Caution Full Speed Rant Ahead

I was grumpy yesterday, I admit it. One of my favorite cows is doing very poorly and will probably not make it. The heifer I have been hand caring for, carrying all her food and water from the house and barn and trailers for over a week, had a dead heifer calf yesterday morning. She is still far from out of the woods herself.


These are things we must take in stride, if you have animals you will lose some. Just as pets die so do farm animals. It hurts, but there is little to be done but soldier on.


However, as I was dragging the eighth pair of buckets of water up from the house, I thought about how all of us farm folks are supposed to somehow teach non-farm folks about what we do, why we do it that way, and explain to them why activists groups and food companies like Chipotle are not necessarily giving them all the information, or the right information, about modern farming methods. 


Oftentimes agenda-driven organizations are downright lying to them, but with their glitzy horror videos and sad-eyed pets, and even cartoons, they are very convincing.


But according to far too many arm chair experts, we farmers must somehow counteract their million-dollar ad campaigns with words of our own. 


No matter how frustrated we are made by the falsehoods we hear and the attacks that are made on us, we must be civil and non-confrontational. Every magazine editor, website and organization has some reason why, when farmers do attempt to follow through with ag promotion, they are doing it wrong, not doing it enough, or somehow are entirely to blame for what is going on in the anti-farming culture that dominates the media. They completely ignore the fact that every beef and dairy farmer already pays, before they see a penny from milk or beef checks, for promotion of their products by people who are trained for the job. They forget that every farmer who works at promotion, the good folks who write silly songs, put up Youtube videos and talk to folks in the grocery story have demanding day jobs that require time and effort.


And as I toted water, and toted hay, and fielded men looking for ropes..... in the house (the only ropes in the house are for the dogs) I got downright irritated at those editors and such. 


The original reason I started this blog was to do all that stuff about putting a face on agriculture. I am not sure that ever happened, but it has turned out to be an incredible amount of fun, I love the people I have met...sometimes you are the only thing that keeps me sane.....and sometimes, just a few times, I may have even made a tiny difference in how someone from the other side of the sidewalk views farming.


However the day will never come when what I say here or in the Farm Side will outweigh  what people see on slick TV ads or on billboards in Albany. Those campaigns are waged by trained professionals with deep pockets behind them.


I think making an effort should count. I think there are a lot of pretty darned cool farmers working hard on Twitter, Facebook, and just about everywhere they can, taking time that they could surely use for their day jobs, to moonlight in ag promotion. I think certain industry spokes folks should cut them a little bit of slack.


Rant over, thank you.