Our Ag kids need our Encouragement
I will soon
have the opportunity to coach some “Intro to Ag” kids about the importance of
livestock judging and oral reasons.
To me it’s
easy, looking back having the privilege of being a member of the livestock
judging team at Colorado State University was the best thing I ever did. First of all, it was very hard and my
foundation started in 4-H at age 16.
When I was doing it I didn’t understand how VALUABLE the opportunity
was. But early in my career of selling,
I had a colleague say to me “how did you learn to speak so well—on your feet?’. The answer was I judged livestock and they
said ‘what?’
The life
skill of evaluating, making decisions and then telling my story (AKA oral
reasons or why I placed them the way I did)
is what I believe to be one of the most important skills I have. Because
every day we need to communicate within our family, volunteer activities, our
chosen career and now our consumers!
Now that I
have the opportunity to encourage my own daughter along with another handful of
ag kids, I wonder what is the right thing to say.
I’ve spent a
lot of time trying to share with my children how unique they are and fortunate
to have the experience of growing up on a farm.
With only about 1 ½-2% of the population producing our food needs and a
much smaller percent of those farms have kids too! They are unique which sometimes causes them
to stick out and if we all remember, sticking out as a teenager isn’t what many
want to do.
Having the
opportunity to learn the value of hard work is fairly easy to accomplish on the
farm. But how do we encourage them to stick with agriculture when the majority
of their peers have few ideas what farmers do and would rather put them down
than recognize it as a noble career? Or viewing it as an important piece of the
puzzle of feeding the world?
