I am a farm girl, and I love nothing more than a damn good steak. As you can imagine, if I was no longer able to enjoy a steak I would be pretty pissed.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I would just like to throw out there that people should stop messing with the agriculture industry. I know that’s a broad term, but it’s true!

We hear—especially as Nebraskans whose lives practically revolve around this industry—way too often about people who have no idea where their food comes from and that all those farmers are a bunch of hicks who still plow their fields with oxen in order to grow food that they could “just go to the grocery store” to get.

And these aren’t the only problems that we have as agriculturists either! On top of this, you have these people who know nothing—and mind I am talking about grown adults—trying to insert themselves in our (agriculture) business. They say each chicken needs to be free-roaming because it’s inhumane to keep them in cages, or we need to stop slaughtering animals for protein because it’s sadistic. Seriously!?

My favorite part of this whole thing is that there are people out there trying to help these people understand what actually happens on farms, in slaughterhouses, feedlots, etc.

A perfect example is that I joined the Nebraska Department of Agriculture my freshman year of college in a pen pal service the department ran. The goal was to pair me with a school in an urban area where I would send letters to one class for a year about farm life.

I got paired with a school in California and I was super excited. I didn’t have the time, but I worked my butt off for these letters—taking pictures around my parent’s farm, giving lengthy descriptions about everything I could. I did this for a bit, writing one letter a month.

I hadn’t been doing it long when the teacher emailed me and told me that she didn’t want me to send them anymore! She said they “didn’t have time.” I didn’t care how she got the information across to the students, it was just really important to me that they were getting it, but she didn’t want it!

Of course this isn’t the only example. Time and time again we see how people’s knowledge in this area keeps dwindling, and, especially to me, it seems like they don’t care.

The Humane Society, especially, doesn’t want to hear how they are wrong. This interferes with how it is “making the world better.”

Bullshit.

If there is one thing I have learned throughout my college career, it’s that you take every side into account before making a decision.

Of course, if anybody in any sort of politics did that, things would be a lot different, wouldn’t they.

So for anyone who doesn’t know, my dad uses a TRACTOR to plow his field and a COMBINE to harvest it. The crops we grow do NOT go towards our food—they are in products you use every day, like gasoline, beer, soap and literally almost everything.

Food is not somehow generated in grocery stores or factories, unless you eat nasty Ramen Noodles.

Cattle don’t feel a thing when they are slaughtered and they make a freaking delicious steak.

Try one.