4.2.58. Kansas Ag Day 2021

Sunrise tree, March 16, 2021

 

4. 2. 58.

• Today's U.S. consumer is 4 generations removed from the farm.
• Farmers and ranchers make up just 2 percent of the U.S. population.
• The average age of U.S. farmers/ranchers is 58.
  

Anyone who knows me realizes that numbers aren't my thing:

Give me words.

Give me photos.

Don't make me do math!

But on this Kansas Agriculture Day, it's a reality check to think about the numbers.

The governor of Colorado just asked people to NOT eat meat on March 20. Thankfully, there were some well-organized efforts that countered that message with the verve of the lady in the old Wendy's commercials. Beef producers were happy to answer the question, "Where's the beef" and encourage it to be on the family's dinner table - on March 20 and any other day.

The Rattlesnake Pasture, August 2020 - Randy and his ancestors have been caring for cattle in this pasture for more than 125 years.

 

Bill Gates was on "60 Minutes" this month, touting lab-grown meat as a solution to climate change. He and his wife, Melinda, are now the largest land owners in the U.S. His influence should be a concern for farmers and ranchers.

Like many others, I changed my Facebook profile photo to promote beef consumption, and, as usual, we did our part in consuming the product that we raise.

But back to those numbers: 4.2.58.

Several years ago, a friend shared an article about them from a farm publications. What better day to think about them than Kansas Ag Day 2021.

Those numbers mean the U.S. ag population is aging, shrinking and losing more and more influence with shoppers making food decisions for themselves and their families, according to Deanna Karmazin, an independent ag literacy and curriculum consultant from Lincoln, Nebraska. In her view, the numbers also mean farmers and ranchers need to make better connections with consumers who may not know much about where their food comes from but won’t let that lack of knowledge get in the way of forming strong opinions. 

Same goes for ad agencies, who repeatedly paint an inaccurate picture about agriculture's environmental impact or somehow believe farmers/ranchers don't care about their animals.

According to a survey conducted by the U.S. Farm and Ranch Coalition, 72 percent of today’s consumers know nothing or very little about farming or ranching. That makes sense, when you consider the "2" in the equation. Just 2 percent of the U.S. population has any direct connection to the farm. Still, 69 percent think about food production at least somewhat often, and 70 percent say their purchase decisions are affected by how food is raised.

Those consumers are concerned about their families’ health, the well-being of the environment, and the humane treatment of animals, Karmazin said. And they should be concerned about those things.

However, Karmazin characterizes many of those groups' messages as "anti-agriculture."

“The thing is, they have money,” she said, referring to groups like the Humane Society of the United States, PETA and others that raise millions of dollars to support their lobbying and public relations efforts.  

Of course those very same concerns are central to farm and ranch families, too. The environment and the animals we care for provide our very livelihood.

However, we go back to the equation and realize that consumers aren't necessarily receiving that message. They are 4 generations removed from any connection to a farm or ranch.

The influence of such groups and their messages can be seen much closer to home than one might imagine, Karmazin said. She told about picking up a copy of an elementary school newspaper in Lincoln and finding an article encouraging readers to eliminate all red meat from their diets. She also told about sponsoring a poster contest for children inviting them to imagine the problems for a world without farmers, only to receive entries indicating the world would be a better off without agriculture and its carbon footprint.

If such examples come as a shock in farm and ranch country, Karmazin said, then that’s why they need to be shared. 

She urges farmers and ranchers to put themselves out in front of people, whether physically or through social media, to let them know farmers are real people with families of their own who are not in business to poison the planet or put anyone’s health in jeopardy.

“Talk English, not farmer,” she said. 

I've tried to carry that mission into my blog posts.  

I was a farm daughter first. 

And I've been a farm partner for 40 years. On March 28, we'll celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Both of us have been living and working on a family farm our entire lives. (And, just FYI, we both help raise the average farmer's age of 58 in the equation.) 

March 28, 1981

And even though I'm a fifth-generation farmer and a long-time farm partner, I have found that writing about what we're doing has made me pay attention and understand why we do what we do in a new way. 

It's part of why I started a blog in 2010 - and have kept at it since that time. 

It's our story - not the story of a humane society ... or a restaurant wanting to sell burritos ... or an ad agency in a downtown office. 

Kansas Ag Day is not a holiday on the farm or ranch. Today our veterinarian, Dr. Bruce, will be here to test our herd's bulls. On Wednesday and Thursday, we plan to work and vaccinate two groups of baby calves.

