In this week's Capital Press, we are printing a column by Tracy Taylor Grondine, director of media relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation, about a new blog the Farm Bureau has started.
Welcome to the blogosphere Farm Bureau.
Back in October 2005 I posed the question: Do farmers blog? The simple answer to that question is, no there aren't a lot of traditional farmers and ranchers blogging. However, there are a lot more agriculture related blogs out there now than their were back in October 2005, which it took a fair amount of digging to find many blogs to even link to from our blog.
Our list of blog links, which now includes the new Farm Bureau blog, has grown along with the number of agribloggers out there.
It is apparent that many consumers out there have a concern about the type of food they are feeding their families and the conditions under which it was grown or raised. It is also clear that modern America, now largely removed from its agrarian roots, has little understanding of agriculture practices used to grow a healthy and abundant food supply. Perhaps if more people in agriculture share their experiences on the farm and ranch they will do more than feed the bodies of their fellow Americans. Perhaps they will feed their minds and expand their knowledge of just where their food comes from and why we all should care.
1 day ago
4 comments:
Not quite too sure where you get your stats from but I am aware of hundreds of farmers who blog, including myself. Sure, we're not playing with the Big Boys, we don't get subsidized to not grow crops and blog instead, and we work dawn to dusk doing everything ourselves, but have a true poke around the interwebs and find out just how many self-producers, smallholders, homesteaders, truck farmers, market gardeners, organic, local, sustainable, biodynamic and beyond farmers are blogging. Remember--the definition of a farm, via USDA, technically speaking is any property which earns more than $1000 a year from its agricultural products. There are plenty of us out there speaking to an ever growing and aware consumer base. Collectively we outnumber the AFBF's of the world, we're human and we get response.
Actually, a lot of traditional farmers blog. If you're not seeing them its because you're not looking.
Cheers
-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org
There are blog links on this site listing more than 50 ag related blogs and websites. In general we have tried to list primarily West Coast-based blogs, or ones on topics we think West Coast agriculture folks will be interested in. I don't pretend that it is an all-inclusive list, and it is not a sponsored list. And people can find links to others from things like the comments left on our site, like those above.
I am grateful to be one of the farm bloggers to whom you link. You do a great job at Capital Press and I wish we had something similar here on the other coast
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