Three-foot Tall Cattle

The average American today is two generations removed from the farm. We’ve all heard the statistic, but what does it really mean? In my mind, it’s a critical junction. If you’re two generations removed from the farm, you share my experience of visiting your Grandparents’ farm growing up. This two-generations-removed group remembers the passion their grandparents had for the land and animals of which they were stewards.

The generation coming up will be three generations removed from the farm. They won’t have the same memories of spending time with grandparents in pastures, fields, and barns. Besides being end users of our products, many of them will lack any personal connection with production agriculture.

The Emporia Gazette, a Kansas newspaper, last week featured an article that provided an example of just what this removal from agriculture can look like. Hope you enjoy hearing about the three-feet tall cattle.

- Chelsea Good 

Three-foot Tall Cattle

By The Emporia Gazette

Animal rightist’s hissy fit over State Fair regulations is only their latest attempt to invade Kansas. Like our Great Plains neighbors to the north, Kansas is a state where many citizens are only a relative or two away from someone who works on a ranch, transports cattle, or processes beef.

This is a state where rodeo is an important sport. Where a significant number of farm kids learn to take care of their animals. And where 4-H kids sign an intent-to-sell form when they show their sheep at the county fairs in August.

Animal rightists occasionally come to Kansas to picket the entrances of our big meat processing plants. The truckers carefully maneuver around them and give a friendly wave or nod. After a few days of polite Kansas hospitality and absolutely nothing to make newspaper headlines, they usually pack up and go back home.

Unfortunately, times are changing. That sign about one Kansas farmer feeds a hundred and some people will have to be changed upward. Fewer kids are living on farms as our western counties are depopulating. That means that over the long term, fewer future citizens of Kansas will have their views of animal care grounded in the realities of a rural experience.

Our grandparents knew what butcher knives were used for. This first stage of food preparation was a visible and natural process. The children of China (outside of their urban areas) still witness meat processing in the street markets on their way home from school everyday. You can be sure that animal rights organizations would get little traction in your grandparent’s day, or in countries like China today.

But in America, meat processing has moved to local lockers and large assembly line plants where the process is no longer visible. Generations are growing up with little connection between the farm animal, the processing plant, and the meat on the table.

Children are particularly isolated on the coasts, where new city ordinances outlaw the sale of furs and egg farmers must uncage their chickens. Well, Kansas is not California and we are proud of that.

Kansas benefits from a citizenry that understands the role of animals. After agriculture and aircraft and military, animals are another major industry.

Stretching from Manhattan to Kansas City is a major animal bio-research corridor. Medical and pharmaceutical companies from around the world conduct required animal tests on their products right here in Kansas. The ultra-secure animal bioterrorism test facility (NBAF) was a natural for K-State since a similar small facility was already here. And one Kansas town probably is the dog food capital of the world.

Why Kansas? We know where our hamburger comes from.

Every Kansas child of the 1800s knew animals. Today, far fewer have the opportunity. If education was designed so that every child spent a summer on a farm or ranch where they could work with animals up close, there would be very few animal rightists.

One day I ended the nutrition section of my biology class by mentioning that some city folks do not know that milk comes from cows. After class, a student from a wealthy suburb came up to object: “I know milk comes from cows!”

“And where have you seen cows?” I asked.

“While I was driving down the superhighway,” he replied. “Cows are all over the grasslands.”

“And how tall is a cow?” I asked.

“About this high, I guess,” and he held his hand out at about three feet, the size of a big dog!

He may have known — in an abstract way — that milk came from cows.

But he didn’t really “know” a cow.

Tailgate Lectures: This is the Life

I can remember sitting in my grandpa’s office, helping him gather receipts from the fiscal year. I was told to find the receipts from all things related to feeding the cows, gather them together, staple and file. Easy enough. We worked in silence for a long time with an intermittent piece of advice from the old man about organizing your finances so that you can avoid getting audited. He paused when we had gotten through one stack of papers. He said, “Tera, I’ve got a great family, successful farm and beautiful cows. Grew up on a farm and this is the life.”

This is the life.

The idea of growing up on a farm isn’t something everyone can relate to. This is a pretty obvious concept as the cityscapes spill out onto new land making a wider swath of urbanized culture through America’s heartland. Suburban subdivisions that were once surrounded by corn fields become surrounded by more subdivisions and we’ve created an even bigger division from rural America. Don’t get me wrong, urbanization isn’t all bad. With urbanization comes stronger economies, more jobs, higher land prices, diversification of farming practices, easier production methods and the list goes on. Part of our mission with Food for Thought is to keep the idea of farm to fork alive. We want consumers to have a source, close to agriculture; to gain knowledge about where food comes from. So that people who are removed from agriculture can still come back to the farm, per say.

There are other initiatives that are literally bringing people back to the farm! I have to commend several municipal systems for setting up farm zoos so that families and children raised in the city can have the opportunity to see a cow being milked, pet a goat and play with baby chicks. It is things like this that help children better understand where it is that there food comes from. Make it a point to visit a farm zoo near you, I have found several in near and far places:

Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead, Overland Park, KS

•  I have personally visited this farm zoo and it has an abundance of opportunities for children to learn more about agriculture on a farm. You can milk a cow, plant corn seeds, feed goats and during the Fall make apple cider! It’s a wonderful initiative by the City of Overland Park. Admission is $2 to boot!
  

 

Queens Farm Zoo, New York City, NY

• Within the Queens Zoo lies a portion where agricultural animals thrive. Information about cattle, chickens, goats and more. Part of a funding project from the Heckscher fund, a great addition to this park.
  

Kentish Town City Farm, London

• Free entrance to this educational and recreational project set up to simulate a town that is based in agriculture. Along with farm animals, stables and gardens there is the correlation of what agriculture can bring to a small town.   
  

 

What a way to experience agriculture with your children! Now you can get the idea of what my grandfather was talking about when dubbed growing up on a farm with family as, “This is the life.”

 - Tera Rooney

The urban consumer, rural producer gap

This was on the front page of USA Today :


I think one of the biggest challenges for our generation of agriculturists is connecting with an increasingly urban group of consumers and politicians. The average person today is 2 generations removed from the farm and this number is going to continue to grow. At the same time, people are wanting to know more about the food they are eating than ever before. I think it will be up to agriculturists to reach out and make this connection, especially over the Internet.

Amber Waves of Grain

With the recent announcement of the Topeka, KS, Horizon Milling flour mill's plans to shut down, I found a few interesting websites targeted towards consumer education in wheat food production. Work done by the Wheat Foods Council is a great example of how agriculturists can help bridge the gap between producers and urban consumers.

Wheat is grow in 42 of the United States, making our country the largest exporter of wheat in the world. Wheat farmers, along with other agriculturists who produce grain, meat, fruits and vegetables, work hard to feed a hungry world.

Take a look at this website to see exactly how wheat goes from farm to fork in a phase-by-phase interactive wheat farm. You won't get to see how farmers can take advantage of wheat's natural growth patterns by grazing cattle on it during the winter, or smell the fresh cut straw during harvest season, and although these are some of my favorite parts of wheat farming, the interactive wheat farm is a really neat tool.

Another successful program that the Wheat Foods Council sponsors, is the planting of an Urban Wheat Field. During this event in October, the council illustrated the life cycle of a kernel of wheat by harvesting the field, demonstrating milling methods and bringing the flour through the production line to bake loaves of bread for people in the City of New York.

What an excellent example of an industry-driven attempt to help consumers understand where their food comes from. I hope other aspects of food production can adapt and implement more programs like this.

All my best,

Tera Rooney