ARTICULATING AGRICULTURE AGCO Blog Contest Winner: Kayla Ferris

First of all, we wanted to thank everyone who entered the ARTICULATING AGRICULTURE contest.  Stories were submitted from nine countries, showing a wide diversity of types of farming and roles people hold within the industry.  Each entry was so good, so many great stories, making very hard to pick the top five – even harder to pick the winner!

Thank you also for all the comments – we were BLOWN AWAY with the response to this contest. We had over 500 comments and new ones are still being added.  This shows us the huge power these personal, very compelling stories have in articulating agriculture’s importance and impact. Continue to share your stories with us on Facebook, or post your ideas and comments here on the AGCO Blog. So, drumroll please…….

Congratulations to Kayla Ferris, AGCO’s Blog Contest winner! Kayla is from Texas, USA and will be the proud owner of a new Apple iPad. Read Kayla’s second story below.

Farm Life Lesson #14: The Middle of Nowhere Ain’t so Bad

I was watching the YouTube video of the rapping farmers of Yeo Valley. Hilarious. My daughter came in, heard the music, and started to dance. Home-girl can bust some moves, yo!  So, I had a brilliant idea. She should take a dance class! I looked up the closest dance studio. We live in “The Middle of Nowhere.” There is something you should know about “The Middle of Nowhere.” We have excellent farmland. But, apparently, we do not have many dance teachers. As in…zero. Instead of tap lessons that afternoon, she and her sister rode in the tractor with Daddy. They pushed buttons. They talked on the CB radio. They took naps on a towel on the floorboard. I picked them up later and headed to our scale house. Again, instead of wearing leotards and practicing jazz hands, we weighed trucks, measured corn, and played in the back of the semi truck like it was a giant sandbox. We came home that night filthy and smiling. It had been a wonderful day of harvest. In fact, my girls declared it the best day EVER! Apparently that afternoon, instead of learning the proper technique for a ballet plie, my daughters had learned how good it feels to work and play hard. That’s when I decided…the middle of nowhere ain’t so bad.

What life lesson have you learned in “the middle of nowhere?”