Starting the Conversation

I've talked to a lot of kids. A lot of kids. They are the reason that I first got on Facebook. They are a real inspiration to me. But being a kid these days is a tough deal. Much more difficult than it was when I was young. Any parent who say otherwise is not seeing the whole picture. But that's not the reason for this blog.
A good friend of mine, Ray Prock, has been watching my Facebook status and commented that there are a lot of the similairities between what I do with young people and what we do while engaging consumers  about farming.  It turns out he's very right.(It pained me to write that down;) )
So after some though, I've narrowed it down to a few points.

The best opportunities take time.

Rarely do you sit down and have a heart to heart of the first conversation. No one trusts you completely the first time they talk with you. To gain a certain level of trust is something that takes time, it's something you earn. Relationships are that way, they take time. But you need to really care about the other person, beyond just the conversation.

The best conversations came from a connection that wasn't forced.

Most of the time we just talk, share some laughs, talk about what important to them. The very first ag conversation I had with a young person was based on some youth ministry stuff that I volunteer for. Really nice young lady who I knew nothing about. For a year all I had was her first name. She was, might still be, a supporter of peta. We had some great conversations. It was an easy give and take that lasted for a year.

If they want to talk, and you can make it work, you need to make it work.

Timeliness is important, sometimes immediacy is really important, but when they want to talk, talk. A lost opportunity may be exactly that, lost. Now the things that we discuss with consumers might not be as urgent as someone struggling with cutting, depression, or suicide, but everyone wants someone to listen. If you can be that, the rewards are amazing.

Never, I repeat, NEVER, lose it.

When a young person is having a really bad day, possibly because of a bad decision, the last thing they want to hear is someone telling them they are an idiot. They are hoping to hear the voice of reason.Our consumers are wanting the same from us. The comments they make might be made to get a reaction, be careful what that reaction is.

Practice helps.

The more conversations I have, the harder it is to surprise me. It can happen, but repeated conversations lets you anticipate some of what is coming. Knowing what questions to ask and having an informal game plan in place, all make the interaction less stressful for both parties.

Sometimes it won't be a conversation.

There are times when I just need to shut up. I'm a salesman. It's my job to get people to talk. But sometimes they don't want, or don't know how to express what they are feeling. That's a reality of life. Not that an attempt shouldn't be made, but I try not get upset or frustrated if they don't respond by baring their souls. Ag conversations are the same way. We think we know the answers, or are willing to be a listening ear, but that may not be what is needed at that moment. It's a reality.

Well, that's all the wisdom I could extract. I hope it makes sense come morning.....

My Facebook Status. An Update, A Year Later

So about a year ago I mentioned the story behind my Facebook status. For those of you who haven't read it, here's the link
.http://mikesagremarks.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-facebook-status.html
Nearly a year has past since I wrote that blog, and I thought I would give everyone an update.
It's been a pretty eventful year. I had a son and a whole bunch of other kids graduate for high school. These kids had become pretty special to me. They had allowed me to walk along with them through lots of growing up stuff. They shared more of their lives with me than a dad could ever expect. Each one of them was a tremendous blessing to me.
The year held unexpected blessings.
At the top of the list was the opportunity to sit with a young lady, as she opened her heart and asked Jesus to come into her life. I've talked to kids before as they made that commitment, but this was the first time it happened with one of "my" kids. This young person is still a part of my life, and I'm so happy to see God's continued work in her life.
I've been blessed by the young people that God brought into my life in the past on how they continue to be a blessing. Graduations and new jobs,  new towns, and new challenges. A new openness to the challenges life brings, and an opportunity to see God's hand and his love at work. Tremendous personal growth that is sometimes hard to see from the inside, but so very evident to the rest of us. Twitterdad is proud.
God also saw fit to introduce me to some new kids this year. Talks have gone from boyfriends, to parents, to death/suicide and even dogs. I've been asked to pray for them, and continue to pray for them. They continually amaze me, and the big things they have to deal with are staggering. They've become an important part of my life.
 I've been called pops, big poppa, and #standindad. None of those terms are anything I deserve.
 God's work is an amazing thing to behold, and he's taking me along for the ride.

Is Agvocacy Worth the Fight?

