One of the prettiest sights & smells this time of year is a blooming field of Meadowfoam!
It is harvested for seed, then crushed for oil and used in cosmetics. The meal, the byproduct from crushing, is used to feed cattle. Bees are used to help pollinate the flower and in return make delicious honey!
Filed under Agriculture, Oregon, Seeds
Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking at the Harrisburg High School FFA’s annual banquet.
I asked on facebook what I should talk about, I got a variety of answers so I tried to touch on all of it.
Nine years ago I walked the halls of this high school. Since then I have worked as a cheese maker, milk truck driver, pasteurizer, lobbyists’ intern, Farm Credit banker and now farmer. I graduated from Washington State University in 2008 with two degrees one in General Agriculture and one in Agricultural Economics & Management. I am currently president of Oregon Women for Agriculture and an AgChat Foundation Board member.
All of that wouldn’t be possible without agriculture and following what I am passionate about.
I love talking about agriculture and issues facing farmers and ranchers. I love using social media. I often use social media to talk about farming.
In 2009 I joined twitter to participate in a weekly twitter conversation about agriculture called #Agchat. Little did I know what a few tweets would turn into. I started a blog in February 2011 to expand on my tweets and facebook posts. In August 2011 I attended my first AgChat Foundation AgVocacy 2.0 conference.
The mission of the AgChat Foundation is to “Empower farmers and ranchers through social media.” The conferences offer training to better your social media skills and use them to engage others about farming, ranching and where their food comes from. In December of 2011 they asked me to be on their board.
I now chair the #agchat & #Foodchat conversations on twitter. #Agchat happens every Tuesday from 5 pm to 7 pm except every 3rd Tuesday when #FoodChat takes place. In June, I am going to New York City on behalf of the AgChat Foundation to another type of social media conference to discuss knowing your farmer through the twitter chats.
It is amazing where following your passion will lead you. I encourage you to do just that. Find your passion and live it.
If you are passionate about agriculture then there are limitless possibilities of where that could lead you. Ag offers variety of opportunities and options.
Currently 1 in 8 jobs in Oregon are tied to agriculture. While not everyone can be a farmer and not everyone can be an ag banker. If you want to pursue a career in agriculture it’s more than possible. Look at the variety of jobs I had in the past 9 years, they all involved agriculture of some type.
My freshman year of college I was not quite sure the direction I wanted to go in. A mentor told me to get a degree in Agriculture because a politic science degree was a dime a dozen. And it was true. I graduated right when a recession was happening. My friends who didn’t have experience or a degree in agriculture had trouble finding jobs. While the majority of us “ag kids” had jobs lined up.
Bottom line is that the experience you are getting being involved in FFA and ultimately agriculture is priceless to the success of your future.
We still use two-way radios on our farm, however it is usually during harvest. Today my dad’s phone is busted so we are relying on radios if he needs to get ahold of me.
We also have handles: My dad is 007 and I am B-41.
If you follow me on twitter or instagram you know that I use MarieB41 as my “handle” on social media.
Where did the B41 come from? My grandpa. I am the oldest grandkid & my next cousin wanted to be B-1, so my grandpa said I should be B-41 (B four-one)…get it? Now you know. 
We know what they did before cell phones. Now I just wondered what they did before radios? A lot of hand signals while jumping up & down in the field?
Filed under Agriculture, family, Grandparents
There is no Oregon’s Monsanto Protection Act.
The anti-GMO, anti-technology, regressive crowd has given that title to SB 633, Seed Preemption.
To begin, there is no such thing as the Monsanto Protection Act…anywhere. There was a Plant Protection Act passed recently in congress. This protects farmers who had legally purchased and planted seed from activist judges who make decisions based on rhetoric and emotion from declaring legal seeds and plants to be illegal and ordering them to be destroyed.
I testified in favor of SB 633 over a month ago. I still stand by that testimony and the bill.
I have been accused of not supporting democracy and opposing local control because of my support for Seed Preemption. Let’s be clear about this.
As I responded to a recent blog comment.
I am a believer in Farm and Let Farm and I don’t believe in restricting my neighbor’s choice of what he plants. I do believe in being a good neighbor and discussing the options and the science of cross-pollination. If one is truly worried about cross-pollination there are multiple options to how to avoid it besides an outright ban.
Ultimately it is about freedom and choice and once laws & politicians start regulating what we can and cannot grow we lose both.
Lastly, SB 633 has little to do with GMOs and Monsanto. The Anti-crowd even acknowledges this in a recent Action Alert. They direct their followers to not mention GMOs when contacting legislators….
