Milk Comes From Cows? Who Knew?

All I can say is about this story is WOW.

 I've been lazy in my blogging contributions lately, but when I came across this article from TheDailyMail in the UK, I decided I had to stop and share it with our readers.

A recent survey of 2,000 people in Great Britain, conducted by the non-profit group LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) found some remarkable results when it comes to what today's young people know about where their food comes from.

In this survey, people were asked to match staple foods like eggs, jam, butter and milk with pictures of the animal or crop that it comes from.

Although older respondents typically performed fairly well in such a task (an easy one if you ask me), young adults (age 16 to 23) often made some awful connections. However, let's start on a positive note by pointing out that two-thirds of British young adults were able to match eggs with chickens.

That's right, I said that one of the positives was that only a third of young adults don't know that EGGS come from CHICKENS.

40% of the respondents failed to correctly match milk with cows,which seems absolutely astounding to me. Where else would milk come from? Well, apparently 7 percent of the respondents associated milk with wheat.

Other notable results showed that only half of young adults in the survey correctly associated a steak with beef cattle and a surprising number of them also thought that jam came from cereal crops.

Thank goodness this survey wasn't done on American soil, I would optimistically expect our young adults to perform much better on this questionnaire. However, given the lack of exposure to food production many kids today face, I wouldn't be surprised if American young adults performed similarly.

Overall, I do question the validity of some of these responses as it just seems ridiculous that people can't link staple products like milk and meat with the animal they come from, or the fact that they come from an animal and not a grain like wheat! Nevertheless, there is clearly a growing gap between food producers and the majority of consumers, and this survey underscores the need for better education about food production, especially for young people in the modern world.

As agriculturalists, we must find ways to tell our story to people outside of rural America.

Cheers,

Hyatt

I'm sexy and I know it!

Wait, what? 

This made me smile and I hope you will too! Bravo to these 3 men for making an awesome video about what they do everyday on their family farm and ranch!

I'M FARMING AND I GROW IT

They work out...outside!!!

Fun at the Feedyard

It's been a while since I've been on the blog. With final exams for my 2nd year of Vet School wrapped up and the start of summer full of mentorships and an internship, I've been a little tied up!

I am working at a commercial cattle feeding operation, often you will hear it called a feedyard, for the summer. A feedyard is either owned by a family or a company and cattle are brought into the yard to finish off feeding them before going to slaughter. Baby calves are raised on ranches across the US where they consume a lot of grass on pasture and begin to eat grain as they get older. When the calves are older they are sent to a feedyard for the final phase of feeding. Diets are formulated by nutritionists, health is monitored by veterinarians and employees are trained and dedicated to provide the best daily care of each and every animal in the yard. In Southwest Kansas a feedyard is a very common site. The climate and rural areas make it an ideal place to raise cattle. Did you know that if you drew a square from the Colorado border over to US Highway 183 width wise and from the Oklahoma border up to Interstate 70 height wise, inside that square on the map there are more than 60 feedlots?! That accounts for more than 60% of all feedlots in Kansas!
If you would like to learn more about a feedyard, check out this blog: Feedyard Foodie. She is a feedyard owner in Nebraska where she and her family run Will Feed. Her blog is a great look at what goes on every day at a feedyard and I hope you enjoy it.

All my best,

Tera