Behind the Blogger: Jara Settles

Hello there! My name is Jara Settles and I am a recent (2011) graduate of Kansas State University where I earned a B.S. in animal science. In the fall I will attend Washburn University School of Law to pursue a career in agricultural law. I intend to utilize my legal training in conjunction with my agricultural passion to represent the various industries that have made the United States so great. There is no question that our country would not be the world power that it is today without the hard work and sacrifice of generations of American farmers and ranchers across the country.

I grew up in rural Nebraska on a purebred cattle operation and spent most of my life on the end of a halter. After I graduated from high school I moved to Kansas to attend Butler CC to compete on their nationally renowned livestock judging team. After my time at Butler I transferred to KSU where I was active in several agricultural organizations as well as competing on the livestock and horse judging teams.

Now there is no question that my heart is in the beef industry and livestock production in general, but the agricultural world is something like a family, when one part succeeds, we all succeed. It is my hope that my involvement in Food For Thought can even further help this wonderful organization to bridge the gap between consumers and producers.

Behind the Bloggers: Dr. Dan Thomson

This is a bit of a different “Behind the Bloggers” post, but I figured it was time to expose Dr. Dan! This is the man behind our Food For Thought group. He is our advisor and mentor. He dedicates his time to promoting a positive face for the agriculture industry and inspires our group to do the same.

Dr. Daniel Thomson is a Jones Professor of Production Medicine and Epidemiology at Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine and the director of the Beef Cattle Institute. He received his bachelors at Iowa State University, a masters at South Dakota State University, a Ph.D at Texas Tech University and a DVM at Iowa State University. He is lucky enough to call Kansas home now! At KSU he has both teaching and research assignments.

He spends his time representing the U.S. cattle industry through positive and proactive initiatives to improve animal health and welfare. We are honored to have his guidance and resources as our advisor in Food For Thought, and he is truly the driving force behind our bloggers! Someday it is my goal to convince him to write a blog post.

Hold me to it,

Tera

Here is a picture of Dr. Thomson while in Paris, France, where he chaired the OIE Beef Cattle Production and Animal Welfare committee.

Behind The Blogger: Hyatt Frobose

Good Afternoon!
My name is Hyatt Frobose and I am a new blogger for Food For Thought. I am a 23-year old graduate student in Swine Nutrition and the Assistant Livestock Judging Coach at Kansas State University. I'm excited to get my first post on the blog although I must admit I am far from experienced in the art of blogging.


A little more about myself: I grew up in the town of Pemberville in northwest Ohio where my family had a small cow/calf and feedlot operation as well as a couple hundred acres of corn, wheat and soybeans. My dad works as an agricultural extension agent for Ohio State University and my mother is a veterinarian working with both livestock and small animals. As they both held off-farm jobs, we spent most of our evenings taking care of the livestock or crops. Being immersed in agriculture as a young boy inspired me to get involved in youth activities like 4-H and FFA and ultimately to pursue my degree in animal science.


Hailing from a state with a much larger population than Kansas, I feel like I bring a different perspective to the table, as a passionate agriculturalist I can still put myself in the position of the urban consumer and understand their side of the coin. I am a proud livestock producer and an avid consumer of the stock I raise (ask my fiance, Brandi Buzzard, as she has to eat all the pork and beef I cook).


I want to voice my support to everyone in agriculture nationwide for mobilizing and making our voices heard by consumers everywhere. Although I know that there is alot of consumer distrust with farmers and ranchers today, to me it is more from a lack of accurate information or misrepresentation by special interest groups like the Humane Society of the United States and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.


As a consumer viewing this blog, I commend you for taking the time to learn more about those who proudly produce the food on your family's plate. I think some of you may laugh at the image below, but this was posted in an actual newspaper and it demonstrates how far some people are removed from the food they eat.