I'll be one of the first to admit, sometimes this agvocacy thing is for the birds. Who has the time, or the will to fight all the uninformed and agenda driven anti-ag people out there? And what's to be gained?
When I listened to the newly released Worth the Fight, by The Departed I gave that a little more thought. And here's why I get involved in the "fight".
I'm an old farm kid turned feed salesman.
I have one of the greatest jobs in the world.
Each day I get to work with farmers and ranchers.
They work hard, they play hard. They get to see everyday the wonders of this world in a way that few ever even get a glimpse of. Piglets, calves, crops and weather make up their days.They worry about how they are going to make a living like everyone else, but most of them are in the process of making a life. Not standing on the sidelines wondering, but making their life. They give of themselves in ways that would make most folks envious if they only knew how richly they are rewarded. Not monetarily mind you, but with a satisfaction that they made a difference in someones life.
Are they perfect? Not by a long shot. But they are incredible people. Their way of life deserves to be defended and fought for.
They are "Worth the Fight".

Does Social Media Have Legs?

When I first got into the feed business, I got so frustrated by what I call, "the good ole boys network." I might have the best product, the best programs, and a great price, but still not get the business. So many of the reasons that people were doing business with each other was due to the relationships they had established. It took a lot of time to get a relationship going with many of these folks. But it came down to relationships.
People are comfortable with those they are most comfortable with. No different than anyone else.
Over the last four years I've been navigating the world of social media. I started on Facebook to stay in touch with some wonderful young people I met on a church service project. To see how this new thing called social media would affect their world. At some point I added Twitter in. And my world got a lot bigger, and a lot smaller. I now have friends in the farming community from all over the US and Canada. Dairymen and women, nut farmers, cowboys, pork producers, college students, ranchers, foodies, equipment dealers, agronomists, and people at BPI are among my friends. Displaced farm kids, wanna-be-farm kids, dairy suppliers, calf ranchers, a dairyman from "across the pond", and a couple of farmers from Australia. Many of them have embraced social media as a way of life. Some have become good friends.
 In much of the farming community, social media is viewed primarily as just that, social. It's a part of life that doesn't get to intrude in on the business of business. Conversations about social media and the business community almost always get back to, " how does this help my business". I wish I knew how to make that transition. It's a different way of thinking about doing business.
Does it have any legs? I don't know. But a little while back I got to see what it is capable of accomplishing.
Recently, shareholders for Domino's Pizza voted down a resolution brought forward to eliminate the use of pork produced through the use of gestation stalls. The shareholders voted it down by 80%. A group of farmers decided to thank Domino's for trusting farmers and animal welfare experts to care for animals. First on board was a hog farmer from Missouri named Chris Chinn. She writes a blog thanking Domino's.
So I wrote a blog thanking Domino's for their stand as well, and then we created an event called, Ag Pizza Party in conjunction with a Facebook page called The Truth About Agriculture.
Participants were asked to leave a note thanking Domino's for their support of farmers. In the end, whatever Domino's decides, is their decision to make, but the ag industry was thanking them for going about making that decision the right way.
It went over really well. Pictures were posted from all over the US. Some Domino's stores received stacks of thank yous. The Truth About Agriculture event got thousands of hits. Tens of thousands of hits.
Has that turned into any business? I can't say. I truly don't know. But it bears some watching.

Playing the Blame Game. aka Globe Warning

One subject that is bound to get people crazy is global warming. And it's no wonder. Weather is one of those topics that never seems to get old on the farm, or anywhere else for that matter. Endless hours are spent wondering if we can beat mother nature, or if she is going to beat us.
I sat in on a presentation form a U of M meteorologist this past February on global warming. I don't have his presentation, but here's what I remember.  Weather averages are reported on a 30 years average. In 2010, the average dropped off the decade of the 70's, and picked up the decade of the 2000's. When that happened it changed the average rainfall for Brookings, SD from 19.24" to just over 24". The high temps for the area aren't as high, and the lows aren't as low. But the the high of the day to the overnight lows, aren't changing as much. We are also dealing with more humidity. A dew point of +70 degrees feels tropical, and used to be rare in this area. Last summer we had 7 days with a dew point of over 80 degrees. On July 19th, Morris MN had a dew point of 88 degrees. Rain events are changing as well. In the time frame from 1986 to 2004, our area averaged just over one rain event per year that amounted to over 2 inches. Since 2004, Sioux Falls, SD has had 23 such events, with the largest event being 4.85". The presenter was quick to point out that he wasn't a theorist, but just a numbers guy. Does this change things on the farm? Absolutely. If we can't count on overnight cooling, and have to deal with high humidity, shade and cooling become MUCH more important. More fat cattle of the black variety during the summer is a real situation that needs to be addressed.
So why do I bring this all up? Everyone has been spending the last decade blaming everyone for everything. Claiming something isn't our fault and that it isn't happening are two different things entirely. So many are trying to find fault with everything and everyone that it gets hard to deal with possible issues. FTLB has been available for 20 years and ammonia has been used in food preparations for decades, but is now being blamed for killing us? If one takes a stand in support of technology we get accused of poisoning the planet. Life expectancy is higher than ever, and we are feeding more people than ever before, but still it seems to be in vogue to accuse farmers and ranchers of all sorts of evil.
Is global warming real? I don't know. But I know our winters have been incredibly mild in the northern plains. Europe has been cold. They were trying to skate the canals in Holland this year for only the second time since the 1970's. It hasn't been cold enough for the race for decades.
I know that in today's environment everyone is an expert. The Internet has allowed everyone a voice. But leveling the blame is getting in the way of moving forward.  