Hmm..
This bill makes a level playing field for all Oregon farmers and supported by both Organic and Conventional farmers. If you look through the anti-crowd’s rhetoric and scare tactics you will see that it is a common sense bill.
Good Neighbor Farmers
“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the differance”
― Mark Twain
I have been guilty of the above quote once or twice. This weekend was a prime example of that.
Often times I browse the Anti-GMO facebook pages to keep up to date on any activities they may be up to. A majority or all of the time I do not agree with what they have to say. But it’s important to know where they are coming from and how they are approaching the topic of biotechnology.
Here’s what happened.
I saw this:
I thought, “Two can play this game.” I commented on their post with the link below as an example of correlation does not mean causation.
They appeared to take offense to me…personally.
I woke up Sunday morning to this:
Their facebook post about me was actually quite long. It contained several facts about my life, what organizations I was involved with and a recent tweet I had retweeted. Of course it was information anyone could have gathered by a simple google search. All the same, I feel like they were trying to discredit and attack me.
My bogus “Organic food causes Autism” link had rubbed someone the wrong way. I thought I was being humorous & facetious. However, I was inadvertently being counterproductive to any possibility of a reasonable discussion.
Simply put, I was acting like a troll. From that point on anything that I said of substance was mute.
My first exchange with this page should not have been one of sarcasm and satire.
Truth be told I should have never made contact at all. Often times groups and pages like these are the fringe, the 5% of people who passionately believe in their cause and no amount of evidence will sway them. If I choose to interact with these pages or groups again I will keep responses tempered in facts and experiences, not one of frivolous rhetoric.
Lesson learned.
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Filed under AgVocacy
I admire people who go above and beyond to help others be successful. It truly takes a special type of person.
Judi Graff is one of these types of people. She loves to help people like me figure out how to make their blog better.
During the month of March a few of us joined what I like to call a “Blog Boot Camp”. Like most boot camps (usually fitness oriented) my participation dwindled at the end. However unlike my workout routine, I will still work at blog improvement using the tips I learned and continue to reference the secret “Blog Overhaul” Facebook group.
Through her suggestions and instructions I have revamped my “About” page, added a “Contact” page and cleaned up my side bar. I will continue to work on how the blog appears to a readers’ eye along with making behind the scenes adjustments to draw additional traffic.
I have learned blogging doesn’t have to be hard, you just have to know what you’re doing. :)
People like Judi Graff help make blogging easier. Thanks Judi for all you do!
Read more about the Blog Overhaul and blogs & bloggers involved on Janice Person’s blog: “How Do You Make Your Blog Better? Time, Effort & Shared Expertise”
Filed under AgVocacy
Remember our winter project, the tracks on the fertilizer buggy. It was completed last week and has been hard at work fertilizing annual ryegrass fields.
Here are some pictures and a video!
Before:
After/Now:
Watch this:
Filed under Agriculture
On Tuesday, I testified in front the Oregon Senate Committee on Rural Communities and Economic Development in support of Senate Bill 633, Seed Preemption.
This bill would keep legislation and regulation of agriculture seed at the state level.
Why is this bill needed? Recently there have been activists in the county level who seek to ban the growing of certain types of crops. If passed on a county level it would require the county to regulate & enforce the new ban. Counties simply do not have the resources, expertise nor money to make this even remotely possible.
Why do I care? As I explain in my testimony, we farm in two counties. In Lane County there are groups of people who do not believe I should grow grass seed because it causes hay fever and is not a food crop. Never mind the part that grass fields are a primary source of feed for sheep and cattle.
Also generally speaking, I despise regulations on farmers as they seem to grow in number each year. If counties or even cities start making laws on seed that would mean we as farmers have to follow city, county, state & federal laws. Seems a bit ludicrous. This bill if passed would ultimately help ease the regulatory burden on today’s farmer.
We need less legislation and regulation and more conversation with our neighbors. You know that whole coexistence thing. However, after hearing some of the testimony yesterday I would seriously question the reasoning and open-mindedness of the opponents of this bill.
My friend & fellow blogger, Brenda Kirsch also testified in support of the bill.
Here is my testimony:
Dear Senate Committee on Rural Communities & Economic Development,
My name is a Marie Bowers and I am a 5th generation farmer in the Southern Willamette Valley. I recently have returned to the family farm in hopes to continue our century long tradition. We farm meadowfoam, wheat and grass seed in two counties, Linn and Lane.
