Advocate to Educate

When someone says or believes something that we disagree with, it can be easy for our emotions to get the best of us. We don’t understand why they would think something like that at all. I will admit that I am 100% guilty of this. In these situations, my competitive nature says, “you’re wrong. Let me tell you why I’m the one who’s right.” In agriculture, we see differences in beliefs all the time. We hear about it on TV, social media, even in people’s conversations at the grocery store. We see it in the non-GMO labels scattered all throughout the aisles as a marketing scheme. Of course this upsets us, but what approach do we take in confronting these misconceptions?

While I was in Spain earlier this year, we visited a beef cattle farm. At first sight, the facilities didn’t seem a whole lot different than what we might see here in the United States. Once we began our tour and stepped through the day to day operations of the farm, we started becoming much more aware of the differences in practices. Because Spain belongs to the European Union, the agricultural industry of the country faces several regulations and restrictions. During our tour we were able to learn about the regulations within the realm of beef cattle. The first one the owner and manager of the farm spoke with us about was the use of “stimulants.” He explained that the EU strictly prohibits the use of antibiotics and hormones throughout the duration of an animal’s life. When asked how the cattle are kept healthy, the farmer replied that they are able to vaccinate animals within the first four months of the individual animal’s arrival on the farm. After that, everything is completely natural. The beliefs behind this practice suggest that the said “stimulants” affect the quality of the meat. Aside from stimulants, bulls are also not castrated at any point in the production process. The farmers believe that this creates a stress-free environment. At the end of our visit, the farmer encouraged us to keep everything natural in the process of cattle production as it results in clean meat.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks later and I’m back in the United States as the Starbucks milk fiasco is in full force. I’ll admit, I was kind of upset about it too. I don’t normally go to Starbucks, but I was upset to hear about another business displaying miseducation of the agricultural industry which affected the beliefs of consumers. While some people were threatening to boycott Starbucks, instagram user @brandibuzzard had a different approach. She posted a video on instagram encouraging agriculturalists to do the exact opposite of boycotting. She said that the next time she goes to Starbucks, she’s going to ask for REAL milk to show that there is in fact a demand for it.

These two stories might not seem like it, but they actually have a lot in common. Two different parties are miseducated on an agricultural topic. Now in the first example, we kind of blew off the final remarks of the farmer and thought to ourselves, “yeah whatever we’re going to do what we want.” We didn’t think to stop and have a conversation with the man about why we use the practices that we do. In the second example, the simple answer was, “I’m never going to Starbucks again.” Again, we didn’t think about sitting down and having a conversation about it. In both cases we were frustrated and upset. As agriculturalists, we have a choice to make. When we hear these things that frustrate us, there’s two options. We can be mad and storm off, or we can respectfully provide education on the topic. Instead of saying, “I’m never going to Starbucks again,” we can actually go to Starbucks and politely tell them why it is that we want real milk in our hot chocolate or whatever it is that we might order. As advocates for the industry, we accomplish nothing by responding with an eye roll or a boycott. If we provide education, we open minds.

Advocate to Educate,

Hope Brecht

Southeast State Vice President

Iowa FFA Association