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| Looking for ideas (well, really, looking at the lady on the porch with a camera) |
I started writing the Farm Side, part time, in 1998. Alan was 8, the girls 10 and 12. We were dairy farming with our whole hearts and all our hands and deeply involved in the ag community....fingers on the pulse, so to speak. We served on coop boards and the school board, and the Farm Bureau board and coached youth ag activities and drove kids to Dairy Promotion events and then drove them home again after.
Now the kids are all grown, (although we are still close). Instead of barns full of cows and calves and heifers, there is one with poultry, sheep, a pig, and some bunnies, a few ponies and such, but the business end of the business is mostly about putting up a few thousand bales of hay to pay the taxes.
Although I keep in contact with the world of farming via the Internet, perhaps those same fingers spend too much time on the camera shutter button and not enough in agricultural pies (especially not cow pies thank goodness.)
Thus I would like to ask of those of you who are still active in the livestock and cropping end of it....what issues are on your radar now? In the forefront? Keeping you awake at night and stopping you from sleeping that extra ten minutes in the morning?
I have written about just about everything you could imagine from the origin of corn to a floating dairy in the Netherlands. In recent weeks there have been the birds of summer, women in ag, and June is Dairy Month.
Now, I would love it if you would share an idea or two, an opinion, something that makes you happy or cranky or passionate and proud. All I need is a starting point.
Deadline is Wednesday noon.
Thanks in advance!
I am not nor have I ever been a farmer or rancher. I work in the chemical industry and am often surprised by the very vocal misconceptions that people voice about chemicals. It's as though anything that's a chemical is bad and should be banned and everything that's organic is good and fully embraced, no exceptions. I find the whole GMO debate amusing. People have selectively chosen plants and livestock for thousands of years to get certain characteristics, often traits that have naturally mutated. But let a scientist step in and create a characteristic and there must be something dangerous about eating that plant or animal. Not all scientists are evil and not all NGOs are altruistic. As with everything in life, it isn't all black and white. Somewhere, there's a middle ground where science and NGOs can meet and agree and explain things so that the average person can make an informed decision.
ReplyDeleteAnon, I surely hope you are right about that middle ground. I have been very frustrated by the GMO business and by organic vs. conventional. Good and bad on both sides, as you say. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI really admire you for, not only keeping this blog going for years but, writing a column for that long. The biggest thing we're concerned about here is how far away most of the population has gotten away from understanding where their food comes from. Government is made up of this sort that want everything controlled in such a way that it's becoming almost impossible to farm and ranch....legally😕
ReplyDeleteLinda, I love doing it.....which is why I can keep on. Alas, I rarely have much to say, but I do enjoy saying it. lol I absolutely agree with you on the disconnect btw. It is scary and I really don't think that we are going to be able to fix it. We are so outnumbered and such a tempting target.
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