Too Much Technology?

Growing up, I was fascinated by my dads hands. They were huge. A game we played as kids involved dropping a quarter through his wedding ring. I think dad wore a size 15 ring. Hands formed by milking cows by hand. Sometime in the 60's they switched to a vacuum pump and bucket milkers. The time spent with each animal went down as the technology increased.
A recent run of events brought this topic to mind for me. But the topic, is one that we seem to running into headfirst.
If we make use of technology in caring for animals, does this diminish their quality of life?
The most recent catalyst for this discussion was a post that highlighted the Lely robotic milkers. Someone I respect a great deal, suggested that this would remove the basic tenets of animal husbandry. This also seems to be the charge leveled against any of today's large farms.
Can any farm with hundreds to thousands of animals really take care of them?
What constitutes care?
This same friend offered that animals make our lives richer, and that we enrich their lives. I can't argue that point, but does an animal need daily interaction with me to be fulfilled?
Is there a different level of interaction that each species would require? And lastly who gets to decide what that level is?
If some of the basic jobs can be done by others/machines, does that diminish what happens on the farm?

When I was growing up, one of the jobs I got, was cleaning the calf barn. With a pitchfork. You know, the manually operated kind. It took a couple of hours each week. Character building kind of work. Within two months of my taking an off the farm job, that barn was being cleaned with a skid loader. They replaced labor with capital. The trend continues today.
Today's farmers are faced with the same issues that people everywhere face.Pay the mortgage, raise a family, and try to improve their quality of life. Growing up on a 40 cow dairy, we rarely took vacations. A week away from the farm was almost unheard of. If an opportunity came up for a day away, it could work, as long as it fit between morning and evening chores. Relief milkers were difficult to come by at best, and impossible to find at worst. The expansion of the dairy allowed for more hired help, more available labor, and more flexibility in time off. 
But has animal care gone down? I'd argue that it has gotten better. The barn of yesteryear were dark dank old caves that lacked much of what we now know contributes greatly to animal welfare. People see animals in barns when on their summer vacations and wish they were out running in the pastures and meadows, but when they get out of their cars they head for the air-conditioned comfort of the motel. Today's barns offer shade, and a great deal of animal comfort. Are they perfect? No, but producers are always on the lookout for cost effective ways to take better care of their animals.
Do farms today look like an updated version of Olde McDonald's Farm? Nope, and most likely never will again. Does that automatically make us evil? Nope, it doesn't

Taking Everything Too Seriously....

So passions a great thing right? Absolutely!!
Maybe not.
Recent events made me wonder why we as humans almost always go over board. What in our DNA causes us to take a passion and turn it into an obsession? We've all met those folks. They look normal, but ask the wrong/right question, and it's off to the races in the woods just outside of Obsessiveville. We can get so caught up in the cause that we lose focus and why the cause is important.
A recent post on the Truth About Agriculture page on Face book really got to me. The poster was asking a farmers thoughts and perspective on the dangers and use of GMO wheat and Monsanto.........
An important detail, there are no GMO varieties of wheat available. None.... The fact that there were different varieties was a surprise as well. But I don't think there was any question that that this person was anything less than earnest in their question. But was the passion was misguided?
What happens when we let ourselves get swept away on the wave of concern? I'm not exactly sure, but there are a few things I know. People and their passions will always be a challenge for every walk of life. Wars are fought because of passions, Religions go to war and kill each other because they feel passionate. We tend to take all of our human walk to extremes.
So sometimes it good to get a good handle on our place in the universe. We are but a speck, on a tiny planet, in a medium sized solar system, in a medium sized galaxy, surrounded by billions of other galaxies. In the big picture of the universe, we are incredibly insignificant. Doesn't that mean we are entirely insignificant?
Not by any means. We should strive each day to make life better for everyone and everything around us.
I was reminded of that this past week at youth group when the "Why are we here?" question was asked. A wise young lady answered,"we are here to glorify God".
Are we using whatever passion we possess to do that? Farming/agvocacy or whatever our calling is.
If we let the passion of any of our causes get too important, then maybe we are taking it too serious.
Passion is awesome, but temper it with knowledge, understanding, and ultimately a caring heart. The world will be a better place.