“Come gather round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.”
- Bob Dylan
It probably isn’t typical for a dairyman to start off a blog quoting from a Bob Dylan song, but the obvious implications of these lyrics are just as relevant today as they were when written in 1963.
The subject of change for a modern day dairy farmer is huge. It could quite possibly take me a year to express the issues facing the family dairy operator today…the worst dairy economy in history, major anti-agriculture sentiment by a misinformed population, crippling government regulation, controls, and obstruction, rapid consolidation of the industry, all time high feed costs, burning corn as gasoline instead of using it for food…it is a veritable perfect storm of disaster.
So with all these issues stacked against me, why the hell do I do it? This is a question I have been seriously contemplating over the past few years and it basically comes down to the following: The love of the land, the love of the animals, and the love of my family. Not in that order of course.
I plan on expanding further on each of these issues in future postings, however today we are harvesting wheat for silage and preparing the ground to plant corn so I only have time to explain why I picked the title of this post.
You can be sure “the times they are a changin’”, or maybe it would be more accurate to say, “the times they have changed” when dairy farmers see the need to post blogs to the internet in order to defend their way of life. You see, it used to be pretty well accepted that us dairy farmers were responsible stewards of the land and loving caretakers of our animals. The reality is that we have not changed in this respect. What has changed is the public’s view of what we do. This view hasn’t changed because dairymen have started neglecting their animals or polluting their land, it has changed because we have allowed people to become disconnected from where their food comes from. As a result of this disconnection they have become susceptible to the insane ramblings of greedy and corrupt lawyers masquerading as advocates for organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States. (which, by the way, does not rescue cats & dogs contrary to what they want you to believe)
The times they are a changin’ and us dairymen who once held a position of trust and considered producers of a wholesome and necessary product are now required to take up a defensive stance. This is our own fault for taking for granted that people would always be on our side because they understand what we do and how we do it. We were wrong. It is now time for us to earn back that position of respect and live up to our promise to our friends & neighbors and remind them we are the REAL environmentalists, we are “the green” industry, we are the advocates for animal welfare. How we allowed ourselves to be on the wrong side of these issues I will never know, but I do know it is time for us to take it back…..by starting a dairy blog.
And so here we go.
