Florida Legislator Targets Animal Activists | AGWEB.com

Thought this was a great article to follow up my previous post on the media and agriculture, which goes hand in hand with animal rights activists that are out of control. And, since we were just in Florida, I am feeling a bond with our fellow farmers and ranchers there--way to go for State Senator Jim Norman!!

Florida Legislator Targets Animal Activists AGWEB.com

Ag in the Movies.....

By chance, I watched a popular tv show the other day that had me fuming by the end.  The show, was BONES, Season 5, episode 6, "The Tough Man in the Tender Chicken."  I don't watch much television, beacuse, well, we don't have it out where we live and we opted against satellite.  We do however get Netflix, and have watched the series which is usually light-hearted and humorous even as the scientists and FBI agents sift through remains trying to uncover the cause of death.  And though it is often cheesey and somewhat unbelievable, I still found myself up on edge as I watched this episode because I know that many, many people out there would not understand how unbelievable their portrayal of a chicken farm was.  As they tried to uncover the mystery of who the dead body had been and how it had been killed, the forensic artist draws a picture of a man who looks supsiciously like a chicken.  Supposedly the guy had worked in the chicken farm/processing plant for many years without wearing a mask and the fumes in the plant had caused disfiguration of his face. WHAT!?!?!  And to make him look like a chicken?  Really?  How many people are watching this and believing it?  Oh, and of course he was killed in an extremely violent way, which happened to be through the machines used to kill and clean the chickens in the plant--portraying poultry production in an even harsher manner.
 Another part of the show that got to me was that one of the key players got wrapped up in the worry about the animals and ended up with a chance to 'adopt' a piglet for $1500, saving it from slaughter and human consumption.  Of course, most of the other players in the show were against this, even the 'vegetarian'.  I was very happy that one of them was even an out and proud meat-eater that loved bacon, pork, ham, etc.  So,  I was glad that they tried to be somehwat well-rounded in their portrayal. In the end, a friend helps her get the money to adopt the pig, saving it from death and human consumption in order to just be her friend and help her even though they thought the cause was ridiculous. 
I wonder how many people were inspired by this show to search out and 'save' some kind of animal.  I probably wouldn't even think that it was possible if I didn't already know better.  Some of the blogs that I follow through the YF&R have had posts on theirs about these types of things--a farm that rescues turkeys--no really, you can pay for one, or even a whole flock and they go to live out the rest of their natural lives on this farm, protected, safe and happy. Or have you seen the newspaper article (don't know if it is a joke, or really was submitted to a paper) about how hunters need to get their meat from a store where it has been made, instead of killing harmless animals.  Unfortunately, I really believe that there are so many people who can't stand the thought of an animal being killed, but, so as long as they don't ever have to think about it, they can easily chow down burgers and bacon and chicken salad without worry. It's when PETA and HSUS and the media portray the supposedly inhumane treatment of their food that they begin to worry.  This is why it is so important that they know about where there food really comes from and the time and care that goes into those animals--and why American Ag producers are working wo much harder to tell the story of their farms and ranches so that the story being told is the truth. 

In my research for this article, I found plenty of sites that are advocating for the humane treatment of animals and especially chickens--this is what they think you should do to help out (please remember that I took these next few paragraphs straight from bornfreeusa.org, after searching for facts about poultry--these ideas followed paragraphs of information such as this:  The average consumer may not be aware of the suffering of billions of birds raised for meat and egg production in the United States each year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s National Statistics Service reported that 7.07 billion “broiler” chickens, 67 billion “egg” chickens, and 321 million turkeys were killed in 1998 for food. In addition, millions of birds die as a result of disease, injury, and during transportation.
•Decrease or eliminate poultry products — meat and eggs — from your diet. Decrease or eliminate foods containing poultry products from your diet. The 1997 Dietary Guidelines for Americans published by the USDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services endorses a vegetarian diet.


•If you do purchase poultry products, buy them from a health food store or natural foods co-op and purchase only products produced on organic farms. While organic farming does not necessarily mean animals are treated humanely, it is better than factory farming, which can never be “organic.”


•Support federal and state legislation that would improve the well-being of farmed birds by imposing limits on farming, transportation, and slaughter practices.

SERIOUSLY???  This is what the public is searching out after watching shows like the one I did--if we don't tell our side, more and more legislation like PROP 2 in California will be passed.  More and more American Poultry producers will be put out of business and our food will be shipped in from below the border.

Can't we have well-cared for animals and eat them too? ;)
So, if you really want to know about how poultry and eggs end up on your plates and what the standards for these types of farms are in our nation, then check it out from a decent source, and give American Ag Producers the credit that they deserve for providing such a great, clean food source for our nation and so many others!!

The first link is an awesome and easy to read overview about all things chicken:
http://www.nationalchickencouncil.com/consumerInfo/docs/IntroductiontoChickenProduction.pdf

http://www.poultryegg.org/  The US Poultry and Egg Association
http://www.poultrynews.com/New/Associations.htm
http://www.aeb.org/  The American Egg Board
http://www.meatami.com/ The American Meat Institute

And of course, there are tons of others--links to individual states and even family and corporate production that can give you an idea of what poultry and egg production is really like in our nation....and it definitely won't disfigure your face or pollute your community.

