Educating the Public

I feel as though it is very important for farmers and youth involved with agriculture to educate people on what they do to produce the products for the consumers. Being in 4-H for almost 10 years I was able to experience this first hand, at the local fairs and especially at the Big E in West Springfield, MA. The best way to educated the public is just answer their questions respectfully and truthful. I know it is sometimes hard to not laugh at the questions such as "Is it pregnant?" when referring to your beef STEER, but people do not know the difference between a steer, heifer, cow and bull. How else are they going to know the difference if they don't ask you, the expert. If it bothers you that people don't know the difference between factory farms and family farms tell them. Such as factory farms are there to produce mass amounts of a product, as fast and efficient as possible. Then there is your family farm which makes up 98% of the farms in America, where the whole family is involved in the farming process. For example in my family my mom does all of the bookwork (for now until I take it over), then my dad is always around to fix something or run and get parts of some kind, then my brother, sister and I are responsible to take care of the show animals and fill in when the employees have time off. Where we milk 625 cows people sometimes classify us as a factory farm but honestly we are far from that. The cows are pampered and well taken care of, they get their toes trimmed an average of twice a year. They always have fresh clean water, and lots of food in front of them and then on top of that they are in a pen where they can lay in a clean stall or walk around to get a drink or have something to eat. They are not closed into a small area with no fresh air. In the summer months when it is extremely hot and humid they have large fans over their pens, that are called BIG ASS FANS that are at least 12 feet across. So most cows are loved and cared for by their owners, not all happy cows come from California they also live in other states too! I hope that with me writing in this blog that people will be able to see that farms are not there to hurt animals, they truly care for them and want to bring great fresh products to their consumers.

Why?

          I have held in a lot of my opinions about what people are saying and what they think about the farming industry. They hear about how one person treats their animals badly and think that everyone treats their animals the same terrible way. The truth is dairy farmers love their animals, they are like family to them, they are our whole life without our cows we are nothing. The way someone truly enjoys getting up every morning to care for animals, and are there for them 24/7 and 365 days out of the years shows the true love and dedication farmers have for their animals.
          I am sick of people that have no idea what really takes place on farms, saying things that they "think" are true. People should not say things unless they are sure that they are true and factual. I want people to be educated on what really take place on farms, ask farmers and 4-H'ers about what they do and how they do it, don't spread rumors that are not true!