Agriculture products are some of the only products in America that do not have a set price tag on them. The farmer relies on the consumer for fair and decent prices. If the consumer does not want their product, they have no business or income. Even with this idea of not knowing what your income is going to be every year, there is still optimism in the minds and hearts of the farmers. Agricultural producers are people that truly love what they do for a living. They are given the opportunity to produce products for the three essential parts of life….food, clothing and shelter.

I was at our State Farm Bureau Convention this past weekend and enjoyed spending time with other young farmers and ranchers from across our state. The optimism for the future amazed me. These young producers were very excited about the future of their operations and agriculture in general. It certainly revitalized my optimism for agriculture! With the passing of this Thanksgiving holiday I hope that you make sure to thank a farmer for the items that you ate!

As we sit down to our holiday meals with family and friends this joyous season, let's take a moment to give thanks for our food and think about where it truly comes from and who produces it.

Consider the following facts…

Today less than 1% of the U.S. population works in agriculture and only one-in-six Americans live in rural areas.

The Average American Farmer feeds about 155 people, http://www.fb.org/index.php?fuseaction=yourag.facts.

Cattle grazing more than doubles the U.S. land area that can be used to raise food.

America’s farmers and ranchers are proud of the role they play in raising food for our tables. Join me in giving thanks for the wholesome, affordable food supply raised in our country.

Visit http://tinyurl.com/thankfarmer to post your note of thanks!!!

Be sure to share this message with your friends and family!

I used to wonder if there were really people out there that thought this way. This article was posted in a San Francisco newspaper and just this portion was sent to me in an email:

"To all you hunters that kill animals for food, shame on you; you ought to go to the store and buy the meat that was made there, where no animals were harmed."

It's amazing to me how quickly people forget about the food chain and the fact that animals exist to be a part of it. We still have a lot of educating ahead of us!

I was moving cattle the other day and my wife came with the truck and trailer to pick me up. She shared a quote with me from one of the weekly ag papers that we receive.

It said "Environmentalists are standing in the way of feeding humanity through their opposition to biotechnology, from chemicals, and nitrogen fertilizer... The fact is, we need both productivity and sustainability - and there is no reason we can't have both." This is a quote by Bill Gates at the World Food Prize Symposium in Iowa.

I thought this was a pretty valid quote. I got to thinking though, why is Bill Gates talking Agriculture? So I fired up the handy old computer and Googled the World Food Prize Symposium. To my surprise Bill and Melinda Gates have a foundation to increase farm production worldwide, particularly in Africa and South Asia. I was amazed at what this foundation is involved with. I didn't even know it existed.

It is worth checking out while surfing the internet to see what is happening around the world. It was an eye opener! You can even watch Bill's speech if you have about 20 minutes of spare time during this harvest and prepare for winter season!

How do you explain to someone who has never left the city what a grain bin is? I have never contemplated this question until today.

I received a phone call this morning from a truck driver who had a delivery for our family feed mill. He needed directions and was hoping I could help him. I quickly realized this gentleman was directionally challenged as he had no idea which way was East or West, North or South. He was in the wrong town and had missed the road leading to our town. After what seemed like hours, I finally got him on the right highway coming towards our mill. I told him to turn right at the two big grain bins that sat next to the highway. He said, “What’s that?” I told him it was a large round circle that was silver, that it held corn and beans. He said, “I have no idea what you mean.” I then told him it was a round building that was silver and had a point on the top like a cone. He said, “I have no clue what you are talking about.” So I tried a different approach, I told him to look for the elevator. To this he replied, “What do you mean? I hate driving in small towns.”

By this time I was trying not to laugh. I knew this gentleman had never been to rural America before. In his mind I was speaking a foreign language. I was running out of ideas of how to explain what a grain bin looked like over the phone. I finally told him to call me when he went past the junction of two roads and I would talk him the rest of the way to the mill. He did call me, and when he saw the mill, he said, “I have no clue what I am looking at, it looks weird. These don’t look like no buildings I’ve seen before.” When he came inside the mill, I quietly told him he was looking at a grain elevator, or a feed mill, and that the large silver structures were called grain bins. He said, “this is weird. I can’t wait to get home.”

