Recently I had the opportunity to spend two, action-packed days attending Top Producer’s Executive Women in Agriculture (EWA) event in Chicago. It was a great opportunity for farm women to connect with others who have similar interests and to also attend many professional development seminars. Hats off to Top Producer magazine and Farm Journal companies for acknowledging – and celebrating – the fact that agriculture is a career path for women!

The definition of “woman’s work” has evolved over the years as women became more involved in the decision-making process. “The percentage of farms now influenced by women is significant,” says Danny Klinefelter, Texas A&M economist and director of The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers (TEPAP). In an article posted by Top Producer editors on agweb.com, Klinefelter said more women than ever are graduating from TEPAP. They’re becoming key decision makers and often the point person for purchasing decisions.

This trend is also apparent at Iowa State University where 47% of the students enrolled within the College of Agriculture are female. Majors most popular among the female students include: Animal Science, Dairy Science and Pre-Vet. Agronomy has risen in popularity and Ag Business remains strong. There also is a high percentage of women enrolled in Ag Education with the communications option. Food Science, Nutritional Science and Dietetics attract a high percentage of female students, as well.

“It’s refreshing to see headway made on dissolving the stereotype that agriculture is a male-dominated industry,” says Mike Gaul, Director of Career Services for the ISU College of Ag. “Subsequent progress is being made to lower the ‘glass ceiling’.”

Corporate America is not alone in recognizing the value of females in agriculture. As more farmers understand how business management relates to production management, Klinefelter says more women are earning business degrees and even MBAs before returning to their family farms.

Women’s roles in agriculture have evolved. During the opening session of EWA, Klinefelter said women involved in farming operations today often have the following responsibilities:

• CEO
• General manager
• Public relations
• Marketing
• Purchasing
• Human resources
• Risk management
• Information technology
• Sales
• Landlord relations manager
• Data analysis

Guest Blog post by Celeste Settrini of Couture Cowgirl –n- Company

For the last few years, I’ve posted my favorite things for the holidays on Facebook.  It’s been a hit because, as December approaches, I start getting notes from my favorite farm girl’s saying, “Celeste, are you going to post your favorite things again this year?”  Now I feel that if I don’t come up with at least a few things I’ll be letting my friend’s down – so let’s go!

Joe Malone Fragrances – Yep, they are a bit pricey but they’re oh so lovely!  The array of citrus, spices and floral create an amazing mixture of really different scents in candles, colognes and lotions.  Admit it, who doesn’t love smelling nice?

Fun, Hip, Cool, Trendy Rain Boots – All of us farm girls wear rubber boots from time to time.  Why look manly when there is a whole slew of feminine rubber boots available?  Show your own unique style with stars or stripes or swirls of fun color!  You will be the hit of the barn!

Anything JCREW – I simply love the effortless look of JCrew – all of it! Ballerina flats, sweaters, t-shirts, capris, scarves, fun jewelry, coats and jammies… the list keeps going.  The one thing I love about this website is that it puts outfits together for a simple personal creation.  Just try it… I think you’ll love what it offers!

Canon Rebel Camera – I’m the proud owner of a “big girl” camera, one that’s a bit above the little “Sure Shot” that I hauled around for years!  Photographers looking for an easy-to-use camera that will help them create their next masterpiece need look no further than the Canon EOS Rebel T3i.   I cannot say enough about mine – great photos and a great way to share your story on social media, too!

Dean & Delucca Gourmet Food – From meats to shellfish to wines to gourmet deserts this site offers all sorts of wonderful high end treats. I personally love the fun cookies and cupcakes and cakes especially for the holidays. What a fun surprise to send one of these fancy yummies to a special friend or family member.

Motivational and Inspirational Books – I love books and am still a fan of a REAL book, not on an electronic reader, but a real book that I can pickup and touch and turn the pages.  I enjoy motivational books and this one is a must read, Be the Miracle – 50 lessons for making the impossible possible by Regina Brett.  This book will motivate, inspire and make you just feel oh so good!  I love that it’s bound in my favorite “Tiffany blue color.”  Any book is a special gift, but you can make it ever more special by signing a personal note inside to a friend or loved one.

