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Fear in Agriculture




Even in agriculture, fear is a money making scheme. It is one that is used by the government, big companies, and associations. Markets can be and have been manipulated to benefit large organizations and the conglomerate companies. The amount of jobs and revenue generated in agriculture is mind boggling. The number of people employed in agriculture is still one of the largest of any industry in the country.

Breed associations set up EPD’s to be informational and used as a tool to sell more animals. EPD's have ended up being a tool of associations to control its members. This doesn’t have to be the case. Members can and do show how phenotypical and geographical impacts are greater at being a profitable ranch than any computer generated statistic. Most people should stop asking what a bulls birth weight EPD is and start asking, out of a 100 mature cows, how many had to have calves pulled by that bull. Some don't want to publish that statistic. 

Markets are a whole different can of worms in agriculture. Right now the discrepancy between what the price of beef is being sold for in the super markets versus what the producer is getting paid is obscene. Packers are packing in the cash while our government doesn't want us to label our beef with where it came from originally. I prefer my beef Hereford and from the U.S. 

During the fear fueled year of 2020, cattle ranchers branched out on their own and went more to private label beef. They cut out the big packing houses and started offering their own farm fresh beef. This is an awesome path in my opinion. The problem is the government is still in the way. There is a shortage of USDA inspectors. Slaughterhouses are scarce and hard to open due to regulations and money. People should invest in more locations to take animals to be processed. It will benefit everyone.

The work starts at home for every problem that exists in this world. Fighting fear starts at home. Stop being afraid of starting your own clipping service. Stop being afraid to start a discussion on a topic you like or want to make a difference. Topics like organic farms versus standard farms. Organic doesn't mean healthy. Organic, is a way of farming. Stop being afraid of what others think of you. When we take control of your own house, you can then start working on other problems in the real world. 

We need to understand fear is a natural instinct. There is a lot of fight or flight built into our DNA. We cannot let outside people drive that fear. We have to look at things in a logical manner. That includes listening to real researchers and scientists. We have to trust our gut instincts and use common sense in every part of our life. The experts are the ones that farm and ranch everyday. The men and women who spend years doing research and development for the betterment of the agriculture industry. Farmers and ranchers live their lives by producing products that the world consumes; products that they consume on their supper tables each night They are not someone in a lab creating food with tons of chemicals that tries to make lab produced food taste like a natural product. 

Fear is being told and believing the term ‘factory farms’ when it comes to raising cattle. That it is harmful for the environment and cruel. 90% of the cattle operations that produce beef in this country are family owned farms. They are not factories owned by big businesses. 

Fear is being told we have to not think about ourselves, but the greater good of the community.  The problem is, no one is thinking of the greater good of the agriculture community when talking about fake meat, or the importing of beef,pork, and poultry when we have more than enough resources to produce all we need here in this country. People are not talking about the greater good of the community when it comes to keeping your family safe and able to protect them by any means necessary. 

The truth is, people in power are scared of the everyday people.That is why they keep making it harder to do things independent from the government. People in power keep making it difficult to start a program or business without the backing of a large association. It’s like starting to sell beef that qualifies for Certified Hereford Beef, and not getting the Certified Hereford Beef program to even return your calls. 

That is why there is a fence around our nation's Capital. Fear is a powerful emotion; one that can do so much harm. It can also be the best motivation. The feeling of accomplishment when fighting a fear is exhilarating. Start fighting your fears and see what you can accomplish. Psychologists say that when dreaming, you get attacked by a dragon. You have to slay that dragon. You have to attack your fears. When you slay that dragon, you have won over fear in your life. 

Free markets, capitalism, and free choice has provided for more advancement in medicine, innovations, and quality of living than any other system in the world. Most that have made those advances faced fear. They stood up everytime they got knocked down to try again. Agriculture is the backbone of this country. We produce the food that feeds the world. We all need to slay the dragons in our dreams. When we wake up, we start dismantling the dragons of government, large businesses, and associations that do more harm than good. 

"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free." - Jim Morrison

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