This fall marked the third year since I started sharing our farm online. The year I started was an incredibly hard year on the farm. I was angry when I wrote my first blog post, “I Want Consumers to Feel Farming“. It was hard seeing all the negative articles being shared about what we do. I let it all out in that blog post. I was exhausted. I was tired. I was hurt that so many of my friends and family would share such things. No one even bothered to ask me. Then I realized, I never made myself available for them to ask. So I decided to speak up.
As someone that is typically very private, sharing our farm on a regular basis hasn’t been easy. It may be hard for some to understand but farming is so very personal. It is my husband’s life long dream. It takes ahold of you. It consumes you. You cannot imagine any other life. A life without cows. A life lived working a 9-5. A life where you can’t work side by side with your children. It’s not just a job, it’s a lifestyle. Opening up our farm, sharing the daily struggles, the blood, the sweat and the tears only to have everything we do and believe in to be constantly torn apart can take it’s toll.
So why do I do it?
It’s simple really. The future of our farm depends on it.
Daily conversations between our three children consists of who will milk the cows, who will drive the tractors and if mom will still make them sandwiches when they are “all grown up”. I so desperately want my children to have the opportunity to farm if they choose to do so. In fact, it would make every single day that we devote to this way of life worth it. Handing over this first generation dairy farm that we built from the ground up to the second generation, our children. It gives me chill bumps just thinking about it. It makes me emotional. It would make me so very proud.
It used to be that the roller coaster ride of milk prices, high feed costs and new regulations concerned me the most in regards to our future on the farm. I will be honest, all those things will always be there. What concerns me the most is that majority of our customers are several generations removed from the farm. They know that their food comes from farms but they don’t know what it takes to get that food from farm to store.
I used to be one of those people. I have always had a special place in my heart (or stomach) for all things dairy. My great-grandmother was a dairy farmer, I drove past a dairy farm on the way to and from school each day yet I didn’t know a single thing about dairy farming.
I don’t want to be the farmer that just farms. Okay, that isn’t completely true. I want to be that farmer, but I know that I can’t just farm. I know that education is key to the future of our farm. I know that having conversations, listening to the concerns of our customers and having tough conversations is now part of our way of life. Advocacy is going to play a major role in the future of our farm and if I get to make sandwiches for my kids as they work the farm that their father and I worked so hard to build.
So when asked why I do it. Why do I share EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. about our farm on social media, my blog, in my community or pretty much anywhere and everywhere, the answer is quite simple.
I advocate to ensure I get to make sandwiches for my children when they are all grown up and taking over our first generation dairy farm.
Krista Stauffer
Latest posts by Krista Stauffer (see all)
- Ensuring Quality and Safety: The Rigorous Inspection and Testing of Washington State Dairy Farms - May 6, 2024
- Understanding the National Dairy FARM Program: Ensuring Excellence in Dairy Farming - April 29, 2024
- The Importance of Nutrient Management Plans for Washington State Dairy Farms - April 17, 2024
- Homeschooling on the Farm: Cultivating Learning in a Rich Environment - April 11, 2024
