Urban Friends and a Terrible Public Relations Department

May is Beef Month

May is Beef Month and I am thinking about what that means. Naming a day or month means that it is being celebrated. Donut Day is a great celebration of fried bread for example! So… someone is celebrating beef. I do not honestly know if the industry named May beef month to sell more beef or if people who eat beef named it out of gratitude- and for me, that is not the point.

Support for the beef industry

As I watch and listen, I see people’s perceptions about beef. Recently Colorado’s Governor Polis proclaimed a Meat Out Day, which resulted in widespread support to beef producers. Bachman Family Farms experienced a sudden bump in sales for about ten days not explained by our marketing efforts. I also saw many posts on social media as well as articles and emails that showed amazing support for the beef industry.

Thank you for supporting our family farm

Thank you to all who support our family’s farm and the U.S. Agriculture industry. I am sincerely grateful for and amazed at the kind support that we have received. It is scary and frustrating to see documentaries and headlines about alternatives that threaten our business. And at the same time, people that have bought our beef have been so kind with their words and smiles. We are so glad that we actually get to know our customers now instead of just selling commodities. Thank you, a million times over, thank you.

Friends in Urban Areas

Through college at Oklahoma State, family connections, places we have lived, people we have worked with, and social media, we have made many wonderful and awesome friends across the country. Many of our friends live in urban areas: Dallas, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Kansas City, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, Little Rock, and so on.

Terrible Public Relations Department

It hit me in talking with our urban friends about their perceptions of farming, that most farms have a TERRIBLE PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT! What industry is worse at PR than agriculture!? Coca-Cola, Nike, General Electric, Starbucks, and others spend millions on communicating with the public. My grandpa never did that with his farm! He just shipped cattle and wheat and probably did not know where it ended up! We can do so much better.

I want anyone who is reading this to know several things:

•         We care what you think about what we do on our farm.
•         We try our very best to be stewards of the land and animals we work with.
•         The quality of our products is truly incredible.

Understand and respect the source of our food

Additionally, I hope that people will consider this. No matter what our heritage, eating meat is a part of it. Most people would never shame a people group based on where they came from when they have no control over that. I have friends that are Native American, Hispanic, Black, White, and Asian American. All of our ancestors historically ate meat when possible and many had a deep, even spiritual respect for their food supply (with disgraceful exceptions such as the annihilation of the buffalo by humans). I am not saying we need to conserve everything from our past, as there is much that has progressed and improved with time. At the same time, let us not be ashamed of where we came from. I challenge you to understand this. What is lost if we no longer understand and respect the source of our food?