In all honesty, the past couple of weeks haven't been horrible. They've just been jam packed with things to do. The greatest part is that these "things" have been very helpful/encouraging/interesting/meaningful steps along my journey as an ag advocate.
Here goes my attempt at catching you up...
This semester I am in a creative non-fiction class, and while it's A LOT of work (not really hard, just time consuming) I am loving it. If I could just write non-fiction English-style stories for the rest of my life, that would be down-right spiffy. But that's probably not going to happen, so... I'm a journalism major! Yay!
Anyway....
You all know that my passion is writing stories that come from an agricultural perspective, whether it be based off of my life experiences or someone else's. I also like to write about how conventional agricultural methods aren't evil and how organic methods aren't the only way to go. I don't think it's a black-and-white situation by any means; I believe all production methods are important and worthwhile. It just irks me when I see marketing that fuels misconceptions. So, of course these strong interests of mine had to make their way into my first story for class.
The story is set in the grocery store I toured with a group of other ag students while on a conference in St. Louis. At the time, I had no idea "organic," "grass-fed," and "cage-free," were such big trends in the food market. At the grocery store, my peers and I were fed information that we knew wasn't completely true. Or maybe it was true, there was just another side of the issue they failed to acknowledge. They forgot our families' voices.
In my story, I attempt to illuminate another side of the food story. While walking through the aisles, the reader is in my head and viewing the store the way I saw it. In addition, the reader is transported to my family's farm and gets a look into different agricultural practices that, hopefully, sheds some light into why antibiotics are used, why cages aren't always a bad thing and why it's not terrible to feed cattle something in addition to grass. My goal was not to convert my readers away from organic, not in any way. My goal was for them to see how misleading marketing can be. Not only is perception different than reality, it can also be more powerful.
I'm sure you don't need me to tell you I was nervous. Really, I was BEYOND nervous. This is my life. This is my viewpoint, and it is a widely debated one. I often feel like the agricultural industry is belittled or painted as a bunch of greedy corporates pumping out high quantities of low-quality, unsafe food. Either that or the other side of the spectrum- as uneducated hicks. I won't say the agricultural industry is perfect (what is?), but I will say that has not been my experience.
So as I was sitting in class waiting for everyone to give me their opinion of my piece, I was feeling a little sweaty and my heart was pounding. And then the first comment was....
"Fabulous! I absolutely loved it!"
Ok, definitely not what I expected, but at least I was smiling now. My classmates and teacher expressed their interest in this issue, and was glad I had the ability to bring a voice into it they hadn't heard before. The class went through our traditional round of praise and then constructive criticism, and I was very pleased. I wasn't sure what to expect out of this diverse group of students (none lived on a farm, though one had a friend who lived on one in Texas), so I was very interested in their responses. They wanted more. They wanted to see what farm life was like, and they liked being able to read something where they learned something new but didn't feel like it because of the creative aspect. Definitely positive.
After class, I went to the library to study and was sidetracked by reading all of their review letters to me. Most were very interested and wanted to know of life on the farm. A few were skeptical. Only one was what I would consider rude. To me, it was a success and encouragement. This is what I need to be doing.
I wasn't out to convert my classmates away from organic, I just wanted them to see it wasn't as black-and-white as marketing makes it out to be. There are a lot of options out there and they all have their purposes, their advantages and disadvantages.
Writing this essay was a huge step for me. It's pretty much exactly what I want to do in the future (even if I'm not sure how that's going to work out financially) and there seemed to be a great deal of interest in it.
Now I'm working on a cross-cultural project and have met a few interesting characters, but that's enough for now. There are more adventures to come!
