“So God Made a Farmer”

I posted this over on my Ag on the Forefront blog, but I wanted to share with my little birdie readers, too. Please help by giving back and voting for this great Super Bowl commercial!

If you didn’t see or hear about the Dodge Ram “So God Made a Farmer” Super Bowl commercial, it is creating quite the conversation. The video features Paul Harvey’s voice sharing the poem with “tear-jerking with pride” images of the people across our country who raise our food. A great tribute to the “the farmer in all of us.”

When you watch the video on Ram’s website, the Ram Brand will make a donation to National FFA Organization (up to $1 million) and assist in local hunger and educational programs.

There is also a poll taking place over the next week for the best commercial, so vote it up on YouTube here.

If you are considering buying a Dodge vehicle, make sure your dealership knows that you appreciate their ad!

Please pass this along and God Bless farmers.

Nicknames

Some may know this, but the title of my blog was inspired from my nickname, Bird.

Over on my “agvocacy” blog, Ag on the Forefront, I posted yesterday about how I got my nickname and the nicknames that agriculture, food and health issues are sometimes associated with.

I even have a crazy picture. Go check it out here!

Colorado ranch work

Last week, Ronny and I were in Colorado helping my family AI (artificially inseminate) the registered cow herd. Since this is part of what Ronny does for his profession – he was a big help!

The cattle work and working together as a fam was fun. We enjoyed just a little down time in between the early mornings and late nights, and I got to see my grandma which is always humorous.

Enjoy some more pictures on this album:

		Frasier Farms July Breeding Project VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Reaction to the Oprah show

Oprah’s show on modern agriculture and going vegan wasn’t as bad as I expected, featuring Michael Pollan, Kathy Freston and Nicole Johnson-Hoffman, Manager of Cargill’s Fort Morgan Plant.

Though there were some falsifications and misconceptions thrown around about meat production, they did show the real side of meat production, and I appreciated Cargill opening their doors to show what really happens in a the processing facility.  This was graphic and the talk on twitter was that many people were turning vegan immediately. However, I’m sure a lot of them will get over the shock, realize that is how life is, and enjoy their hamburger tonight.

I posted specific quotes that were mentioned from the show yesterday on my Ag on the Forefront blog.

The best quote of the show: "My family has a dairy, so going vegan affects our livelihood." – Oprah's senior supervising producer Jill VanLokeren It was great that VanLokeren expressed the concern about how a vegan lifestyle affects her family’s livelihood. Kathy Freston later took her to Whole Foods to learn about food she could buy. She may change some of her eating habits, but she wanted them to know she was not going all vegan because of the dairy in her family.

Please click here to read more.

Oh, and this is what Hank thinks of going vegan.

 
What was your take on the show?

A pretty big number

A recent study found this number: 100,500… the number of words an average person consumes – meaning reads or hears – every day. The amount we read has tripled from 1980-2008 thanks to the internet! (Source: By the numbers, University of California, San Diego.)

I blogged on Nebraska Corn Kernels and Ag on the Forefront about using this number to advocate for agriculture. Read about it here. How many of a consumer's 100,500 words consumed per day had anything to do about ag? They should be hearing ag's great story about how their food is produced.

What are you consuming your 100,500 with? Hopefully something meaningful, educational and relevant. With all of the crud out there today on the internet, TV, junk emails and more...a lot of time is spent consuming that crud and taking time away from the good stuff. Make this your challenge today to consume good from what you read, hear and say.

An Agriculture Civil War

I posted this on my agvocacy blog - Ag on the Forefront - earlier today and wanted to share here as well as it is something that I want to get out on the table and have a discussion about.

As a person who grew up only around beef cattle, and now working in the crop commodity world, I find it SO frustrating that sometimes the two don't get along. Yes, sometimes events in one industry affect the other industry, but why does 2% of the population that is involved in agriculture have to fight against eachother? We are already getting picked on by the other 98%, so we need to stick together!

This is what prefaces my frustration. It's strange that an organization representing the meat industry, so dependent on farmers, is waging war against someone so fundamental to their livelihood - but that's exactly what the American Meat Institute and its allies are doing in their opposition to corn-based ethanol. They're using deception and distortion in a new ad campaign on Capitol Hill that is designed to kill the ethanol industry and drive down the price of corn so the big food conglomerates can make more money.

In the words and daily speech of my boss, it is well known and documented that the higher corn prices and other commodities of 2008 were brought on more by the value of the dollar, speculative trading and weather, than corn being converted to ethanol. It is also well proven that it was energy prices and transportation cost that spiked food prices during that era, and ironically as commodity prices have dropped; food price index has remained strong comparatively.

• The ethanol industry is critical to our farms, to all of rural America, and to our country's energy independence that we work together to support agriculture.
• We need to support, not kill, U.S. jobs. Our domestic ethanol industry supported nearly 400,000 jobs in all sectors of the economy during 2009.
• Corn prices are half what they were at their peak in 2008, even with ethanol production on the rise. Ethanol demand has little to do with food prices.
• Compared to gasoline, ethanol provides significant environmental benefits, especially when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. EPA recognizes that corn ethanol provides a GHG reduction of up to 52 percent compared to gasoline.
• The ethanol industry more than pays its way. Taking into account how much tax revenue the industry generated and the value of key tax credits, the ethanol industry generated a surplus of $3.4 billion for the federal treasury in 2009.

I would be interested in hearing your comments on the situation.

Animal welfare

Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with an atheist/vegan on Twitter and recorded the conversation on my animal advocacy blog, Ag on the Forefront.

You can click here to read the comments and be sure to share with others factual information about the agriculture industry and how/where are food is produced!

Conversing with a vegan/atheist on animal welfare