{"id":426,"date":"2018-04-18T12:58:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T16:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/?p=426"},"modified":"2018-04-18T12:58:05","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T16:58:05","slug":"does-anyone-know-youre-doing-a-good-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/2018\/04\/does-anyone-know-youre-doing-a-good-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Anyone Know You’re Doing A Good Job?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former County Agent in Seminole County, Rome Ethredge, wrote this article in Growing America<\/a>. You can see it at that link, but I posted it below too. Rome was the agent I trained with, and the best person to ever know. I love the way he wrote this article as each generation is further removed from the farm, many, many people are truly unaware of the most basic things of agriculture. Our job needs to be known…<\/p>\n

I was with my fellow Deacons cooking breakfast for our Easter Sunrise Service crowd and someone said we wouldn\u2019t be quite through cooking when the worshippers come in the door.\u00a0 I said \u201cThat\u2019s good then they\u2019ll see us working and know we didn\u2019t just bring the food in from elsewhere.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I was reminded of times at my mother-in-law\u2019s when she would be cleaning up in the kitchen and making a lot of racket banging the pots and pans while we had\u2026 \u201cretired to the den\u201d.\u00a0 We claimed she was doing it on purpose to let us know how hard she was working. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t want folks to think we have it easy and we like to be appreciated but people often think agricultural production is a piece of cake. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think we do a good enough job in getting out the word about how hard farmers, and all involved, work to get food and fiber to consumers.\u00a0 Ag Awareness is a big deal and we need to toot our own horn sometimes.\u00a0 Part of the problem is that farmers are usually fairly humble people who work very hard and don\u2019t have or take the time to do this.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Another part of the problem is ignorance on the part of folks not involved in agriculture. I don\u2019t mean it in a bad way, I\u2019m ignorant about many things, I just don\u2019t know about them.\u00a0 I was recently ignorant of the fact that jean shorts and cargo pants are no longer in fashion, until my daughter enlightened me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a few questions I\u2019ve heard from folks that just don\u2019t know:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a corn field on my road and the farmer is just letting the corn die, why?\u00a0 They don\u2019t realize we let it mature in the field and let the drying process begin so that the corn can be stored and processed.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are they watering so much?\u201d If you would look at a farmer\u2019s electricity or diesel bill you would know that they don\u2019t water unless its needed by the crop, it\u2019s too expensive otherwise. Sometimes they will put extra water if applying needed fertilizer or fungicides through the irrigation system.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t peanuts grow on trees, like other nuts?\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s an amazing process God has for the peanut\u2019s lifecycle. They bloom aboveground then peg down into the soil<\/strong>, (you could say dirt <\/strong>but my ABAC soil science professor, Mr. Sibbett, said dirt is what\u2019s under your fingernails, there\u2019s soil in the field), and grow the pod there with 2 to 3 kernels inside.\u00a0 Recently, I met a gentleman from Hershey, Pennsylvania, a member of the Reese family. He remembered trucks delivering shelled peanuts in 100-pound bags for the tasty treat. I told him they\u2019re now mostly delivered in 2200-pound bags. He then asked if we use machinery in growing them. I said yes, we usually dig them 6 rows at a time.\u00a0 He said, \u201cYou mean they grow underground?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s remember to dispel the darkness of misunderstanding about the farm when and where we can, especially when folks are being negative. It\u2019s been said, \u201cDon\u2019t complain about farmers with your mouth full\u201d, and my friend Eddie McGriff used to end his county agent radio program with, \u201cRemember that If you ate today then you\u2019ve got God and a farmer to thank.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Amen<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former County Agent in Seminole County, Rome Ethredge, wrote this article in Growing America. You can see it at that link, but I posted it below too. Rome was the agent I trained with, and the best person to ever know. I love the way he wrote this article as each generation is further removed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/wilcoxcoag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}