I Believe in Farming and Ranching by Elizabeth Snyder

A lot of people like corn, we enjoy chicken and beef from the local Wal-Mart and I'm pretty sure people don't have a cow in their back yard that they milk before breakfast. So where does all of the produce and meat we buy come from? Well I can grantee that the people unloading the food at stores don't grow or raise it, but I do know that it's the farmers and ranchers that we rely on for our milk, cheese, produce, meat and virtually everything else. I believe in farming and ranching because our lives revolve around it

Agriculture is a very important part of our lives. Think about without people to grow our food what would there be to buy at the stores? The farmers that grow the food are hard at work all year round. In the spring they are plowing, fertilizing, and planting, then in the summer they are constantly checking their fields and plants, spraying pesticide and making sure everything is working just fine. When fall comes around the farmers are busy all day everyday and sometimes through the night harvesting and sending their products to stores, factories, and silos all over the state. Then even in the winter these guys are busy selling the yields, sourcing seeds for next year, and planning which field to plant what in. Then they are back at it in the spring and repeating this cycle year after year.

Ranchers are the other ones that raise their animals for meat to put on the shelves. They are just as busy as farmers. They are constantly feeding, watering, and breeding their animals until they are ready to be butchered and sold by the pound. They get up early and go to bed late and in the late winter early spring they over look the calving and other births of the animals they raised. When I was a kid we had a friend that was a farmer and a rancher. He grew his crops to feed his cattle and sold his cattle to be sold for meat.

He was very busy because in the morning he would get up around five and have pancakes for breakfast made by his wife. Then he would go to the barn and let the horses off their lead ropes so they could walk over to their pens and wait for him to let them in. Then he would feed them hay and make sure they had water. When he got done with all of that, he would get in his tractor and start to mix corn, minerals, and other food together for his cattle. He would then go to each and every pen, or pasture feeding the cattle and filling their troughs then he switched out tractors and went to spread hay for the heifers in the east pastures. By noon he was checking cattle and calves for sickness or anything strange on horseback with his wife. In the evening he would again feed all of his cattle and move his horses back into the barn and feed and water them. All of his cows would stay with him for at least one year then he would take them to auction and sell them making several grand each trip.

I believe in farming and ranching because our lives revolve around it. I know that it is a very important part of my life and without it there would be no food. So remember to say thank you to a farmer or rancher sometime because they are the ones growing and raising the food you eat every day. I believe in farming and ranching.