Thanks for indulging me by letting me share a few of my most favorite things!  Above all, my most favorite holiday gift is the time spent on my family farm with loved ones.

It’s hard to believe that 12 years have passed since I began telling others the story of pork production and crop farming.  I believe I even started talking to non-farming groups before the phrase agvocating was coined!  The reason I started making time to deliver free speeches across the state (and sometimes even out of state) is because it’s so important for us to share with others.

Farmers have done a great job or taking care of our animals and crops, including soil and natural resources.  However, most farmers are also very modest and don’t go around telling others – especially non-farmers – all that we do or how we do it.  Other groups, like PETA and HSUS, have unfortunately filled the communication void for us by painting a picture based on misinformation and emotion.  By doing so, they’ve pushed their agendas and have gained widespread national media attention.

Farmers are starting to make the headlines, too.  We’re gaining coverage in farm publications like Farm Talk, Agri-View and occasionally mainstream papers like The Des Moines Register.  It’s a start…

We’re having more impact reaching consumers, one group at a time through speaker’s bureaus like Operation Main Street (OMS).  Formed in 2004 by the National Pork Board with 15 trained volunteer speakers, Operation Main Street grew to 250 trained speakers in 2005.  This group of speakers was formed because there was a need for farmers to not only talk with, but to listen to, our customers otherwise known as consumers.  With OMSspeakers trained and at the ready, pork producers have a force to spread the truth about how and why we have made changes to our farms.  The OMS program even started to address college classes and groups of dietitians and county commissioners.

Shortly after the New Year 2012, a milestone 5,000^th speech was delivered through Operation Main Street by Arcola, Ill., pork producer Pat Titus to the Ambucs Club.

“The OMS program has allowed me to have a dialogue with consumers who rarely have any contact with agriculture,” said Titus, in an article posted Feb. 6 by Wallaces Farmer.  “It’s really up to us to tell our story and connect with consumers so they know that we are committed to producing good, safe food, and to caring for our animals and the environment.”

I couldn’t have said it better!  I’ve made close to 50 presentations to civic groups like Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, Optimists, Civitians and groups I had never heard of before they called me.  Last week I talked to a great group of Optimists from Marshalltown, Iowa.  These groups appreciate having a “real farmer” come and talk with them about what that farmer does.  I know why I’ve made certain changes to my operation, so I just explain “the why and how.”  The groups to which I have spoken have been very receptive to my presentations.

With more consumers curious about where food comes from, there is a greater need for more farmers to share their stories.  If you’re a fellow farmer, I encourage you to take the leap and advocate!  If you’re a consumer, I encourage you to check out fact-based information and learn more about what farmers do through programs like Operation Main Street.

Guest Blog by Barb Determan

What is a small town Iowa farmwoman doing in New York City on a panel of experts about antibiotics with a moderator from CNN? That’s exactly what I was wondering Thursday, November 15!

A few weeks ago I was asked to represent the pork industry in the New York City Food Dialogues sponsored by the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance. The panel I was on centered around antibiotics in livestock, specifically pigs.  Two additional panels discussing GMOs and Marketing and the Media were also a part of the day. Here are my major take-aways from the experience.

First, our consumers are woefully uneducated about food production. Now I have been aware of this for some time, but participating in the panel brought this fact home! Highly educated people have some real misconceptions and misunderstandings about where their food comes from. And to complicate matters, they don’t know where to find good information.

Second, they believe antibiotics are fed to animals (especially pigs in my panel’s case) from birth to harvest. They think the antibiotics are added for no reason and at high levels. They don’t realize the use of antibiotics come with a veterinarian’s advice and are fed on a very limited and defined basis. Explaining our practices for meat production is a tedious process, but we must do it so we don’t have those assumptions circulating. This follows he age old public relations advice of you must tell your story, because if you don’t someone else will and you won’t like that version!

