greybeard
Herd Master
Actually GB, we loaned mini horses to kids to show, already trained for them sometimes. Depended on what the child needed and could do. Plus we did a lot of farm gatherings for 4Hers & scout troops; and presented animals at some of their activities, participated in many parades, etc. Yep, very active and they LOVED the smaller sized horses and donkeys.Several of ours were taken to nursing/retirement homes on a regular basis during warmer weather.
I meant to get back to this subject but got busy last few days.
Anything current producers/farmers can do to interest young people in agriculture is a good thing. The sad part is tho, I doubt that one in a hundred young people that we interact with go on to keep that interest alive and act upon it, and that's down significantly from when I was a teenager. Everyone is prone to complain about 'corporate farms" and "Big Ag' but the truth is, our population itself (including "us") is the cause of it. There's lots easier ways to make a living than farming and the initial 'buy in' for both land and infrastructure is not cheap, gets higher ever year it seems, and that doesn't even account for the animals. I doubt there are more than one or 2 people on this website that can honestly say they are anywhere near self-sufficient, much less say they make a living off their ag production, myself included.
We are pretty good at touting the enjoyment of what we do, but we fail in stressing it isn't for the weak hearted or'lazy'. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people buy a parcel of land, go to fencing it and find out it's real work, expensive as heck, time consuming, and decide to give it up in search of easier cheaper ways to spend their time, $$ and sweat. Even with ag exemptions, the tax burden itself is higher than most want to endure.
By not honestly preparing young people for what farming really entails, we are helping them plan to fail.
I also blame part of it on our county agents that are nowadays in charge of 4h/FFA. Most do a very poor job of real world education and help and that's happened in the last few decades. It's difficult to get even a call back from the agent himself, much less get him to come out unless it is for a county fair show animal project and even then, more than likely, he will just have his office help do a call back. They spend most of their time on what the pubic might see, and not near enough on what's happening in the dirt, poop and grassland. Visit them at their office, you are too often lucky to get anything other than a handout/brochure or directions to a website with the same information. Been trying to talk to mine for 3-4 weeks now, and he's been busy 2 counties over at the Houston livestock show, and also at the Ft Worth show 200 miles from this county. Makes for some good photo ops and a line in a news article I guess.
Still, we have to continue to do it, try to reach that 1 in 100, like you are trying to do.
Can't get too much in to it on this board, but Ag in this country is heading down a tough road, that will make North American 'big ag' seem like a minor bump. China's publicly declared goal in reference to ag is to not only become 100% self reliant, but to become the single largest exporter of ag products and produce the world has ever seen, and they're going to do it using our own genetics and technology. They have, for about 10 years, been circumventing trade regs by buying the best embryos and semen thru 3rd parties in Australia and New Zealand, as well as live herd sires and the best females of all species they can find. In short, we will most likely find ourselves making the same mistakes in ag that we did in regards to energy in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, beholden to the MidEast for crude oil imports.
Best thing to happen recently IMO, is the scrapping of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement which would have further opened the door for Chinese products of all kinds including ag products, machinery and most significantly, meat, poultry, grain, & produce.