My experience today reminded me that the majority of our society has no idea what a grain bin looks like, much less what it is used for. This was a shining example of why agriculture needs to engage with our consumers on a daily basis. The next time this truck driver is told to turn at a grain bin, he will know what a grain bin looks like and what it is used for.

As for me, I am working on a better way to describe what a grain bin looks like!

When considering the Christmas Season this year, consider the purchase of a "real" Christmas Tree for your home or office. Did you know that more than 95% of Christmas Trees are recycled? Millions are grown each year employing near 100,000 people connected to near 20,000 farms. This is exciting stuff. The season is coming quickly and the purchase of a real tree is just one reminder of the many ways we can support farmers.

In this time of crisis many farmer’s livelihoods are on the line. Everyday farmers are turning on the lights in their barns knowing that they may not be able pay their electric bill. The question of selling the farm pervades dinner conversations, and families are being ripped apart by the stress and anxiety that only seems to mount. Lending institutions are cutting off lines of credit as I write this blog, and some farm families, ironically, are looking into social programs as a means of putting food on their tables. Unfortunately, other farmers have had to make the hard decision to exit the dairy business all together.

It is within this context that dairy farmers are coming together to brainstorm ideas for how we should go about resolving the current dairy crisis. As you can imagine emotion tends to bleed into the conversation and discussion becomes heated at times. However, one thing that everyone seems to agree upon is that something needs to be done.

Over the last several months I have attended several local meetings in order to educate myself more on the challenges and opportunities that exist in this time of uncertainty. Many ideas were presented by dairy farmers and a lot of “how to’s” were discussed. Some farmers offered the suggestion that mandatory supply management was the way to go, as long as the government didn't intervene. Others thought that the market would rebound on it’s own and we should stay the course and see what happens. Still others thought we should revert back to some of the more traditional ways of managing dairy herds.

Other ideas were also presented including a tiered pricing system that would allow a dairy farmer to get a certain price for a predetermined quantity of milk. Once a threshold was met, the dairy farmer would get a lesser amount for any additional milk that they produced. Another interesting idea was that all farmers participating in the government MILC program should be required to sign up for Cooperatives Working Together (CWT). Yet other ideas focused on raising quality standards, reducing imports from other countries, adapting Canada’s quota system, and culling the national dairy herd.

In a recent U.S. Dairy Outlook Brief by Cameron Thraen (State Specialist of Dairy Markets and Policy at The Ohio State University) shrinking the size of the U.S. dairy herd by another 100 to 140 thousand animals seems to be a logical step to getting the dairy sector back on track. One of the biggest reasons for Thraen’s recommendation is because much of our export markets have dried up due to the larger, global economic crisis. People in other countries no longer have the disposable income to purchase milk and milk products from the United States, and as a result there is no outlet for the extra supply from our 9,126 million milk cows.

If interested, click on this link to read more.

I’m not sure if Thraen’s recommendation is the silver bullet to solving the problem, however, it is data that is needed for making the best decision for how to move forward. Right now however the dairy industry is kind of like two freight train engines that have collided on the track. One train is the status quo to keep milk production high. While the other train is the complicated milk pricing system. Until the mess is cleaned up, prices will continue to be volatile and milk production will seemingly follow its same trajectory as small farms become collateral damage and big farms look for more opportunities to grow.

Although I’m not an expert on the dairy industry, nor a dairy farmer, I am concerned about the implications of losing so many of our family farms across our nation. I’m also concerned about the quality of milk and milk products that are being imported from other countries, which often times have less regulations and minimal environmental standards. I’m concerned for our rural communities and the businesses that rely on the success of our farms. As more farms disappear from the countryside, we have less ability to produce food for our country, and ultimately less freedom as we become more dependent on other nations.

