Today I recieved an email regarding the pork industries efforts to tell our story, more importantly the correct story!

These three videos feature experts answering consumer questions on animal-care issues. The Pork Checkoff’s You Tube channel can be found at http://www.youtube.com/PorkCheckoff.

Each of the videos can be found at:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR6v49miz_Q
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEsGjjdHEsk
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y7LiKlDZXw

The Checkoff needs your help in spreading the message about these You Tube videos. Please take a few minutes and watch the videos. Each video is less than three minutes long. Then pass them along to your friends, colleagues and contacts. The more people who view these videos and rate them, the higher the videos will appear in the search results. This can be very helpful in telling our story effectively.

Saturday, May 10th is the date for the National Association of Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. Earlier this week I received a plastic bag in my mailbox describing the program and stating that I should put my non-perishable donations in a bag by my mailbox and my letter carrier would deliver it to a local food bank. America's Second Harvest is a partner in this food drive. As part of the Harvest for All program, Farm Bureau Young Farmers have partnered with America's Second Harvest over the past several years to help stop hunger in the United States. It is important to support our local food banks with our time, donations, and money throughout the year, but please take time to help your letter carrier Stamp Out Hunger tomorrow, May 10th.

As some of you know, my mother-in-law, Debi, and I have a retail meat business, The Pork Shoppe, where we sell pork products direct from the farm to consumers. We mostly market our meat via farmer's markets, farm pick-up, and delivery. We also have meat available at a retail location and a few restaurants feature our pork products. The Pork Shoppe was the brain child of my MBA program's final project. I studied the demand for locally raised livestock and products directly marketed from the farm. The Pork Shoppe was my way to contribute back to the farm since there isn't room for me to be solely employed by the farm at this point. The Pork Shoppe allows us to do some niche marketing with only a few of the hogs our family farm markets each year and more importantly it allows us the opportunity to educate our urban neighbors.

Debi and I have never hid the fact that our hogs are raised in confinement. When consumers ask questions about our pork, we are proud to tell them the truth which includes the facts that we take better care of our pigs than we probably do ourselves, that we only use antibiotics when neeeded, and that our pigs are raised in climate control buildings, which is a necessity in Indiana where it does get very cold during the winters and very hot and humid during the summers. Once we get the chance to explain our story and that we take care of the pigs ourselves, most people are completely ok with our hogs being raised in confinement. We are one of the unique vendors at the market as most of the other vendors are organic vendors or "all natural". This has never been a problem or an issue with the other vendors until this past weekend.

One of the beef vendors, who I would have referred to as a friend at the market, asked me if I had ever seen The Meatrix. Of course I had, but I just let him talk to see his angle. He was very excited about the Meatrix and had contacted them and told them about our farmers market and how it was full of family farms. Those behind The Meatrix, the GRACE factory farm project, sent him magnets of all of the Meatrix characters along with several different brochures about the "dangers" of factory farming and sustainable agriculture. My fellow vendor thought that I would be excited to share this information with my customers. He also thought that we should show the 3 different Meatrix spoofs at the market's visitor booth. Having seen the 3 spoofs, I knew for multiple reasons that I did not want these spoofs shown at the market. For no other reason, they are very graphic for the children that visit our market and do not depict the truth.

I took this as an opportunity to point out to my fellow vendor that those behind the Meatrix were opposed to how we raised our hogs on our family farm since our hogs were raised in confinement. He tried to say that they were only against factory farms, but I asked him what was a factory farm. He really couldn't answer. He was very nice and had never thought about the fact that the Meatrix would depict how we raise hogs in an untruthful way, but I was appalled. I never thought that I would have to defend my family farm to a fellow vendor or consumer. I understand if consumers don't want to buy my pork because it isn't what they want, but to have a fellow vendor promoting the Meatrix and how it defends sustainable agriculture was something I never thought I would do. I also never thought that I would have to defend agriculture at an agricultural event. Sustainable agriculture... interesting concept to me. Do people really think that we can feed this country let alone the world if we don't feed animals in confinement? I think what we do on our family farm is sustainable agriculture.

