Back from the Dead

It's been almost a year since I've dusted off the keyboard and typed up something that has been on my mind. To be blunt, I don't like sitting at the computer...I have no idea how professional writers do it. But I decided to buck up a little and stop whining...there is a lot happening on American farms and people need to hear it. So, once again, I'll charge up the paddles and try to start a pulse in my online self.

Clear!

I have been attempting to use Facebook and Twitter regularly to show followers what I do each day to produce beef. This method is a little easier for me because I can use my phone to communicate with the websites, cutting down on my dreaded computer time (although in my case even this method is a little rough around the edges - my phone is a fine flip model from about five years ago that cannot in any way be considered smart). Here is something I posted recently that has created a small amount of buzz:


'Think about all the people you see in a day. Your family, everyone you pass on your way to work, everyone at work, everyone you see walking down the sidewalk, your friends...EVERYONE. Imagine if tomorrow when you wake up you had to make all those people breakfast. Nothing fancy, just a couple eggs, some sausage, a cup of fruit and a glass of milk. That's a LOT of food, right?! Now imagine that you had to grow everything you served - cows for the milk, pigs for the sausage, chickens for the eggs, and plants for the fruit. How many animals would you need to supply that much product?? How many acres of crops to fill every individual cup of fruit?? Sounds impossible, right?

It's not.

This scenario is basically what every American farmer is faced with every day of the year...but we do it for 310 million people and we provide lunch and dinner too! How is it possible??

To start, we are well educated to be the best at what we do. We use technology to help us work at maximum efficiency to provide more food from fewer acres using fewer inputs. We work with the land, animals, and climate to specialize in crops and livestock that are suited to our growing conditions. We love what we do. And we do it so well that the consumers using our products don't even know what we do or how we do it, and they spend less on food than any other country in the word. Aren't modern farmers amazing?'

I hope that this gets people to think a little bit about how amazing modern food production actuall is and how much they benefit from America's farmers. Modern agriculture is in the crosshairs right now and we need the public to be on our side more than ever. You and everyone around you benefits from the productivity of today's farmers, and that is something we can all be thankful for.