I recently received my WWII magazine in the mail. I enjoy reading the articles and skimming through the pages. This month there was an article about Thanksgiving during WWII. It spoke of the rationing and the supplies that were unavailable for purchase to make the perfect Thanksgiving dinner. Some folks had chicken instead of turkey and recipes had to be set aside with the restrictions on meat, butter, and sugar. Betty Crocker said, “At the end of the day, let us be sure we can say I worked for freedom today. I served at least one food from each of the basic seven food groups. I prepared the food I served with care. I wasted no food this day.” These people strived to serve well balanced, nutritious meals with the burdens that were placed on them by war.

Today in America, we are blessed to have full shelves in the grocery store; we can go in and buy just about anything our heart desires. As a cattle rancher, that makes me very happy. I wake up each morning excited to produce beef for our great nation. I am very proud of my family’s 93 year operation and the great heritage that has been passed through the generations. Just as my great grandfather did, we continue to care for the land and the livestock. The daily feeding, caring, and checking of the cattle comes first in all the management decisions we make here on the ranch. As a fourth generation rancher, I am very concerned about the misinformation that is being spread by radical, agenda driven organizations.

With the daily articles, news segments, and attacks from opinion movies, I am saddened that our industry is constantly under attack. It's unimaginable to think that there is an agenda that truly wants to take my product and all meat products off the shelves. These activists are not just twisting the truth; they are targeting the meat industry with outright malicious and blatant lies in their effort to ultimately make this a meat free society.

Everywhere we turn, we see yet another attack against meat. A recent Larry King show questioned the safety of beef and attempted to scare consumers with guests that advocated a vegan diet. Then, Tony Gonzalez of the Atlanta Falcons, has been promoting his new book, “The All Pro Diet”, where he eats a diet low in animal proteins and high in plant foods. And recently PETA had a Halloween ploy, portraying Ronald McDonald as the evil animal abuser in an attempt to scare children away from eating meat. What is happening to the well balanced diet?

As we start to plan our Thanksgiving meal this year, let's remember those WWII families that didn't have all the food choices available to them. Let's be sure that our menus contain items from all the food groups and be thankful for our freedom to choose. We must have the freedom to serve well balanced meals to our families.

I’m currently working on an application for an Ag Promotion Grant from the Minnesota Farm Bureau Foundation. Our county Farm Bureau would like to host our 2nd Breakfast on the Farm in June 2010. We held our first in June 2008.

What started as early morning ramblings in our milking parlor in the fall of 2007, morphed into a perfect opportunity for us to “tell our story” by June 2008.

One of our goals was to communicate the economic value of animal agriculture. With that in mind, I asked for volunteer and monetary support from the business connections we had. I was pleasantly surprised by their reaction, it was usually “when is it?” or “how can I help?”. They were asked to attend wearing their work uniform, we wanted the public to see the people employed by animal agriculture. Our nutritionist, DHIA fieldman, and 2 AI company representatives lead the farm tours. The wife of our DHIA fieldman was the perfect person to run the information table. Our veterinarian wanted to set-up his own booth, and had video of the ultrasound we use to pregnancy check the cows. A local lamb and wool producer asked if she could set-up a booth.

Not only did the local agri-businesses volunteer, but we had the local 4-H clubs keeping the tables clean, and they set-up a petting zoo. The local FFA chapters ran our state’s Farm Bureau Safety Trailer. Our county Dairy Ambassadors made an appearance also. I originally asked them to be on hand to serve milk and cheese; they called me back and asked if they could also do some activities for the kids – wonderful! Our local Sheriff’s Reserve was on hand to assist with parking. We had other people who volunteered to do a shift serving the food. The list could go on and on.

On the big day, we had about 400 people attend. Due to the efforts of our many volunteers, it truly turned into a family event. I remember a lady made a point of coming up to me during the breakfast to thank me, she made a point of telling me that she brought her 2 grandkids from the metro area with her, this was the first time they had been on a farm. After talking with people who had lead tours, and other members of our farm, we had a lot of conversations that day that “told our story”.