 It will be a working "holiday."

 

Happy Ag Day! If you have a question for this farm family, please ask. You can comment via this blog, interact with me on Facebook through Kim Moore Fritzemeier or email me at rkjbfarms@gmail.com. 

Ag Day 2019: Working Together

Today is Ag Day 2019. It's a day set aside to celebrate agriculture's role in American life.

Most of my blog posts tell about our efforts on The County Line to provide food, fuel and fiber for American families and consumers throughout the world. As I've said before, it's Ag Day every day around here.

Of course, we believe agriculture is important. We wouldn't be the fifth generation of farmers in our respective families if we didn't believe in agriculture.

As our society moves away from its agrarian roots, fewer people seem to recognize the value. Sadly, one of the members of a Facebook Farmers Wives group posted this message on Tuesday:

People never cease to amaze me! I was told today that we didn't need farmers!! So I am guessing that person doesn't need to eat either.

As organizers of Ag Day say:

We know that food and fiber doesn't just arrive at the grocery or clothing store or magically appear on the dinner table or in our closet. There's an entire industry dedicated to providing plentiful and safe food for consumption.

• Each American farmer feeds about 165 people. Agriculture is America's No. 1 export.
• New technology means farmers are more environmentally friendly than ever before. 

As the Ag Week hashtags and Facebook posts have been showing up on my social media feed this week, I've been thinking more about the importance of rural communities - actually being a community.

This week, a community matriarch and business owner in our small town died after a long illness. One of her grandsons posted a thank you for the expressions of sympathy given to their family - everything from cards to prayers to meals.

And, on the other end of the spectrum, two of our community's veterinarians had their first baby. He lived only two hours. A Meal Train is filling up quickly, and a fund to help them pay for medical and funeral expenses has already exceeded the original goal.

Helping out a neighbor is second nature to rural communities. It's demonstrated over and over and over again. Those are just two of latest examples. It wouldn't take me long to come up with a dozen.

 

For more than 100 years, each of our families has had pasture lands as part of our farming operations.We are caretakers for other pastures that have had a similar legacy in our landlords' families.

For grazing to be abundant, a pasture requires several different species of grass - from big bluestem to little bluestem to Indian grass to brome to Forbes (just to name a few).

These grasses all have different heights. Some mature early; others later. Those different species end up working together to keep the soil in place, reduce erosion and provide nourishment for grazing animals.

It's like that in a community, too. We're all different. We all have different abilities and interests and God-given talents. But it's that "hanging together" that makes a healthy environment.

 

That symbiosis is demonstrated day after day, week after week, year after year in a rural community: It may be helping an ailing neighbor harvest a crop. It might be baking a pan of cheesy potatoes for a funeral dinner. It could be working at the Food Bank. It might be serving on a church or community board.

That's not to say that rural life is idyllic. It can be just as stressful as that job in the downtown skyscraper - and probably not as profitable most years. Challenges come - no matter your address. As I've written this the past two days, the wind has been howling with 50-mile-per-hour-plus gusts, and we've had another 1.10 of rain we don't need. Believe me, there are challenges.

But those trials can strengthen us and our resolve, too. It's kind of like a Flint Hills pasture in the spring. It won't be long before "smoke signals" will drift into the Kansas skies from controlled burns on Kansas pasture lands, especially in the Flint Hills.

We think of fire as a destructive thing, and it certainly can be. But it can also be a vehicle of rebirth. One spring, I stopped at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve south of Council Grove - a detour as I came home from a convention. I could see the remnants of a prairie fire in the charred grasses and scorched branches.
But from the charred earth was green regrowth and vibrant prairie flowers lifting toward a vibrant blue sky.
It seems counter intuitive. Why would fire - which seems such a destructive force - bring this new life?
Yet as ranchers light fires to clear the dead grass and small brush, it makes way for a new carpet of green just weeks later.
And the cycle of life begins again. The Flint Hills are part of the tallgrass prairie, which stretches from Canada to Texas. Ranchers have a saying: Take care of the grass and it will take care of you. Burning pastures has been part of caring for the prairie even back to the days of the Indians. It's an age-old partnership with cattle, birds, wildflowers and the grasslands.

The same can be said of our rural communities. There are challenges and tragedies and things we must overcome.

But figuring out how to survive those things and come out on the other side stronger together is the true mark of community. And, in my experience, the ag community does that as well - or better - than any.

Happy Ag Day!