#1 Thing Farmers Want Consumers to Know
Earlier this month I attended a #FieldtoFork event with CommonGround Minnesota. We invited influencers from various groups to a farm to share what life is like for farmers. We ate food provided by Minnesota farmers and enjoyed conversation with some of the most curious and open-minded folks who wanted to understand farming and how their food gets from the field to their dinner tables.
After a delicious dinner, we held a Q &A to answer any questions that the attendees had about food and farming. One attendee asked a great question that I thought many would love to hear the answer to: “What is one thing that farmers want every consumer to know?”
Well, here is my answer to that: YOUR FOOD IS SAFE!
I am the mom to three beautiful little girls and I would do anything for them, including providing the safest and healthiest food that I can. Every mother frets about the food that their children are eating or not eating, and I am no exception. My family is eating that same food that every other mother is providing for their families. Also, we farmers are working hard to provide your family, along with my own, with the safest and healthiest food we can.
Besides providing healthy food, we live and work on our farm so we would never do anything that would be unsafe for our children or the environment around them. We want the environment to thrive under our care so that someday our children can enjoy this amazing farm life just as our parents did for us, so hurting the environment is just simply not an option. We are always looking for new ways and technology that will make less impact on the environment and leave it better off for future generations.
Therefore, regardless of the label or packaging or how it was raised, no matter the store or market that you bought it at, and despite what Dr. Oz or the ladies from The View say, your food is safe, healthy and nutritious.
About the Author
Rebekah Gustafson spends her days as a mom to three horse-crazy little girls, and as a wife to her husband, Neil, in a small town in northwest Wisconsin, where they were both born and raised on small dairy farms. She shares her passion for agriculture through her blog Cooped Up Creativity, as an administrator for the Ask The Farmers blog and volunteering for CommonGround.
