AGCO Blog Contest Finalist: Kayla Ferris

Our second finalist in AGCO’s Blog Contest, “Articulating Agriculture” is Kayla Ferris from Texas, USA. Remember to post your comments all week to vote on your favorite blogger.

Farm Life Lesson #7: Know who you’re Feeding



I grew up a Farmer’s Daughter. I drove a truck. I plowed fields. I even chopped weeds through my Daddy’s maize fields. Then I left the farm for a college town where I fell in love with an Agriculture major. This Farmer’s Daughter soon became a Farmer’s Wife.

My Farmer Husband and I lived in a small housing division. Every day I would watch neighbors leaving for work around 8am…and coming back home a little after 5pm. Anyone who knows anything about agriculture knows a farmer doesn’t have a 9-5 job. Why I even hoped my Farmer Husband would come home at 5pm everyday is a mystery. I had a lesson I needed to learn, and farm life schooled me one evening. I pulled out my cute farmwife cookbook, found a wonderful casserole, and spent the whole afternoon preparing the dish. I set the table and pulled my casserole out of the oven at 5:30. Just in time for supper. Only, there was not a Farmer Husband there to eat it. I waited. I decided to put the casserole back into the oven. He called about the time I was beginning to smell overcooked casserole. He was going to be another hour. In near tears, I imagined him eating cold, burnt, casserole.

That evening, I realized something. As a child, I had taken for granted the hours my Daddy worked. I would not do so again. My Daddy, my Farmer Husband, and other farmers do not have an easy job. They work crazy hours, they have no set schedule, and the fields don’t offer vacation. But they do it for us. And I’m not meaning just their families. That evening, I was worried about feeding him. He was busy feeding the world.”