Dear Mike Bloomberg,

I am aggravated. Aggravated with your recent comments. The ones dealing with the first two letters of that very word: Ag. You recently said that it would not take much gray matter to be a farmer. As I’m sure you know, your comments created an uproar of reactions from across the country and thus, a significant reason why I am addressing you.

Agriculture is the backbone of this country. Without the food and fiber industry, we could not function. Imagine going to a restaurant, but there is no food to order. Imagine going to the clothing store, only to find there are no clothes available. Imagine all the items that are considered “Ag” products and what our country would look like. You might think this a hyperbolic exercise, but it reveals a daunting truth: without the sweat of the farmer, without the industry of agriculture, without the toil of the soil, our country would in fact be hungry, naked, and afraid because of the consequences of a vanishing Ag industry. You might think that it takes less gray matter in the farming profession, but nothing could be further from the truth. Truly, the cost of innovation is the yielding of change and the effort to think more critically, which I would caution you to do before making these comments.

However, I do not hold you in total responsibility of your comments. Actually, it served as an epiphany for me. Your comments cracked into an underlying problem that we have today. And that problem is: the lack of Ag Literacy. The ugly truth is many folks don’t understand agriculture, where their food comes from, and fail to see the gigantic value of the industry as a whole. The issue is even bigger than you and your campaign sir.

If anything your comments have motivated me as they should motivate every agriculturalist in America. I’m even more aggravated at this big picture problem. We should be telling the story of agriculture more. We should be engaging others in the process of agriculture more. We should be educating the public about the high cost of forgetting this formidable industry more. And we should be communicating the reasons why being in agriculture is an intelligent profession. Because feeding the world with less land mass year after year does require innovative thinking.

Now, Mayor Bloomberg, I admit you may never read this post, but I sure hope it causes people to get Aggressive in their messaging. Emphasis on Ag. Not in violence or hatred, but aggressive in boldness of sharing the story of agriculture and why it is so important. Because one day, there will be another presidential election, and in that year I hope that we won’t have a candidate who writes off farmers, but instead applauds farmers and believes in the blooming industry of agriculture. The future is in all of our hands. May we get aggravated, agitated, and aggressive in telling the world about what Ag is all about.

Tell The Story,

Brandon, An Ag Enthusiast

#Agriculture #FightingForTheFuture #MikeBloomberg