Over a year later, I still have people that I have never met before ask me when we are having another Breakfast on the Farm (the last time was in the post office parking lot). We are hoping to add more to it this time by having a scheduled time that we can talk about our farm, the care we give our cows, and what we do to protect the environment. It is my hope that we can reach even more people this time, and “tell our story”.

In the October 25, 2009 issue of Hoard’s Dairyman, an article entitled “Every Dairy Must be a Shining Example” by Kirk Sattazahn caught my eye. As I read the article, I thought about how it applied to our dairy operation.

One quotation in particular made me sit up and take notice “Having a well-managed, sanitary dairy with well cared for animals is no longer the way to get ahead in the industry; it is the ticket that allows you to be in the industry.”

Wow, the more I thought about that, the more I realized how much truth there is to that concept. As an industry, we are starting to come under intense focus by the consumer, and groups who do not want us in business.

Like with anything else in agriculture we are only as strong as our weakest link. Every dairy, no matter its size, has its place. However, there can be no room for the dairies that do not have acceptable animal husbandry and environmental practices.

I believe this concept not only applies to dairy, but to all aspects of agriculture. What can you do to improve your farm or ranch best management practices? This is a question I constantly ask myself, especially after a new anti-agriculture video or article is released.

We need to unite to give consumers a clear message and tell them our stories. One of the strengths of the activist groups is their strong, clear, emotional message. We need to tell our story! We need to unite our voices, and do the same thing.

Last week I had the opportunity to see some of New York’s finest battle it out in front of the judges. Young Farmers from across the state came together for the state semi finals of the Discussion Meet to see who would surface as this year’s top four finalists. For those not familiar with the Young Farmer and Rancher contests, this is a great way for our members to show off their speaking skills, and test their knowledge of pressing issues that affect the agricultural industry.

As I watched the contestants go head to head, I was impressed by the professionalism and confidence that each participant brought to the table. However, some were more prepared and better trained to face their opponents and block any jabs that came in their direction. Others, unfortunately, found themselves up against the ropes and struggling to find the right words to keep the discussion moving forward.

After the first round, the contestants went to their corners to strategize how they could go the distance. They knew they would have to stay on their toes and be ready to stick and move when the timing was right. Contestants anticipated the moves of their opponents and the discussion moved swiftly. Topics such as immigration reform, food safety, environmental regulations, and the public’s perception of American agriculture all made their way to the table.

By the final round of verbal sparring everyone was mentally exhausted. In some cases the 15 minute bell couldn’t come soon enough. Those who weren’t as prepared didn’t even know what hit them, but fortunately no one ended up throwing in the towel. Meanwhile the more experienced and seasoned contestants looked onward with the hopes of taking home the purse.

After going to the scorecards the judges came to a majority decision on the four finalists that would journey to the state finals this December in Rochester, NY.

This is obviously an exciting time as hundreds of young farmers and ranchers across the nation are preparing to participate in this year’s state leadership competitions including the Discussion Meet, Excellence in Agriculture Award and the Achievement Award. Congratulations to all those who are advancing to the next round, and thank you to those who were brave enough to step into the ring.

I recently read the following tweet on Twitter, “It makes me sad when farmers attack other farmers because of different production methods. Come on people we are in this together!!!” I couldn’t agree more. There is room for all sizes and types of agriculture. Production methods may vary, but all farmers have the same goal and that is producing the best product they can.

This afternoon I purchased some corn fed beef at the grocery story. Why? Because my family raises corn-fed beef. Despite my preferences, there are other folks out there who may prefer grass-fed beef. I have many friends who raise grass-fed beef, and I’m glad that there are folks out there who want to buy their product. So it is truly sad when one kind of farming attacks the other. I realize we are all trying to promote the products we grow; however, there are positive ways to do that without attacking the other’s production methods.

With the world’s population expected to exceed 8 billion by the year 2025 all types, sizes, and production methods of agriculture will be necessary. To face the challenges that lie ahead we must stand untied, for as the saying goes, “United we stand, divided we fall.”