When Ryan sent several folks a note asking whether we would be willing to write a guest post explaining why we are ag thankful, I immediately said yes. Then the reality of the world stepped in and I found myself struggling to find a specific reason for being ag thankful for me to focus on.
It’s not that I’m not thankful, it’s just I couldn’t find one or two things to focus on for a blog post! Reality is, I have dozens of things I’m thankful for in ag. So rather than try and tell a story that I tend to share pieces of on my blog every week, I’m going to list some of the biggest things to come to mind right now.
- People being able to follow their passions! It’s incredible that just two percent of the US spends there time producing food for all of the rest of us. If your passion happens to be agriculture, then thank you for producing the food my family & I eat! And thanks so much for giving me the flexibility to pursue communications!
- Awesome friends! With my passion for communications intersecting with agriculture, I was brought right into the best community ever! Farmers who open their heads, hearts and homes for me.
- Science never ceases to amaze me – There are almost too many to even start a list BUT I have to think about precision agriculture that gauges field conditions and adjusts application rates, irrigation equipment that allows for water placement in the root zone and biotechnology that has made in-plant insect control a reality (though I sometimes wish we were controlling mosquitoes better). We produce more food for our growing population while allowing for conservation of resources like land & water – that’s really cool science!
- Food diversity that ROCKS! I love so many different things to eat and the wonderful world of agriculture lets me taste so many great things! From fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables to meats, poultry, fish and of course all of the yummy starches like breads, cereals and potatoes!
There are lots of other reasons to be ag thankful…. And I will keep sharing those. I hope you share your reasons too!
Janice Person is a fourth generation Memphian, yep that means she’s born & raised in the city of Memphis, TN! Having lived in Oklahoma, New York, Mississippi and heading to Missouri soon and traveled extensively, she’s had the chance to see lots of places & meet lots of people. She stumbled into agriculture through her passion for communications while in college and hasn’t looked back since. She shares her personal ag-related thoughts through her blog and Twitter account. Janice is also on the AgChat Foundation Advisory Board, AgChat’s mission is to empower farmers to share their stories and connect with the 98% of our population not engaged in production agriculture.