Chute N The Bull

I am disturbed by the number of people in this country who seem to take agriculture for granted. Many have had little to no experience with the land and only know what they read and hear from what are often unreliable sources. They jump on bandwagons about global warming, animal rights, energy use or even belching cows, largely uninformed. Agriculture cannot be understood by only reading books or listening to people with political agendas. It is a business that has been passed on through generations of research, knowledge and experience.


Our country seems to have become "environmentally aware" in the last 30-40 years, but we understand little about food and what it takes to produce it. Why is this? The answer, in my opinion, is that most Americans spend less than 10 percent of their disposable income to support their dietary needs. According to the USDA's Economic Research Service, food expenditures by families and individuals as a share of disposable income were 13.8 percent in 1970, 11 percent in 1988 and only 9.6 percent in 2008. Could it be that food is too cheap or Americans are too wealthy, and we have little need to be worried about where our next meal will come from or how we will pay for it? We hear too much talk about GMOs, cap and trade, carbon sequestration and cows belching gases into the atmosphere causing global warming and too little about the security of our nation due in part to our agriculture industry. Somehow we need to educate the public that farmers, ranchers and land managers are an essential link to the health and success of our society. We should all care about the environment, but land managers must do more to educate the public about the safe, wholesome and inexpensive food and fiber our industry provides to the nation and the world. There has never been a more important time for us to portray ourselves as stewards of the land and educate the public about our business.

Lloyd Noble understood the importance of agriculture to our nation, and this is one of the reasons why he established the Noble Foundation. Mr. Noble believed people who were raised on the land were people of character and integrity with moral and spiritual values, and that people who raised livestock and crops had a much greater appreciation for their fellow man. He once said that "the ownership of a piece of land, no matter how large or how small, is the greatest defense there is against tyranny." He was a man of forethought and vision.

Since carbon and CO2 emissions are of such interest today, maybe it would be beneficial if those of us who manage the land were known as "carbon facilitators." After all, our real job is to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere with the plant factories growing on the land. The sequestered CO2 in the plants is then removed by livestock and wildlife. This is all done with hopes of making a profit so that the system can be sustained. Most of the carbon we sequester in our grazing lands is recycled by herbivores and insects, thus remaining in our lands' carbon sink. Our goal as carbon facilitators is to keep this system operating as efficiently as possible. If we graze our factories too short, we sequester less carbon and production decreases because we become overstocked. On the other hand, if we let our factories get too mature, efficiency decreases and we limit profitability because we become understocked.

In short, a carbon facilitator is one who manages a very complicated and always evolving factory. He is educated about the environment and works very hard to balance the process of photosynthesis for optimum plant growth with livestock and wildlife production for economic and ecologic sustainability. So the next time you're visiting with someone and they ask, "What line of work are you in?" casually reply, "I'm a carbon facilitator," and be ready to answer their questions. If we do not begin to educate others of agriculture's importance to society, we may wake up one day and find ourselves dependent on other nations for our food and fiber.

"It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

You can find this and past articles on the web at www.mycountrytractor.blogspot.com for your reference. Extension programs serve of all ages regardless of socioeconomic level, race, color, sex, religion, disability, or national origin. The Texas A&M University System, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the County Commissioners Courts of Texas Cooperating serve of all ages regardless of socioeconomic level, race, color, sex, religion, disability, or national origin. The Texas A&M University System, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the County Commissioners Courts of Texas Cooperating

Thank you,


Tommy Neyland

County Extension Agent
Texas Agrilife Extension Service
Centerville, Texas 75833
903.536.2531 phone
903.536.3804 fax