I am here today in support of SB 633. Typically I am not in favor of bills that enact regulations on farmers. However, ultimately this bill will result in less regulatory burden on farmers and on counties.
As I mentioned my family farms in two counties, I cannot imagine what kind of nightmare it would be if either Linn or Lane County decided to create their own seed policies. What would that mean for our seed transportation, seed cleaning facility, our land values, and our marketability? What about my future? Which potential county policy will allow a young farmer to succeed?
Our rural counties are struggling for funds. Their first obligation should be to the basic public services and economic development, not enforcing regulations that should be done at a state level. Oregon Department of Agriculture has the resources and scientists to make sure ALL regions of Oregon have what they need in terms of regulations.
While I am proud I come from the Grass Seed Capital of the World also known as Linn County, Oregon, I am an Oregonian first. This bill serves and promotes all Oregonians to be successful.
Thank you for your time today and I hope you support this bill for young farmers, Oregonians and all of our futures.
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Filed under Agriculture, Legislature, Oregon, Seeds
Last September we seeded our first round of cover crops on roughly 200 acres. These crops that we will never harvest are probably the most exciting thing on the farm right now for me.
What is a Cover Crop
A cover crop does just what it says. It covers the soil during the period between the time you harvest one crop and plant the next.
Oregon grass seed farmers have been promoting annual ryegrass as a cover crop in the Midwest for nearly twenty years. My friend Brian Scott, who I met through my social media networks, blogs about why they chose to use cover crops this year. Lucky for him he happened to know an annual ryegrass farmer. :)
Filed under Agriculture, Oregon, Seeds
I stopped by a local restaurant the other night to pickup dinner. While I was waiting the manager asked “Are you farming this winter?” I responded, “Yes of course.” Manager, “What is there to do this time of year?”
It may be a slower time of year but there is ALWAYS something to do, contrary to popular belief.
Maintenance & Projects
Each tractor, swather, combine, semi-truck, sprayer and fertilizer buggy is gone through in detail. Changing oil, replacing belts, repairing temporary fixes from harvest and any other thing that may arise. We do this each winter to make sure our equipment is taken care of. Things break on the farm but poor maintenance shouldn’t be the reason.
This year we have a big project in the shop. Our three-wheeled fertilizer spreader/buggy is getting tracks! Why? Because we get stuck. Working on wet ground during spring fertilizing makes getting stuck a likely possibility. Our oversized tires help to prevent this but the tracks will increase surface area and hopefully stop this…
This is not even that bad….
This will be the only three-wheeled machine of its kind in the Willamette Valley if all goes as planned.
Winter Field Work
There are a few sunny days or at least days that are not raining in the winter, so we must take advantage of them. On these precious few days we try to get a spot spraying crew in the fields. Spot spraying is a technique that selectively eliminates unwanted or rogue plant species that are detrimental to the crop. Without this practice seed purity could be compromised which affects its marketability.
We fight slugs. Typically we have mild winters which creates a prime environment for slugs to eat our crops. Some years are worse than others, but no matter the year we must be on the look out for them. Slugs know no boundaries, my friend Brenda has battles with them as well.
Fields are checked frequently for any other unpredicted issue and make sure nothing has been missed.
Office Work
The family farm is a business. During harvest, you pay the bills but spend minimal time behind a desk. The winter is time to catch up on book work and finances, a not always fun but a necessary part of the business.
In a typical winter we are shipping grass seed. This requires tracking inventory, sending seed lab tests, invoicing companies and receiving payments.
This year we have a new software program to analyze our yield maps. This requires some “classroom” time to learn, then upload and then interpret. data.
Meetings
It seems that every farm organization have their annual meetings in the winter. So far I have attended American Agri-Women, Oregon Seed Growers League, Oregon Cattleman’s Association, Oregon Ryegrass Growers and plan on attending Oregon Women for Agriculture’s annual meeting in March. There are too many to list that I wish I could attend. This is a time for farmers not only to learn and get updates on the crops they farm but also to socialize with other farmers.
FUN
I would be remiss if I said there was no fun. Yes, there is lots of work to do in the winter on the farm but it is a time for us to relax a little bit.
We have our annual lamb BBQ towards the end of December. We invite the folks we have done business with over the last year and the neighbor farmers. It’s an event that my family has been doing for 20+ years.
And of course there’s the occasional snowmobiling trip and weekend getaways as well.
I am sure I have forgotten a few items that my dad will remind me of when he reads this post, but like I said there is no lack of work on the farm in the winter.
Filed under Agriculture, Farming, Livelihood