I realize like with everything that there are a few bad actors in the confined feeding world; however, there are many family farms just like ours that take the best possible care of their animals and the environment. Getting this message out to the masses is only going to get harder and harder which means we can't give up. Telling our story is the best thing we can do to promote agriculture and more specifically our family farms.

This past week we vaccinated, tagged and sorted cattle and took them to pasture. Sounds like work doesn't it. Well, for me it was vacation, or at least that is what my full-time employer thinks since this past week was classified as vacation leave. Working cattle on the weekend, planting corn after work or feeding calves before work hardly seem relaxing but that is the reality most of us are facing.

I am one of the many young farmers or ranchers in Farm Bureau who have full-time off-farm jobs to finance their full-time on-farm dream. Some kids grow up wanting to be baseball players or astronauts but all I have ever wanted to do is ranch. However, the reality is that I need a full-time job to provide for my family, so I am forced to get my "ranching fix" after work hours.

I would guess I am not alone. In fact, I would bet that I am in the majority of young farmers and ranchers. Most of us have to have a town job to provide necessities such as medical and dental insurance. What does that mean for Farm Bureau?

We are a segment of the ag population that needs to be included and encouraged to participate in Farm Bureau. As the number of ag producers dwindles we need to be more inclusive to those who are involved in production ag on a part-time basis.

Around the first of April my sister-in-law called one evening to ask if I would be willing to come to her elementary school and be the Farmer for career day. I said when? She said April 28th and then paused because she knew that would be a very busy day on the farm if the sun was shining. I talked it over with Dad and we agreed sunshine or not, this would be a good opportunity to talk to kids about agriculture. Sure enough, April 28th came, and it was a beautiful spring day; the corn planter got to sit idle while I spent from 9:30 to 3:00 talking to 400 kindergarten through 2nd graders about corn, soybeans, wheat, cabbage and pigs. I showed them a picture show of what we do on the farm during the different seasons. Then they each got a handful of corn and soybeans to play with while we talked about some of the uses for the crops, and then they got to take some home (in their pockets :)!! to plant in the garden or flower pots to be like a farmer. Overall, I think it was a success. The kids had fun and asked some good questions. It was disappointing that I only met 3 farm kids the whole day in a Preble County school. I still got some corn planted that day because the day didn't end until sometime on the 29th.

We had our annual Farm Field Day in our area on Friday. We live in Central Utah, Juab County, and each year our county Farm Bureau invites the 4th grade students to come onto a farm and learn. We had about 150 students and they were able to go to a dairy, and then come to a farm where we had stations.

We had these stations: Equipment (a John Deere dealer came with different equipment), Sheep (we had a producer come with a couple of lambs), Fruit (we had a producer come with apples for them to learn and taste), Safety (our State Farm Bureau Safety guy came to talk about 4 wheeler safety), Grains and Seeds (our Extension Agent came and talked about different grains, and then we had whole wheat bread for them to eat), and a Wheat Craft (where they took and put wheat with wet cotton balls in a bag to watch germinate in a couple of days).

We have our local FFA chapter send some of the members to come help. Afterwards we eat lunch with the FFA kids and all the presenters.

It always goes over well. The 4th graders seem to enjoy the field trip. I hope that they learn something while they are there! It is one of my favorite things to do with Farm Bureau.

Taste what happens when fruits and vegetables mature to vine-ripened perfection. Taste what happens when they are picked within hours of being in the field. Fresh strawberries are delivered to my families roadside market several times daily straight from the field. Roadside markets provide fresh from the field produce and reinforce the direct link between farmers and community. The strawberries, the sweet corn, or the jam bought at the roadside market help renew the relationship between the consumer and the farmer.
So make it a habit to visit local farmer's markets often, and taste the freshness. Enjoy watching the seasons come and go. Savor the flavors of each season...