This past week I attended our first Young Cooperatives meeting through Northwest Dairy Association. They held the meeting in Fresno, California. We were there with over 30 other dairy farmers ages 45 & younger. Everyone was a producer for Northwest Dairy Association from Washington, Oregon, Idaho & Montana. The group included organic & conventional dairy farmers.
Our trip included a trip to Curtimade Dairy & plenty of time at the World AG Expo 2014. The tour & two days at the farm show were great but they were not my favorite part. We had two days to visit with, get to know & become friends with dairy farmers from all over the Northwest!
There were farmers that were first generation, second generation, third generation & so on.
There were several organic dairy farmers of various sizes & conventional dairy farms from around 120 milk cows to over 1,000 milk cows.
There were herds of all types that included a red Holstein herd, jersey herds, Holstein herds, registered herds, non-registered herds, mutt herds (that includes us, lol) & so on.
There were farmers that used bulls for breeding, farmers that used A.I. & farmers that used both!
There were farmers that preferred John Deere, some that preferred Case & many that just wanted something to get the job done.
There were farmers that farmed on their own & many that farmed with family.
There were farmers that purchased all their feed, farmers that harvested all their own feed & many that did both!
There farmers with one farm, two farms, three farms & so on.
There were farmers that leased their farm, one that was buying a farm & many that owned their own farm.
There were farmers that were the owner & farmers that worked under their father or grandfather.
There were relationships where the woman married the dairy farmer & relationships where the man married the dairy farmer.
There were farmers that raised all their own calves & farmers that had someone else raise them.
There were farmers that milked their own cows & some that didn’t.
There were farmers that had hired help & others that didn’t need it because of family.
There were farmers that are considering robotic milkers, farmers that dreamed of robotic milkers & some that didn’t want anything to do with them.
There were farmers there without children, a couple which were expecting, some with young children & several with teenagers.
One thing all these farmers had in common is that they all needed a break! They all struggled with the weather. We all had similar stories about life on the farm! We all understood where the other one was coming from even if our operations were not the same. There were no two farmers or farms alike. Every farm was unique to its own obstacles & challenges. Everyone respected other farmer’s opinions, offered advice & support.
The moral of the story is that farmers need to stick together! We are the 2% and simply cannot let others drive a wedge between us. We need each other!
I for one know that if we lose our barn, a tractor breaks down or have any major crisis on the farm… it will be our fellow farmer that has our back & we will have theirs. That is what farmers do…
STOP promoting what you are against & start promoting what you are for.
STOP sticking your nose over the fence & focus on what is in your own barn yard.
STOP slinging manure.
STOP throwing your fellow farmer under the bus to make yourself look more appealing.
STOP contributing to the lies, misinformation & hate towards the agriculture industry.
STOP! STOP! STOP being part of the problem & START being part of the solution!
Just because you believe something to be true or untrue doesn’t mean that you are correct OR that everyone else agrees. You cannot force someone to think or believe the way you do! You can however, do unnecessary damage in the process. -Me
Krista Stauffer
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Thank you for sharing. As a gal that experiments frequently to improve grass coverage/density or flow through in my small milking area, or, or, or can’t tell you how refreshing your blog is today. THANK YOU!!! )
Thank you!