Third, livestock production has changed and this group does not understand that better health, genetics, and environmental practices are the result of these changes. Modern buildings with controlled temperatures and nutrition designed for each day of the pig’s life help us provide the world’s safest food supply at a reasonable price. Efficient production does not mean bad production.

Fourth, we have to be careful not to use what I call “ag-ese”, the words that only those of us in the agriculture production business use. Our ag slang only further complicates everyone’s understanding of what we do every day. We need to stop and think what those words mean and how we need to explain to a non-agriculture population.

Fifth, some reporters really do want to learn more about our food production system and are not judgmental about that learning process. Our moderator, Ali Velshi, CNN’s Chief Business Correspondent, did an excellent job making sure all participants were involved answering questions. He asked some tough but fair questions as well as handled audience, Twitter and email questions. His genuine curiosity made it easy to explain farming practices, both crop and livestock. My favorite line from him throughout the day was, “Seedless watermelons are GMOs? I’m in! What’s the problem?”

We as agricultural producers are proud of feeding our world but that doesn’t go far when the world doesn’t understand how we produce that food. We must participate in conversations with consumers at every opportunity. I am proud of the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance for starting these dialogues with both the pro and con sides represented. It’s the only way we can explain our story to others and not just ourselves.

Useful Links

• Click here for the Food Dialogues Website
• Click here to read tweets from the Food Dialogues: New York

Media, Marketing and Healthy Choices

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C7PAsU5r_I&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Antibiotics and Your Food

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYQh-iCs9oQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Biotechnology (GMOs) and Your Food

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdle5PvTBrc&feature=player_embedded

Guest blog post by Dan Gogerty, communications editor for CAST

The Farm Bureau posted their annual report regarding the cost of the typical Thanksgiving Day meal, and at approximately $5 per person, it seems a bargain. If you compare the menu items to what you’d get for $5 at most fast food places, you’d about have to say, “I’m lovin’ it.”

I looked up the prices for 1961. I was eleven years old then, sitting at a long, crowded table in Granny Faye’s house. She wasn’t much for hosting events, but even after my grandpa died, she kept up the Thanksgiving tradition. Apparently back then she could buy turkey at 35 cents a pound, potatoes at 8 cents a pound, and two cans of pumpkin for 29 cents.

Granny’s two sons both farmed within a half mile of the home place. Farms were closer together then, and these were filled with kids—fourteen between the two families. Most of us were boys growing up under the influence of Moe, Larry, and Curly, but we managed to sit quietly during the prayer, and we appreciated the accordion-paper turkeys and pumpkins that made up the table décor. No one wrote texts or tweets as we shaped our mashed potatoes into lake beds for the gravy. No noon football games on the black and white TV, but cousin Terry might have a beat up pigskin on his lap. We were itching to get outside to play ball—what kid really likes cranberry sauce anyway? A promise of pumpkin pie is the only thing that kept us from bolting.

I have little recall of the meal chatter, but Granny might inform us that turkeys were not always the guest of honor at Thanksgiving. “Back then,” she’d say, “we used to butcher and dress barnyard chickens for the feast. Not much fun steaming and plucking feathers on a chilly morning.” We kids had been present at poultry harvest times, so a cousin might start describing the chicken-with-its-head-cut-off ritual until he was shushed. Grossing each other out was a national pastime for us boys at that age, but the Thanksgiving table was not prime territory for it.

As the autumn sun shone through the large south windows, Dad might point out, “Even though today is perfect for football, we’ve seen Thanksgivings when the ground was covered with snow. When I was about your age, the 1940 Armistice Day blizzard surprised us all. Farmers were caught out in the cornfields, hunters were nearly frozen to death in duck blinds, and chickens were stuck solid to their roosts. No weather forecasts to warn us back then.”