Until next time,
Hyatt

AgFest Week/Behind the Blogger:Miles Theurer

Hello all! My name is Miles Theurer and I am a Senior hear at Kansas State majoring in Animal Science/Pre-Vet. I will be starting veterinarian school this fall. I grew up on a family farm and cow/calf operation and have been around production agriculture my entire life, so I have seen and put in the hard work, sweat, and tears needed to be involved with the livestock industry. I know how much work, effort, and mainly care producers put into ag because this is their passion. Their families have been involved with ag for several generations and know that the livestock are the most important thing for them. They also want to be able to pass their operation on to their kids and grandkids.

Anyway, enough about me. I wanted to make people aware of an event in the College of Ag that is put on for ag awareness and education-AgFest Week April 5-9. AgFest Week is a week long event that showcases the College of Ag to the rest of the university and the entire state of Kansas. This event is packed for educational events throughout the week.

On Monday, April 5th at 7PM in Forum Hall in the Student Union there is an informational panel of Climate Change and its Effect on Agriculture. The panel consists of Representative Sharon Schwartz, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Josh Svaty, and Dr. Clenton Owensby from the Agronomy department. This will be a great opportunity to learn about the current climate change legislation and its effect, and also what ag actually contributes to climate change.

Tuesday, April 6th involves Ag Olympics. Ag Olympics is an opportunity to interact with each and have some fun. Everyone likes to do an obstacle course and have a little competition.

Students participating will be interacting in the business world in
the future, so this is just a way to step back and get to know people
on a different level.

Wednesday, April 7th Ag Council puts on one of most educational events-Kiddie Barnyard. Kiddie Barnyard is a great opportunity to educate the youth of Kansas on where their food comes from. With the increasing distance between rural and urban America, there are a lot of people that think milk comes from the store-which is not so. Education is critical for the continued success of production agriculture.

Thursday involves a free BBQ on Weber Lawn! AgFest BBQ is sponsored by the Alpha Gamma Rho and FarmHouse fraternities. Everyone enjoys a good meal and this year will be no different. Getting people together and conversing over a pulled pork sandwich always makes for a good time.

The grand finale of AgFest week is the concert. This year the headline artist is Jack Ingram and the Jared Daniels Band will open. The great thing about this concert is that it is a benefit concert for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Last year, we were able to donate $7000 to the Kansas Multiple Sclerosis Society for research for one of the most underfunded diseases. Students enjoy going to the concert and having a good time, while still helping raise money for a good cause.

If you have any questions about any of the events or would like tickets for the concert, email me at milestheurer@gmail.com or call at (620) 440-1554. I hope to see you at some of these events next week!

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~

Behind the Blogger: Clem Neely

Hello,

My name is Clem Neely, and I am 23 year old first year student at Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine. However I am not new to the K-State scene, I graduated last May with my Bachelors of Science degree in Animal Sciences and Industry and I have been a diehard wildcat fan long before that. K-State has been a big tradition in my family for three generations.

Another tradition that is deeply rooted in my family is agriculture. In the late 1860’s my great-great-grandfather purchased his first piece of land in Neosho County, Kansas. My family still resides in that same area of Southeast Kansas and I am very proud of my family’s agricultural heritage. I often reflect on the challenges and hardships that my family and other farm families faced throughout all those years. I sometimes wish I could just have a one day to visit with my ancestors about the droughts, the floods, the Great Depression and how they decided which of one of the eleven kids got to take the first bath on Saturday night.

Today, we involved with agriculture are confronted with numerous hurdles, many of which have no apparently clear solution on how to get over them. Market based questions arise like, “What is the proper role of the government in agriculture? How do we compete in today’s global market place?” Also questions that strike a more personal note come forward, “How do we bridge the information gap between consumer and producer? How do we counter attacks from extremist environment and animal rights agendas?”

American agriculture has seen a lot of change and progress since the first plow broke soil. Even though different challenges have come and gone since that time, there are a couple of variables that remain constant. The first is that it was not easy in the beginning, it is not easy now and nor will it ever be easy. The second constant is that change will always be on the horizon, for better or for worse.

