Seems like everywhere I turn I’m hearing and seeing an increasing amount of inaccurate, negative information about agriculture.  Whether it’s in newspapers, on TV or online, or even during face to face conversations, suddenly it’s fashionable to bash modern ag.

Animal agriculture is taking the majority of the hits these days.  The proliferation of these falsehoods and myths is damaging, and frankly irritates me to no end.  Because of this, and since we livestock producers are so few in number these days (especially in my part of the world), I’ve decided to join the “agvocacy” cause by starting this blog.  Agvocacy is a newly coined word for advocating for agriculture.  It’s time we farmers and ranchers started speaking up for ourselves.  Our detractors are well organized and mightily funded and are not being fair or truthful.  In the past we attempted to “take the high road” by simply ignoring negative or false comments put out there.  We thought that by avoiding controversy the erroneous message would grow old and hopefully fade away quickly.  We now see that such a routine has failed miserably.

With this new blog I’m going to try to tell the real story of farming, from my perspective and of my own operation, and that of some of my friends involved in production agriculture who might do things a little differently, too.  I hope that my non-farm friends and neighbors, and perhaps some curious consumers out there might gain a little insight into modern food production.  I also hope that this might become a place to begin a conversation or have some questions answered.  I love to talk ag, so please feel free to contact me any time.  I’m by no means an expert on every subject, but I do have lots of contacts and resources in the ag community.  Please check back with me often, I’ll be sharing my story here regularly.