Post

Water summit breakout sessions aid understanding

The vice president of the Minnesota Farmers Union says breakout sessions during Governor Dayton’s recent water quality summit helped explain farming practices to attendees with non-ag backgrounds.

Gary Wertish tells Brownfield some people at the event really seemed to catch on.

“But then you have others that don’t have a clue, and that’s a problem we’re facing.  There’s a certain amount of people that don’t understand agriculture, but there were definitely some that did understand it.”

About 800 people attended Saturday’s summit in St. Paul and Wertish suggests those representing agriculture were clearly outnumbered.

He says opportunities to talk one-on-one with Minnesotans about farming are few and far between.

“A lot of it’s happening through publications and social media and that type of stuff.  But it is very hard to get a 1 on 1 setting.  Anytime you have county fairs and days on the farm, we just have to make an effort to represent agriculture in any way that we can.”

Wertish says agriculture is not solely to blame for problems associated to water quality in the state, but wants to be part of the solution.