Even at that age, I’d seen a Thanksgiving or two when the creek banks were lined with thin ice, and the morning sun lit up frost that coated woven wire fences and corn stalks left in the field after the harvest. But today had the brilliant light of a slanting autumn sun, and as soon as we hit the yard, it was all pass, run, argue, punt, fumble, and argue some more as we conveniently ignored the fact that someone was cleaning up after the big event. Back then, adults were like benevolent extraterrestrials who usually stayed in their own universe—until chore time.

“The cow needs milkin’,” some galactic overlord would announce. “And the steers in the lot across the road need five buckets of grain and eight bales of hay.” No holiday shopping excuses to save us. The advertizing Madmen of the 60s hadn’t come up with Black Friday Frenzy, which is now morphing into Thanksgiving Day Dilemma. We were bright enough kids, but the word “shopping” was not in our vocabulary, and  merchants back then didn’t even think of hoisting Christmas on us until Thanksgiving was over.

The day was for celebrating family, and the harvest, and kids playing outside in the sunshine or the snow. And the evening was for eating the meal that I liked best—the leftovers. Dark turkey meat, warmed-up dressing with gravy on it, Mom’s homemade bread, a slice of pumpkin pie—living was easy. Until the morning after Thanksgiving.

We’re trudging up the lane toward the yellow school bus that stops in a cloud of gravel dust and dread. In a tryptophan stupor and laden with books and gym clothes, I climb aboard the not-so-magic bus and plop down in a cold seat next to a lanky high school kid with a comb in his pocket and a sneer on his face. Now that’s what I call the real Black Friday.

by dan gogerty (turkey pic from blogher.com; school bus pic from schoolbusdriver.org)

“Musings of a Pig Farmer”
By Larry Sailer

Today I’d like to share some of the things for which I’m thankful.  There’s no way that I can cover everything, and that alone speaks volumes!

First of all, I’m thankful to live in a democracy where we’re afforded the freedom of speech.  I’m thankful for TheFieldPosition.com for giving me a platform to voice my concerns, as well to share why and how I farm with those who are interested enough to read my weekly “Musings of a Pig Farmer” blog.  I’m also thankful for you since you’re reading my post!  ?

I’m thankful for the ability to express my thoughts – this alone would have been unimaginable 10 years ago.  I can still remember my first interview as the State of Iowa Feeder Pig Chairman.  Farm broadcaster Von Ketelsen interviewed me during our last feeder pig show, which we were forced to shut down to help eradicate pseudorabies.  I answered many of Von’s questions with “yes” or “no.”  Such one-word answers should have been the end of my interviews.  Fortunately, Von called me again last week for another interview.  He must still think I have something worth sharing, and I’m thankful for second chances.

In addition to learning how to better communicate my message, over the years I’ve become a better listener.  Helping farmers and ranchers be understood by the folks, who are far removed from the farm, keeps me motivated.  I’m thankful for technologies like the Internet, iPads, computers and Smartphones that allow me to make friends across the globe.  Thank you, my social media network!  I feel blessed to talk with and learn from people all over the world – from my home office.

Advocating is just one of the challenges facing us in agriculture.  Every year presents new hurdles, whether they’re regulatory or weather-related.  This past year has been no different.  Lack of rainfall caused the 2012 crop conditions to decline week after week.  Yet, we raised a crop!  I am very thankful to have had the yields I did with the very short amount of rain that fell.

Last but certainly not least, I am thankful for my close family.  We’ve made it through another year with only minor bumps in the road.  Some of those bumps seemed big at the time, but looking back, you all handled things pretty smoothly.  A heartfelt “thank you” to my wife, Janice, for putting up with me for another year and for allowing me to spend time agvocating when I could be working on her “Honey Do List.”  (Janice, I promise to try harder next year!  Maybe I’ll even get that waterfall built in 2013.)  I also want to thank my kids and grandkids for helping me on the farm and for giving me so much pleasure as I follow their lives.  Thirty-five years ago, I never thought that would never happen!  I am truly blessed by all of you.

Thanksgiving gives us time to step back and reflect.  I hope you’ll take the time this week to say a prayer and count your blessings, too!