Missing a friend and a great teacher

Growing up as a teachers’ kid, you quickly learn what makes a good teacher. A good teacher encourages you to think, challenges your beliefs and opinions and helps you gain more knowledge than you ever thought possible. Chris Raines was a good teacher. Now, I never sat in Chris’s classroom, but I know this is true. [...]

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Is agvocacy pointless?

I was a little dismayed just now when, while skimming a post on Facebook, I saw someone post this: Someone convince me all [our] discussion about food and farms is making a difference! Now, as someone who has spent a lot of time having discussions about food production and farming, I got really disappointed that a [...]

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How much of a dialogue was it?

Like what seemed like everyone else in the agriculture world, I watched the Food Dialogues conversations both online and in person last Thursday. In addition to tuning in for the Washington DC panel, I was on the St. Paul campus at the University of Minnesota for a viewing party. I’m not sure whether my expectations [...]

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AgChat conference perfect for college aggies

Since I recently graduated from Michigan State (Go Green!) and just took an awesome full-time position a couple of days ago, I’d like to think that I’ve done a pretty good job at preparing for “the real world” and that I can offer some halfway decent advice to college students and recent graduates. My big [...]

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Ideas from our friends in the north!

For the past two days, I have been at the North American Leaders Session, which is a meeting hosted by the Center for Food Integrity designed to bring together leaders of livestock coalitions from across North America to meet and share ideas. Now, you’ll notice that I said North America and not just…well, America. We [...]

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Farm Fresh Food? Yes, please!

You probably read the title and thought “Farmers markets? Locavore? Gardening?”. Well those are all great things, but I’m actually talking about the newest blog sharing farmers’ stories in Michigan! The ‘Farm Fresh Food’ blog launched March 1 and is a great way for agriculturalists in the state to share their stories. Hosted on MLive.com, the [...]

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Is any pretty-sounding answer a good one?

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to listen to a speaker on campus that I found rather interesting. His name is Robert Paarlberg and he’s a political scientist at Wellesley College (he’s also done some guest lectures at Harvard). His research focuses on international agriculture and environmental policy. Out of his studies, he’s written several [...]

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Should we thank PETA and HSUS?

Yesterday I, like many people in the agriculture world, tuned in to watch Oprah when I heard that she and her staff of over 300 people were giving up meat and all other animal products for a week-long “vegan challenge”. Now, it’s no secret that Oprah has had her issues with the livestock industry, so [...]

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Cheering a losing team…now that’s dedication!

When my boyfriend and I watch our beloved Spartans play, we tend to have different attitudes when they’re losing. Yesterday, we got to experience this difference full force when the guys went down (rather painfully) to Alabama 49-7 in the Capital One Bowl. See, when our team is losing by a lot, Mitch tends to [...]

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Agvocacy 2.0 Conference!

Well, folks, it’s finally here. The event we’ve been waiting nearly two whole months for–the AgChat Agvocacy 2.0 Conference!! Ashley Messing and I just arrived in Chicago for what is sure to be two days of intense (yet totally fun!) social media training. I’m super excited to meet a whole host of great people and [...]

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