Back about a month ago we were at a baby shower for some of our friends at church. As the night went on the guys were sitting around watching the kids run around, and they simply asked me how farming was going. It went from just "How is it going?" to almost an hour conversation on how we grow the different crops, how our everyday lives go about on the farm, how much does a bag of corn or cotton seed cost, etc... A proverbial gauntlet of questions that seemed to never end.
It just happened out of nowhere, but I took the opportunity to use that little bit of time I had with them to give them a crash course on farming and really open their eyes as to how agriculture works and clear up some things.
Kim and I live in a fairly urban county that has exploded in population in the past 10 to 15 years with so many people who have never been exposed to or understand agriculture, so we have a large sample of people that we can tell our story to. There's always the misconceptions out there about how things work in agriculture.
Many of them stem from misinformation that they have read on the internet or seen on tv that they just took as the truth simply because they didn't know any better. This is why it is vital that we tell our story or correct those misconceptions and who better to tell it than we the farmers.
Every May around the town square we have something called the A-Fair where people come in and set up booths and tents to sell their arts and crafts and also to promote different things in and around the county. Our county Farm Bureau office happens to be on the square so we use that opportunity to set up some tents where Kim and my mother give teachers information about Ag in the Classroom as well as letting kids come up and spin our ag trivia wheel and milk Daisy the Cow, our quite lovely dairy cow made out of plywood with milk bottles for udders. It's a huge hit with the parents and kids and we get that little bit of time to maybe share a little bit about how our lives are in farming and what it's all about.
In the world we live in there aren't many out there who are out to tell our side of the story in farming and ranching, so it is very important that we step up and let people know about agriculture. Whether it is friends or family, people in your town or community, or just random people that might stop by your farm and ask a question, never miss that opportunity to tell someone your story or educate them on your farm or ranch.
-Blog post from Patrick and Kim Swindoll, farmers from Northwest Mississippi.
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