State Board Training......

Since it is almost time for our next State Board Meeting of the Nevada Farm Bureau, I figured it was about time to report on the last one. ;)  Okay, so I had good intentions of doing this a long time ago, but as you can see from the background in the first picture, it was just a couple weeks before Christmas and life was hectic and then I had Orlando--okay, you get the idea.  This meeting was not our usual state board meeting.  This meeting may have been a pivotal one for many of our board members.  I know that our Lincoln County FB Board meetings have taken on a new dimension because of it.  We are setting and working on goals that will hopefully make a lot of great and needful changes to they way the Farm Bureau is seen and  utilized.

So, AFBF sent in Jill Casten to give us a day of training at the Atlantis in Reno.  Jill helped our state board see that we needed to really start to have a shared focus--the importance of a mission statement and what it says about an organization.  We started by forming ideas of what goals we have as a Farm Bureau and then tried to combine those ideas into a mission statement.  We read through a few from other organizations and one thing that stood out to us all was that no one read through the entire mission statement of one of the organization's because it was way too long.  SO our focus was to make it direct and concise and really get our point across.  The power point screen picture shows the ideas that we need to focus on to generate the goals that are the basis of the organization andd which will be the foundation for the mission statement.

Another activity that Jill had us work on was coming up with good things that had happened for Nevada Farm Bureau in the past three years (all the post-it notes on the top half of the time-line)  and then the not-so-good things (post-it notes on the bottom half of the time-line).  This really helped to give us an idea of what has been going on in the organization, and when and why--which helped to illustrate why those things were good or bad and how we can avoid, change, or grow on them.

We really worked on a lot of great ideas, we were divided up into different groups and different subjects to work on long-term goals for the Farm Bureau and what needs to be done to accomplish them.  One thing that really made me happy was to see how many times building the YF&R program came up.  This is an exciting thing for me since I have been working so hard for that for the last few years to really show the board what YF&R is and why it is so important to be building.  I really felt that we were moving forward and seeing progress in this area, along with quite a few others!

A great tradition of NVFB is that when we have an evening at meetings such as this or at a national conference, we usually go to dinner together, which is a great opportunity to really get to know each other well outside of the meetings.  THis time was no exception and we met for dinner and had a great evening of visiting, eating, and even more eating!  Though most of us were a little picky about the oysters (BLECH!!!) The calamari and kobe beef appetizers were great!  And Paul Young, of Austin was able to amaze the waiter as he put away the waiter's choice for him of a 32 oz porterhouse.  He then had a few bites of his wife's steak.  We may not do well with the oysters, but we sure know how to enjoy a good steak!

Paul and his waiter with the steak on the tray...

....and below, Paul with nothing but the bone left on the plate!

A few pictures of all of the group at the steakhouse.

This was a pic of dessert that the waiter brought for us with a couple of interesting items on it .  I can't even remember what they were--one was neopalitan ice cream and the other had macadamia nuts in it.  Like I said, interesting.  Most of us there are what you would expect 'country folk' to be like, we love home-cooking and sometimes the fancy, gourmet stuff is a little too out there, but it was sure interesting and fun to try!

And our other entertainment for the night was Zach's coffee that was prepared tableside with flames and all.  Even if they said it tasted like cough syrup, it was fun to watch!

Well, that's it for this post--while it may have been a little late in coming, I did want to report on it because I think this is the best state board meeting we have had since I started a few years ago.  we covered so much and really worked to gether, sharing so many great ideas.  The results of the training with Jill from AFBF have already shown up so much in our county board meetings and on Thursday, the board will continue to work on the goals we set and keep moving forward with more. 

The Final Chapter of Our Trip to Orlando......(Part 4)

Welcome to Part 4, the final post on our National YF&R Conference in Orlando.  I would have been done last week, but our great state YF&R Coordinator/Field Rep., Stephanie Licht, sent me a disc a pictures that she had taken, many of which are from the tour that the other half of our Nevadans went on.  So, while I don't have a lot of detailed information about their tours, their is a brief description of each of the places they went to and what they had the chance to see.  They all said they enjoyed drinking tangerine juice and eating ice cream (almost as much as I enjoyed holding an alligator?).

I hope you have enjoyed my reports as much as I enjoyed retelling the story of such an awesome conference--feel free to pass on throughout your counties to anyone you might want to introduce to Farm Bureau and the YF&R program.  We were so excited to have such great support from Churchill County this year in inviting Pete and Michelle Olsen to go with us--we loved having them and hope that they loved going with us--we are looking forward to great things developing in Churchill FB and in their new and growing YF&R!