I suppose my point would be this, we are not the first to be faced with adversity and we will definitely not be the last. Many have succeeded before us and now it is our time to try to succeed.

Thanks for your time and GO STATE!
Clem

Aren't we still the good guys?

My name is Casey Bieroth and I’m an agriculturalist. I grew up in a very remote little corner of the mountains of Northern Nevada. My family homesteaded in this area over a century ago and we’ve been in the same general location ever since. These days I fancy myself as an agricultural economist—by self proclamation for now, but soon by decree of Kansas State University. I graduated with a bachelors degree in Agribusiness from K-State, and now I’m working on a Masters Degree in Ag Economics with a research emphasis in beef marketing.

Blame it on my economics background, but I come at the world with a very science based approach to problems. I’m a big believer in markets and incentives. Give somebody enough incentive and you can get them do just about anything…good or bad.

Take HSUS and PETA for example. They would have the general population believe that their incentive is to protect animals from abuse and mistreatment- a noble goal indeed. As more and more people are discovering, however, these organizations are huge lobbying efforts that are driven by profits and a personal vendetta against animal agriculture. Don’t believe me? Take a look at how the HSUS divvies out its $100,000,000 budget. And yes that is a one hundred million dollar budget. No typos. If that isn’t scary I don’t know what is.

Now on the flip side, where are the incentives for American farmers and ranchers? They have a great deal of incentive to work hard everyday taking care of their land and livestock. How much incentive do they have to defend their practices day in and day out against attacks from activists? Well not as much as you might think for a couple of reasons. First, as anyone who has been around a full-time agricultural enterprise knows, it’s hard work. I challenge you to show me a farmer or rancher with tons of free time. They just don’t exist. Caring for animals is a job that keeps you on your toes everyday. Contrary to popular belief, livestock eat, get sick, get lost, and are generally needy on Saturdays, Sundays, Easter, Christmas, and even during football season. I’m not discounting the need for a counter attack, I’m just pointing out that agriculturalists usually put out the hottest blazes first and that leaves very little time for proactive PR work. Secondly, there is a free rider problem when it comes to agriculture advocacy. Forgive the economics lesson, but the free rider problem occurs when people consume more than their fair share, or shoulder less than a fair share of the cost of producing a public good. In this case, the public good is ag advocacy and the free riders are agriculturalists who assume that someone else is addressing the problem. Everyone will benefit from increased advocacy, but the ones who have to actually pay to produce the good will benefit less than those who don’t pay anything at all. Ag advocacy is time consuming and as I have already pointed out, farmers and ranchers are already short on this resource. Therefore the “advocators” net benefit will be their share of the public good minus their expenditure (time) used to produce it.

So long story short, we are behind the 8 ball on this one. Inherently, the best agriculturalists are the ones least available to take on the HSUS, PETA, Western Watershed Project, and so on and so on. We will all need to step up our game and shoulder our fair share of the costs of agricultural advocacy. There are organizations out there that are good at pointing out our flaws, but to the majority of the world we ARE still the good guys. We need to work hard to keep it that way.

Behind the Blogger: D.J. Rezac

Hello Good People!

My name is D.J. Rezac, I am a 23 year old graduate student in Dairy Cattle Nutrition at Kansas State University. Recently I made a somewhat drastic change in my life plans that I would like to share with you.

For as long as I can remember I have known I wanted to work with animals for the rest of life. For me it just came natural, when I was little Dad would always find me trying to crawl up on a horse, tempting in an old mama cow in with some grain or taking a nap in the sun with the dogs, so you see, it was a given that I should have been a veterinarian or an animal scientist. Sounds great right? A Midwestern small town kid following his dreams all the way to the big dance and doing what he loves for the rest of his life. That is, unless dreams change.

