Farmers need your support, loyalty

By Blake Hurst

City councils in Cleveland, Alexandria (Virginia) and Chicago have all recently passed resolutions banning the administration of antibiotics to farm animals, unless they're sick -- the animals, not the city councils.

It seems that the further people get from the farm, the more opinions they have about how food ought to be produced. When your only connection to the growing of crops and animals is paying the monthly bill to a lawn care company, farming seems pretty darned easy.

I'm convinced there are more than a few of our city cousins who unknowingly hire the local yard service to spread a monthly dose of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on their lawns, while at the same time frequenting the organic aisles of their local grocery store.

Farming is risky, dirty, dangerous, demanding and always comes down to working hard to surmount the challenges that nature puts in the way of food production. Sure, I understand that we have to work with nature, that we have to protect nature, that the environment is important. But I also understand what army worms can do to a hay crop or root worms to a corn crop. We need to cooperate with the environment, but sometimes Mother Nature doesn't get the memo about how we should all get along.

On August 5, voters will have the chance to help ensure our food supply. Farmers need your support so we can continue to do what we do. I hope that every citizen of Missouri has a successful gardening year, that those backyard chickens are laying, that the community gardens across the state produce tomatoes that find a home next to some bacon from a Missouri farm.

And I hope everyone interested in farming and eating will support Amendment #1.

Blake Hurst, of Westboro, Mo., is the president of Missouri Farm Bureau.