AgProud: Family Dairy Farming

What’s it like to be on the same land your family has farmed on since the 1800s? Trent Bown knows and it’s something to make him Agriculture Proud. I’m excited to have this Utah family dairy farmer featured on my month-long series about the diversity of Agriculture. He does a great job showing how a family can farm on a larger scale and shows how dairy farmers care for their cattle. It’s another feature in the diversity we have in modern Agriculture. Why are YOU Agriculture Proud?

A few weeks back Ryan asked me to write a guest post on his blog about how being a family dairy farmer makes me Ag Proud. It got me to thinking….

I’m proud to be farming in the same spot that my family has been since the late 1800’s! My family started as most did back in that time, with a little bit of everything. A small chunk of land, a few pigs, chickens, sheep, horses & cows. They raised little more than they needed to survive on. Over the years different parts of the family took different aspects of the farm and went their own ways. The beef cows and the pigs aren’t around anymore and outside of my immediate family their are only a couple of cousins still involved in agriculture at all.

The farm now employs about 18 people and ships out 90,000 pounds of milk every single day. We certainly don’t do things the same way they did back then. We drive tractors instead of horses. We milk 40 cows at a time, in an efficient barn, not 4 at a time from a stool. If we need something, we hop on a computer and order it up, we don’t have to wait for the weekly trip into town for supplies. However, through all the years and all the changes, one thing remains the same…

The joy I feel getting up and going to work everyday. The gratification I feel after a long day in the fields. The beauty I see in a new calf standing up for the first time. I am proud to be trusted with the responsibility to care for these beautiful animals. I’m proud that I’m fortunate enough to work on this beautiful piece of land that God saw fit to bless this family with! Just as I’m sure my ancestors felt.

I AM PROUD TO PLAY A PART OF AGRICULTURE!

Be sure to check out Trent’s pages online, his blog, Facebook, and Twitter.