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Too Much Information?

Twenty years ago while a senior at Western Illinois University I had the pleasure of making acquaintance with a musician known as “Pork.” There were a number of bands that “ran the college circuit.” This man’s band “Pork and the Havana Ducks” was one of the most popular. Of course he had the reputation of being a wild man on the stage as well as off, but having hired his band to play for several ag department functions, I was given the opportunity to know him on a slightly different level than many of my friends. He asked a lot of questions about agriculture, and as an ag education major, I believed it was my mission to educate. Pork, whose real name was Jerry Armstrong, asked intelligent questions, and I believe he truly got a kick out of our conversations.

One evening between sets at a party for our Hoof ‘n Horn Club, Pork asked, “”What is the difference between a Hereford and a Polled Hereford?” Lucky him, I was taking a senior-level animal science genetics class at the time. On a bar napkin, I carefully drew a heritability table and told him about heritability quotients and all of the other algebraic equations I could think of related to the subject. After my 10-minute genetics lecture, Pork looked at me with a smirk on his face and said, “So, what you’re telling me is. . . one of ‘em ain’t got any horns?”

I share this with you because I believe that we, as an agricultural industry, often make the same mistake that I made with Pork. We offer too much information. I’m not suggesting that we hold back the truth, but that we instead, present it in a more understandable fashion. Because most of the people in this country are several generations removed from the farm, the reality of today’s agriculture is beyond their understanding. Most people conjure up scenes from a 1950’s movie set of a farm when they think of farm life. That, or some terrible footage they’ve seen of “factory farms.”

What comes to your mind when you think of life in New York City? Do you think of museums and culture, or do you think of street muggings and smog?

We hold petting zoos showing off little pink piglets, downy baby chicks and ducks, wooly lambs, and soft snuggly rabbits.

How horrified these non-farm children must be when they learn the fate of these pets they have held and touched.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is a terribly frightening, not to mention difficult-to-pronounce name for a disease. It’s no wonder the Europeans dubbed it “mad cow.”

Anti-agriculture groups take advantage of the gap between the informed and the non-informed. We need to work together diligently to reach out to all consumers in a language that makes sense to them.

We use a lot of scientific terms because agriculture is science. Remember that most of the people that you see at the meat case in the grocery store probably haven’t been on a farm in many years, if ever. They may drive by and see you spreading anhydrous ammonia or working cattle, but for the most part, they have absolutely no idea what you are doing. Instead of giving them the chemical compound for anhydrous ammonia we need to tell them what it does and why it is used.

A few years ago the phrase “too much information” became popular when talking with one another about our private lives.

Because we so passionately believe in what we are doing, perhaps we are guilty of sharing too much information. If they want to know more, they will ask questions.

About 6 months after my genetics lesson for Pork, my mom and I were walking from the cattle barns to the commodity pavilion at the Illinois State Fair when we saw Pork and a member of his band. At the time I was Illinois Beef Queen, proudly wearing my crown and sash. After visiting for a few minutes, the fiddle player said, “Cyndi, I’ve seen another girl on the fairgrounds today wearing a crown and a sash that says beef princess. What’s the difference between a beef queen and a beef princess?”

Pork didn’t miss a beat. “One of ‘em ain’t got any horns,” he said.

Pork, Jerry Armstrong, passed away a few months ago. His music lives on in my memories. May he rest in peace.