October 10, 2017

Opportunity for all farmers

Topic: Issues

Freedom, opportunity and self-reliance. They aren't just buzzwords. They are principles NDFB believes in and works for to help give all farmers a fair shake.

Download the Opportunity for all farmers mp3.

Read the transcript:

Do you truly love the freedom we enjoy in this country? Do you accept the responsibility of self-reliance? And do you believe the American Dream, the vast opportunities should be available to all?

At NDFB we believe that, that freedom, opportunity and self-reliance is the backbone of our very existence, not only in North Dakota, but in our country.

There are the vocal few that seem to want to tell us how we can and can’t farm or ranch. They have a picture-perfect idea their mind and they think everyone should adhere to the opportunity as THEY see it, not as it fits each individual and each family.

To think that we are farmers and ranchers are coming under fire for adapting to modern agriculture, to adapting to those practices which allow us to provide an abundant, a more safe, and an environmentally responsible product, is amazing to me in an agricultural state. How can we get to the point where some want to take opportunity away because it doesn’t fit their scope of what they believe the opportunity is?

You know, at NDFB, we love ALL farmers and ranchers. We don’t want to pick a winner and a loser. Because if we start picking winners and losers in agriculture in North Dakota, all of agriculture becomes a loser.

Agriculture is the backbone of our state. Farming and ranching is our longest held heritage. Farming and ranching will be here tomorrow, the next day, the next year, the next decade. Will it look the same as it did 25, 50 , 75 or 150 years ago? Absolutely not. And thank God it doesn’t. Because just as those initial pioneers on the prairie adapted, improved; they cared enough to adapt and make changes along the way, just as our farmers and ranchers today care enough to make the changes and adapt to the way things need to be done so that we have an abundant supply of food.

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