Behind the Blogger: Brandi Buzzard

Hey there, I’m Brandi Buzzard and I am a member of the Food For Thought blog squad. Like the other bloggers, I have been involved in agriculture my entire life. I’m a fourth generation agriculturalist - I grew up showing livestock, roping and helping my dad and Papaw with the cattle and horses. I’m a native Kansan, and am currently working on my Masters in Animal Science: Behavior and Welfare at Kansas State. After finishing my Masters, I plan to attend Colorado State and earn my PhD working with the great Dr. Temple Grandin (more on her in later posts). Eventually, after I am done with school, I want to be a welfare consultant to the livestock industry and plan to work bridging the gap between consumers and producers.

As agriculturalists, not only is it our duty to produce the nation’s food supply, we must also market and defend it too. While this is a testament to the determination of the agriculture industry, we must be mindful that we can always improve - we can always keep learning and we must always remember to listen to what the opposition has to say, occasionally they might have a good point to make.

Conversely, the opposition (HSUS, PETA, PCRA etc) takes advantage of the opportunities we give them – especially HSUS. The Humane Society of the United States is run by a group of smooth talking, well dressed philosophy, history and English majors - no one on their board of directors has any agricultural experience. They excel in dancing around direct questions and telling only one side of the story. In a recent article by Chuck Jolley, “Five Minutes With Wayne Pacelle & The HSUS Controversies”, Jolley interviews Pacelle – CEO of HSUS, about various accusations and sketchy issues surrounding HSUS, their budget and their supposed ‘involvement’ in local animal shelters. I encourage you to read this article as it gives insight to what Pacelle and the rest of HSUS are peddling to consumers. Through knowledge of HSUS’s strategies, we can prepare ourselves to proactively stand up for our industry. I look forward to blogging about various topics on the FFT blog - feel free to leave your comments.

Until next time,
~Buzzard~