Good Morning,
This is written for those who find truth in what authors like Michael Pollan or internet soap box occupants like the Food Babe have to say...
Sunday morning started with my face two inches from a cow's uterus for an hour and then some. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Anyone. We had a first calf heifer (a girl who'd never had a baby) who had a calf, and with the calf followed her uterus, as any time your innards are hanging out, its life threatening condition.
The fight for her life was both mentally and physically draining on us all. We were finally able to right the inside out parts by literally shoving them back where they belong and sewed her up. Her prognosis good, for now, and the calf is thriving, if you were wondering. It was a good day. Now the challenge is to keep both of them alive. A task easier said than done. And yes, antibiotics were given to both.
The whole time we were treating this now cow, a voice kept whispering to me, telling me, if only the Food Babe could see this, or Michael Pollan, or the general public for that matter. Maybe then they would have a higher regard for what I do, for what my family has done for generations...
Farming or ranching isn't glamorous. It never claimed to be. Somehow, when people packed up and pulled away from the farm, speeding toward the urban sprawl growing before them, they also disconnected from modern day agriculture. This Utopian dream of red barns, rolling hay fields, and johnny pop tractors, complete with milk cows in the barn and chickens scratching in the yard was embedded in the minds of generations removed from rural life.
In reality, modern day agriculture had to intensify while trying to feed the thankless mouths who moved on to city life. Which is okay. I've yet to meet someone in agriculture who works for the thanks. We don't do it for the money (which most times is feast or famine). We do it because we love it. It's in our blood. Bred into us for generations. We need the smell, the feel of dirt like a fish needs water.
Sensationalists like Michael Pollan and Food Babe have exploited these lost connections. They've used misinformation on the internet (if its on the internet it must be true mentality) as well as preached half truths and misguided facts from their self serving pulpits. And you listen. You believe. You buy into these doctrines so much, when farmers and ranchers speak out against them, you call us paid Monsanto or big pharma shrills instead of the true industry experts. But aren't we the ones actually tilling the soil and raising the animals, instead of writing books or selling speeches?
The truth is, people like Mr. Pollan, Ms. Babe and others bastardize generations worth of sustainability, stewardship and worst yet, heritage, in the name of capitalism every time they get up to speak or sell a book. They ignore years worth of technological advances allowing farmers to grow more with less. They forget to mention the U.S. cattleman is supplying the world with the same amount of beef in 2007 as in 1977 with 30% less animals and 33% less land. And they certainly leave out the fact the U.S. farmer feeds 155 people. Pretty amazing considering we only make up 2% of today's population. Of that two percent, 98% are family owned farms and ranches. These fear mongers have no skin in the game, they don't know what its like to hold a uterus 2 inches from your face, holding her life in your hands, while your husband and vet tirelessly try to right nature's wrong. They just criticize me for giving her meds after the fact while telling you I'm arbitrarily pumping my animals full of antibiotics.
This week is National Agriculture Week. This week I challenge you. I challenge you to seek out a farmer or rancher. Ask them why they do certain things. Heck, play 21 questions. Don't prematurely judge a practice before you find out why it is a practice to begin with. You might learn something new. Appreciate your food more. Challenge those who present information.
As you top your greek yogurt with fruit, eat your steak for supper, snuggle into your cotton sheets at night, think about what it took to get your food from a farm to your plate or the fiber from the plant to your closet or bed. Ask a farmer or a rancher, not an internet sensation for the simple fact at the end of the week, at the end of this decade and for certain at the end of the next millennial, we'll still be farmers and ranchers and last week's capitalist will be old news.
Thanks for listening,
LD
