Where were you in 2002?

Two-thousand and two. At first glance it doesn't seem like it was that long ago. Where were you in oh-2?

I was...a lanky, boy crazy 7th grade student at Satanta Jr.-Sr. High School. Fresh into a sweet, maroon, 1990 model Cadillac DeVille loaned to me from my grandfather as my first official set of wheels to take me from the farm to school and back per the farmer's permit I had obtained. George W. Bush was the President, no comment. The Olympics were in Salt Lake. After school I probably rocked out to a mix of Dashboard Confessional, 50-cent (pronounced "fiddy-cent" for you vintage readers!), and Nickelback that played on my cassette-to-CD converter on a CD I am sure was burned off of Napster downloads.

In 2002, Michael Pollan began telling the story of how food goes from farm to fork with his article, Power Steer.

And ever since then Agriculture has been fighting to set it straight. If you are interested in Pollan's article and the information presented in it, I would encourage you to talk to an actual Agriculturist. Rather than taking the word of a journalist who lives in the confines of a over-populated concrete jungle, maybe you should check out what these people have to say.

• Garden City, Kansas, missed the suburban building boom because it retained the rural lifestyle in a corner of Kansas that produces a lot of food for a large portion of our population.
• POKY Feeders is located in Scott County and is managed by Joe Morgan. My dad delivered a bull to Mr. Morgan this past Tuesday that we picked up on a trip through Nebraska. You want to learn about cattle feeding? POKY Feeders runs a fine business and you can find more out on their website - http://www.cattlefeeding.com/
• Blair Brother Angus raised the calf in the article. They would be a reliable source to hit up on all things cattle - http://www.blairbrosangus.com/index.cfm
• The Hadricks refuse to let people like Pollan tell their story any more and have done an amazing job promoting agriculture -http://advocatesforag.blogspot.com/

I guess my point is that these are great examples of people who could tell you more about how cattle go from the farm to your table. They are all accessible on the internet and would answer the phone too! I like to go to the source for my information. When I have a health concern, I don't check out the New York Times, I ask my doctor. When I have a question about clearly getting a point across to group members, I ask my mom who is an educator and is pretty good at conveying messages to others.

When you want to know more about where your food comes from, call a producer. Agriculture has to do a better job of telling agriculture's story. We have some pretty good ones to tell...

Partying like it's 0h-2,

Tera Rooney