Agvocating at it’s Best

Last week on Saturday I had one of my best experiences in advocating for agriculture (agvocating). I had the pleasure of helping at Clinton County’s Breakfast on the Farm at Steenblik Dairy Farm. All 5,500 of the breakfast tickets were sold out a week before the event was being held. With that in mind, I knew this was going to be a big event.

I pulled into the driveway at 9 am, right when the event was scheduled to begin, and there were already hundreds of cars parked in the lot. There had been attendees in line since 8:30 am waiting for the breakfast to be served! Needless to say, the turnout was monumental.

I was manning the booth teaching about the health benefits of milk. We also had a cow named Ruby Mae which taught about other by products from cows. During this time the Michigan Dairy Ambassador, Melissa Erdman and I answered many questions about dairy production, milk products and cows. At one point, a mother and daughter began asking me questions about farming and dairy cattle.

They began talking about how great it was that agriculture was progressing with technology and that we could take such good care of our animals. They also were appreciative of the fact that food is so safe here in the United States. To me, this view was so refreshing to hear, more often than not, in agriculture we hear about the negatives. The only vocal people are the ones that think we are treating our animal badly and that we only care about the money.

By the end of our conversation the daughter asked to get a photo with me because she said I wasn’t anything like she thought a farmer would be. She was going to show all of her friends and tell them all about her experience at Breakfast on the Farm. Honestly, these experiences make me thankful for all of the work I do. In these moments I see what we do pays off, all of the agvocating and communicating. It made my 6 hours of driving, both ways, worth the time and effort.