Folks, America is in trouble. Today our waist's and our debts are larger than ever and the only thing that I see anyone doing is pointing fingers (but not lifting a hand). There is going to have to be, let me rephrase that, there will be huge changes in the way we go about our everyday lives and we must possess the flexibility to go with them.

My Dad always told me that you will do the best where you are needed the most. This spring, with my masters program drawing to a close everyone started asking me what I was going to do with my life. There's the million dollar question for ya. I looked near and far for PhD programs but nothing seemed to fit. I got a couple jobs offers, and lets face it, today that's dang lucky, but they didn't feel right either. Then one day I just happened to be snooping around the Kansas University Medical Center Department of Dietetics and Nutrition website. There it was: New PhD program approved in Medical Nutrition Science. After talking with the director of the program and some of the faculty to get a feel for their goals the pieces fell into place for me. For someone who has been hands on with agriculture their whole life as I have to get top-notch training for feeding people and keeping them healthy I could help bridge that gap between producer and consumer/ farmer and grocery store shopper/rancher and restaurant goer that I see growing wider and wider. I firmly believe that every farmer, rancher, cowboy, and cheese maker is a human nutritionist, everything they do has one crowning achievement; put food on a human beings plate.

I plan to conduct research in obesity, diabetes and heart disease as well as participate in leadership roles to help both agriculture and the public. This is where I see myself needed and therefore doing the best. I would have never guessed that I would be on the track I am now, but hey, dreams change and we've got to change with them.

Cheers,

DJ

Behind the Blogger: Chelsea Good

Greetings! My name is Chelsea Good and I’m a law student at Washburn University in Topeka, KS. I am also finishing up my Master’s in Communication Studies from Kansas State University. My thesis research focuses on how beef producers can effectively communicate to a public removed from agriculture about sensitive issues such as animal welfare. My undergraduate degrees are from K-State where I majored in Agriculture Communications and Journalism, Political Science and Public Relations.

I can’t remember when I first decided the beef industry was where I wanted to spend my life. Maybe it was in the barn growing up where I would lay in the feed bunk for hours reading to my county fair steers. Or it could have been in the pickup going out to check cows in the field with my Grandpa Good. Or perhaps it was in my blood. All I know is that for as long as I can remember I’ve been passionate about cattle and the people in the beef industry.

Unfortunately, the average American consumer is a couple generations removed from the farm and our legislators are no different. I aspire to combine my legal and communications training to build a career bridging the gap between the beef industry and an urban public. For me, this means representing the beef industry in the public relations, political and legal arenas.

You can learn more about me and read articles I’ve written by visiting my online portfolio.

Behind the Blogger: Tera Rooney

Greetings! My name is Tera Rooney, and I will be one of the Food for Thought bloggers. I am currently a junior in Animal Sciences and Industry at Kansas State University, headed over to the College of Veterinary Medicine in the fall. I will be putting an emphasis on food animal health on the industry side during my tenure at the CVM.

I grew up in a small town called Satanta in Southwest Kansas. It was easy for me to get attached to the agriculture industry because of the sense of pride in agriculturists that goes unmatched. We have a family farm that consists irrigated acres of corn, wheat and cotton; complimented with spells of involvement in the cattle industry. My true passions were realized when my grandfather transitioned from retirement as a cattleman and farmer to start up a new leg of Rooney Ranch that included a purebred cow-calf herd. Something I have come to realize is that he had the unique opportunity to use our cowherd as a tool to raise us kids. We had equal ownership and responsibility that translated to a dedication for success in all aspects of the industry we grew up in. “Tailgate Lectures,” are one of my fondest memories of my grandfather, and if you grew up on a farm or ranch, you know exactly what these entail - wisdom from years of experience tinged with the rough edges of adversity.

Look for more references to these, "Tailgate Lectures," in my future blogs! I had to include a picture of me talking cattle with my niece, Maggie. It's never to early to start teaching the next generation about agriculture. I would also like to note, we are not in SWKS - look at those trees!

All my best,

Tera Rooney