Future Farmers of America

When I was in high school, even though as a City boy at the time, we thought of anyone wearing one of the denim jackets with the gold FFA symbol embroidered on the back as; kickers. There was usually another word in front of that but you can guess.

Secretly though, I admired those jackets – even wanted one for many reasons.

40-something odd years later I find myself a sort-of farmer although I like the term rancher better. To me farmer says “row crops” and things you grow and rancher says things you raise. Right now we aren’t raising anything but kids and dogs, but I digress.

The editor of Ozarks Farm and Neighbor, for whom I write, asked me to attend a local Beef conference. I went, listened, ate well (very nice prime rib – what would you expect?) and came away with this observation: I can’t do the math but the average age of the 160+ attendees was older than I am (55 and fast approaching 56!) There were a few younger couples but most of the folks were my age and older.
One of the presenters showed a chart revealing that even though prices aren’t great and the economy is in shambles, one bright spot for beef producers is we – the U.S. – are exporting more beef than we import. And this for only the second year in the last 20 or so that his chart covered.

But if the people in the room are an indication, this trend will swing back the other way unless there starts to be many more kids wearing those cool FFA jackets again. I see them – my daughter was in FFA for 2 years. But I don’t see lots of them. Who is going to produce the beef for us to eat in a few years?

Another simplistic observation that shows my total lack of economic knowledge: doesn’t it make some sense that if I’m shipping out so many tons of beef to countries around the world but some of those countries ship back almost as many tons of beef – what if some of it just stayed where it was? Imagine the reduced shipping, packing, storage costs? Reminds me of the C.S Lewis comment about “being sixpence none the richer;” if I give you sixpence so you can buy me something as a gift, I’m “none the richer” once you give it back. We may have a net gain in exports versus imports but what about the cost? Some bright MBA will have to explain that one to me.

But the long term issue seems to be how do we encourage more young people to go into or stay in farming and ranching? My oldest daughter and her husband raise cattle in Montana but what will keep them at it? And for how long? And if they stop – where will our next pound of beef come from? Well in my case I know – our freezer because we raised it ourselves and will continue to do so as long as we have some land and grass.

Having some fun

Just realized I had not posted anything in almost a month. One reason is probably the same as everybody elses - way too busy. One reason I've been busy is I've been writing - and getting paid a little for it! But more importantly it forces me to write on deadlines. I'm writing for a small regional ag paper called Ozarks Farm and Neighbor. So far two articles - one on some sheep farmers in Ozark and one on a dairy farmer in Mt. Vernon - for anyone reading this outside southwest Missouri, both those towns are near Springfield.

What I have found so far is that I really enjoy this. I like to talk to people and ask them questions. I may have missed my calling. I like the interview process.

What is hard is going back home and taking all my hastily scribbled notes and my recording (I still use a decade-or-more old Olympus PearlCorder) and trying to make sense of all of it.

What I also find hard is editing. On my sheep story I was told to write 700 words. My first draft - before I had even listened to my tape - was about 2,000 words. I edited. Listened to the tape. Edited some more and ended up with about 1,000 words. I told the editor I just couldn't cut anymore. She was fine with that and promptly took out the extra 300 words. The story reads fine but of course as a writer I like ALL my words - not just some of them.

On my second story I was only slightly better. Started with 1,400 words and got down to 700 for a 600 word assignment. I haven't seen how she will cut it down - the pub date is mid-June. (Maybe she gave me a 600 word limit knowing I'd never make it but might get close.)

I have permission to post them in other places but right now our farm website is not up and running. Need some time and design help to make that a reality.

One side-benefit of this little writing deal - my wife and I get to work together. The publication needs pictures and I am lousy with a digital camera - something about moving the camera before the shutter closes or something. All my pictures are blurry. My wife has a steady hand and can take pretty decent pictures. I've just given her a few pointers on things like head-room, framing, backgrounds etc. a but she's doing pretty good.

I/we spend way too much time on each assignment. On a per hour basis for the first story I/we made about $2-3/ hours after expenses for gas, batteries, blank CDs etc. On the second one we should do slightly better but not too much.

But that's OK. I take a 1/2 day off my day-job, we spend some time together driving to locations, she enjoys talking to people too, and then we spend some time editing the photos.

Ozarks Farm and Neighbor's web-site is a little behind - the April 30 edition is still up. Once the May 21st is up, I'll update this link to it so you can read the articles.