Being an agvocate can be timely and somewhat challenging. Sometimes when your sharing your opinions on why farmers matter and why consumers should care, you get backlash that you weren’t expecting making for some challenging responses that you have to craft. And in order to stay on top of what is happening in the “ag news world,” you must always be constantly searching, finding, reading, and replying to stories on agriculture that need your attention which can be timely and consuming.
But after all the time you put in and challenges you overcome to get your opinion and point across, it all makes it worthwhile once the good word has spread and has hopefully resonated with at least one person.
Take for example, a recent Letter to the Editor that my family and I found in the April 2011 Better Farming magazine. Better Farming is an Ontarioagricultural-focused magazine published every month. Inside the first few pages of the April issue, was a letter which got my family pretty wound up. We had to remember though, that the writer of this letter, was a Grade 10 student from a school deep within the city limits ofTorontoand the surrounding area- Mississauga. The student was quick to point out “that farming has become too much of a business… is all about getting the job done the quickest and cheapest way rather than doing it the right way.” He also thought that animals are being treated “horrendously through unspeakably barbaric practices.” He talked about antibotics, pesticides and hormones and said farmers “are not nurtering and feeding the animals in the healthy way they are supposed to be.”
Now as a farm family who cares for their cows in the utmost conditions 24-7, my family and I were disappointed (but not surprised) that a child in the city thinks this about all farmers. Perhaps this student had one bad experience or more than likely, saw a television show or read an article from an American source that put farmers all under the same spotlight.
So, I got my laptop out, and started typing furiously away. And what was the end result? A well-written Letter to the Editor which I sent in that I was told, is going to be published in one of their upcoming issues. My only hopes, if no one else reads my Letter to the Editor, is that the student who wrote the inital Letter to the Editor, now reads my letter. In my letter, I offered for the student, and his class, to come visit my family’s dairy farm to see the TLC we provide for our cows each and every day, in the most humane way possible.
Here is an exert from my Letter to the Editor response:
If Jeff visited one of the many farms across Canada, he would quickly come to realize that farming is not all about “getting the job done the quickest and cheapest way,” rather, farmers put their blood, sweat, and tears into their everyday, 24/7 job. 98% of all farms in Canada are family owned and operated so as much as Jeff believes that our farming industry has become “big business,” I hope he realizes that behind each high-quality, safely grown product that he eats, there is the face of a family standing behind that product 100%.
I would certainly be willing to visit Jeff and his classmates to properly educate them on the TRUTHS of agriculture inCanadaif they would have me visit. In fact, if Jeff and his classmates wanted to make the trek toHastings, my family and I would certainly love to host his class for the day to show them how much hard work, time and passion we put into caring for our animals on our family dairy farm.
For all you agvocates out there, keep up the awesome work of spreading the good word! Even if your letters, blog posts, comments, Facebook updates or Tweets reaches only one person, that is one more person who knows about the good word of Agriculture!!!!!
