Thank you, farmers
By Jessica Domel
Farming is harder, and more labor-intensive, than it looks. I know it seems pretty obvious, but I’ve spent a lot of time on our family’s farm, and I have to say, even I was shocked by the amount of tasks farmers accomplish in a single day. I’ve spent the greater part of the past two weeks traveling the state–from Harlingen to Lubbock–interviewing farmers about what they do for our Outstanding Young Farmer & Rancher competition. It’s been very interesting, to say the least. For the first time in my life, I touched sugar cane, which is much taller than you think. In Mercedes, near Harlingen, there were stalks about eight feet high.
read moreMeet a Cotton Farmer: Brandon Patschke
By Nathan Smith
Most years on the Southern High Plains of Texas, farmers like Brandon Patschke and his family are busy growing the fabric of our lives—cotton. Brandon is a Texas Farm Bureau member and grows cotton on his family farm near Lubbock.
Farmers like Brandon come from generations of families with decades of practice weathering the good and the bad. Through floods and drought, they care for the land and work together to leave the farm in better shape for the next generation. Last year, record drought and heat devastated the Texas cotton crop and pushed some farmers out of business altogether. Without rain, 2012 could be an ugly sequel. It’s years like 2011 that make me wonder why Texas farmers and ranchers do what they do. The answer is simple… because they love it.
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