dodge for your tribute to all the farmers who work hard everyday!! I’m still a Ford girl at heart, but you may have gained a few points in my book yesterday!