To the Woman Who Listened. . .

Dear Woman at Church, 

Thank you for hearing what I had to say.

Sincerely, 

A Farmer

A woman stopped me at church this morning.  She told me that she appreciates my posts to FaceBook.  She said that she never questioned the labeling of her food.  She confessed that she took the labels at face value.  If something said it was organic, then she thought that meant that no GMOs were involved in the production of the product.  She also thought that meant that the product was made or raised using no pesticides or chemicals of any sort.  She said that the articles that I post to FaceBook have done a lot to educate her on American farming and food practices.  She even said that her perceptions of the American farmer and the farming process have changed since reading many of the articles I have shared.  And, she told me that I am making a difference by sharing these posts on FaceBook.  

Needless to say, I was touched.  Sometimes I think I am wasting my time in trying to encourage the consumer to think about their food logically rather than rush to a rash judgment based on the organic or GMO free label.  The label that the consumer pays so dearly for does not necessarily mean that it is chemical free.  And, a non-GMO label can be very deceptive.   

So, what exactly has this woman learned from my posts?  She now knows that a GMO is a genetically modified organism.  It is not an additive to the food chain.  All vegetables, fruits, and grains today are genetically modified to some extent.  And, this is something that really made this woman think that maybe, just maybe all of those labels on her food at the specialty organic grocery market she frequents were misleading.  She now understands that even her pet dog is genetically modified or manipulated to some extent, otherwise she might have a pet wolf.  

Until last week, when I posted a FaceBook link to one of Dairy Carrie's blog posts that decried the mislabeling of products marketed by the Lifeway Dairy company citing concrete proof that a dairy processor was purposely mislabeling its products, the woman at church was happy to believe that her organic gallon of milk was worth every penny of the $7.59 that she paid weekly.  When I posted the link to Dairy Carrie's blog, the church woman decided that she would rather purchase a gallon of milk that was just as nutritious, just as safe to consume but not so expensive nor pretentious as the milk from the organic grocery store.

This touches me in more ways than the church lady can ever know!  At the August Session of AgriPOWER Class IV, we discussed at great length the power of social media.  Those in the anti-agriculture movement are already ahead of the curve when it comes to use of social media.  This led me to state that I have a love/hate relationship with social media.  And, until the church woman told me that she was really beginning to appreciate the work of the traditional American Farmer, I would say that lately my relationship with social media was leaning towards hate/hate.  

Yes, thank you, dear woman at church.  I am glad that you are finding a new appreciation for the American Farmer.