Yep, that's me, and no, I am not singing or whatever it looks like I am doing ;)  Every year at the conference the state YF&R Chairs are given a 30 second slot at one of the lunches to introduce their states.  Sometimes it is a rush to tell what they produce, or what they are number one in, sometimes it is who can be the most creative, humorous, or longest (which gets booed off the stage at the 30-second mark, though some try to keep talking through it ;)  Being so close to the Kennedy Space Center I told that we were home to the nation's 'other' space center, Area 51, that we also like our meat and potatoes--beef being our largest livestock industry and we are home to the 2nd largest potato farm in the nation (the things you learn when you come to state meeting in Winnemucca!) and that 14 of our 17 county's did not send Harry back to DC (Last year I mentioned a lot of what we produced, and how we were trying not to send any bad apples back to DC in the next election)

Pete and Michelle

Pete, Michelle, Lee and Grant in one of the Workshops by Dick Wittman.  These workshops were some of the GREAT highlights of the conference.  We all thought that they had incredible value for anyone in the agriculture industry and definitely those with issues passing on, sharing the farm, starting from scratch, etc.

Here's a bit more info about Dick:

Keynote: “Are You Getting a Passing Grade in Farm Management”
Business management practices, not economic issues, are often the reason family operations dissolve business relationships or fail in their efforts to achieve viable business succession. Wittman examines key managerial proficiencies that must be implemented as well as consequences of failing to adopt these practices in everyday operations. This speaker combines keynote comments with case study topics in the breakout sessions to tackle a number of sensitive issues related to family business management. It is presented from the viewpoint of a working family farm manager who has also provided family farm business transition consulting for over thirty years.
Bio- Wittman manages a 19,000-acre Idaho family farm partnership involving crops, cattle and timber and provides consulting services and seminars in family farm business and financial management in the US and abroad. A former FCS lender, he’s also served on numerous commodity and financial institution boards; is a director and past president of the Farm Financial Standards Council and past president of the PNW Direct Seed Association. He is an adjunct faculty member of Texas A&M teaching annually at the TEPAP program and King Ranch Institute, and also serves on the Ag Carbon Markets Working Group which provides policy development leadership in climate change legislation impacting agriculture.

Every year on the final morning, the state YF&R Chairs and Coordinators meet for Breakfast with the AFBF YF&R committee to meet those who will be over them on the committee.  We had a couple of really neat things that we did to reinforce the importance of who we are in the agriculture industry and how important it is to share our stories.  My Reps for another year are the Sawyers, in black to the left.  They are from Kansas, so definitely a different dimension from the Reps I have had over us out of Utah and Arizona, but it is always fun to visit and get to know the AFBF committee members from across the nation.  They serve a two-year term after they are elected, each year half of the committee retires as new ones come on board.

Our final address was given by Andrew McCrea, who also taught a workshop that I had attended the day before, he is a very dynamic speaker and really had some great points to make that went along well with Ken Schmidt from Harley.

Andrew McCrea

Keynote: “Ordinary to Extraordinary: The ‘Extra’ that Brings Success”
We have a choice…to be ordinary or extraordinary. We choose to be extraordinary. But what does extraordinary leadership look like? How do you build an extraordinary business? What is the ‘extra’ that makes the difference? Andrew McCrea will take you to the farm and around the globe as he uses his experiences as a rancher and an award-winning journalist to share the story of the ‘extra’ that makes people and businesses stand out among the rest. Be inspired and motivated with practical ways you can put extraordinary leadership to work in your life!

A couple of fun Farm Bureau T-shirts Steph saw along the way......

Stacie, Alyss,a and Hannah getting ready for the tours!!

Here's where their tour went:

Noble Worldwide Citrus Noble

Worldwide is a fourth generation grower/
packer/shipper of fresh Florida citrus.

Their focus is tangerines and other

specialty varieties. During the tour,

they will cover Noble’s business history,

evolution of quality and how they go to

market in today’s environment. They will

also exhibit running and packing fruit to

show their packing facility best practices.

We will also spend time in the Roe familyowned

groves.

G&F Farms & Driscoll’s of Florida, Inc.

Driscoll’s berries are grown on family

farms in some of the world’s premiere

growing regions. These farmers share a

commitment to growing the world’s best

berries and to protecting their family

land to hand down to future generations.

Driscoll’s contracts with a number of

growers in the Dover/Plant City area for

both strawberries and blueberries.

Publix Super Markets Corporate Office

Publix is a privately-held company

operating stores in Florida, Georgia, South

Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee. It

has grown into a Fortune 500 company

with more than 1,000 stores and is one

of the fastest growing employee-owned

companies in the United States. During

your tour you will not only be able to see

firsthand the impressive volume of the

dairy processing facility in Lakeland, you

will also have the opportunity to taste

their own brand of ice cream.

The TOurs ended at the Florida FFA Retreat where dinner and activities had been prepared.  Unfortunately, the rains were coming down and that pushed it all inside--where I would guess they were trying to feed about 700 or more people.  Our bus was one of the last to show up and the line for food was over an hour long, so instead of waiting, we hopped a bus back to the resort to have dinner there.....though usually well prepared, we had been all day without water and they ran out of drinks at lunch, so hungry and thirsty we decided we wouldn't wait, but this group got there earlier and were able to try all the deep-fried treats and hopefully had a great time.

AFBF YF&R Chair

This was the line for food--the had yet to get into the room where the food was--but looking back as the picture was taken, you could see the people still waiting, and not the people around the corner still coming in from buses....like I said, about an hour wait for the food.