Loos Urges Farmers to Take Their Message to the Streets
Submitted by Editor on Fri, 02/05/2010 - 2:30pm.
Marilyn Hershey
Southeastern Pa. Correspondent
EAST EARL, Pa. — Trent Loos, a sixth-generation Nebraskan rancher and radio show host, challenged nearly 200 attendees to take a stand and defend agriculture.
Loos delivered his message Monday at a meeting sponsored by Renaissance Nutrition at Shady Maple Smorgasbord.
From his travels around the U.S., Loos said that most consumers “don’t have a clue that it takes a farm to make food.” He is often approached by people asking him if he is a “real cowboy.” He stressed the importance of our neighbors understanding that “everything lives, everything dies and death with a purpose gives full meaning to life.”
On the wake of an ABC broadcast that portrayed dairy farmers as cruel to their animals, Loos’s message held extra significance. He said that Americans have a distant view of farming but no understanding of agriculture as a business.
Science, research, and technology have allowed farmers to become more efficient and progressive in their styles of farming as they produce more milk with fewer cows and raise better beef cattle on less land.
He suggested that “America does not have an oversupply of milk but rather an under-nutritional lifestyle.” The fact that 80 percent of teenage girls are calcium deficient is a problem that will follow them through adulthood.
Loos said that in 1947 the average amount of whole milk consumed per person was 47 gallons per year. In 2009, the average was eight gallons per year.
There is a message to send out to the consumer on the importance and health benefits of dairy products in our diets, and that message is slow getting to the consumer. However, most consumers “jump on the bandwagon of negative publicity because it sounds good in theory,” Loos said.
Consumers need to take the time and comprehend that agriculture converts products into resources for human consumption, that the product is safe, healthy, and pure; and that people cannot exist without food, fiber, pharmaceuticals and fuel.
Loos counteracted a theory that is rampant in the news that young girls are maturing earlier because of the hormones in dairy products, poultry, and beef. He said that “girls in the European Union have the same problem” and yet for years hormone additives have not been added to poultry, beef, or dairy in the EU. According to Loos, the problem lies in the “estrogen levels in other food components and the explicit content that children are exposed to at an early age.” Those findings have been confirmed by studies at Cambridge University and the University of Florida in Gainesville, he said.
Loos also mentioned that the EU imported 20 percent of its food in 1997 and double that amount — 40 percent — last year.
The message was clear from Loos that unless farmers take the reins in educating the public, America could be facing the same statistics in the future. “Farmers have a responsibility to educate their neighbors.” Farmers need to tell the story of “why we love tending to the land and taking care of animals, why we value teaching the next generation, and explain how our product improves human life.”
The two most important people in the country, he said, are “the American farmer and the American soldier” because “both understand that there is life, death, and nothing is free.”
Loos said he learned about “the importance of values, face to face interaction, and how to pay attention to the signs of nature” from his father and grandfather. He sees that farm families in this part of the country have the same heritage and the same desire to see agriculture continue.
Loos traveled to 23 states last year encouraging farmers to tell their story, spreading the good word about agriculture, and communicating positive agriculture via radio, magazine, and Internet.
Marilyn Hershey
Southeastern Pa. Correspondent
EAST EARL, Pa. — Trent Loos, a sixth-generation Nebraskan rancher and radio show host, challenged nearly 200 attendees to take a stand and defend agriculture.
Loos delivered his message Monday at a meeting sponsored by Renaissance Nutrition at Shady Maple Smorgasbord.
From his travels around the U.S., Loos said that most consumers “don’t have a clue that it takes a farm to make food.” He is often approached by people asking him if he is a “real cowboy.” He stressed the importance of our neighbors understanding that “everything lives, everything dies and death with a purpose gives full meaning to life.”
On the wake of an ABC broadcast that portrayed dairy farmers as cruel to their animals, Loos’s message held extra significance. He said that Americans have a distant view of farming but no understanding of agriculture as a business.
Science, research, and technology have allowed farmers to become more efficient and progressive in their styles of farming as they produce more milk with fewer cows and raise better beef cattle on less land.
He suggested that “America does not have an oversupply of milk but rather an under-nutritional lifestyle.” The fact that 80 percent of teenage girls are calcium deficient is a problem that will follow them through adulthood.
Loos said that in 1947 the average amount of whole milk consumed per person was 47 gallons per year. In 2009, the average was eight gallons per year.
There is a message to send out to the consumer on the importance and health benefits of dairy products in our diets, and that message is slow getting to the consumer. However, most consumers “jump on the bandwagon of negative publicity because it sounds good in theory,” Loos said.
Consumers need to take the time and comprehend that agriculture converts products into resources for human consumption, that the product is safe, healthy, and pure; and that people cannot exist without food, fiber, pharmaceuticals and fuel.
Loos counteracted a theory that is rampant in the news that young girls are maturing earlier because of the hormones in dairy products, poultry, and beef. He said that “girls in the European Union have the same problem” and yet for years hormone additives have not been added to poultry, beef, or dairy in the EU. According to Loos, the problem lies in the “estrogen levels in other food components and the explicit content that children are exposed to at an early age.” Those findings have been confirmed by studies at Cambridge University and the University of Florida in Gainesville, he said.
Loos also mentioned that the EU imported 20 percent of its food in 1997 and double that amount — 40 percent — last year.
The message was clear from Loos that unless farmers take the reins in educating the public, America could be facing the same statistics in the future. “Farmers have a responsibility to educate their neighbors.” Farmers need to tell the story of “why we love tending to the land and taking care of animals, why we value teaching the next generation, and explain how our product improves human life.”
The two most important people in the country, he said, are “the American farmer and the American soldier” because “both understand that there is life, death, and nothing is free.”
Loos said he learned about “the importance of values, face to face interaction, and how to pay attention to the signs of nature” from his father and grandfather. He sees that farm families in this part of the country have the same heritage and the same desire to see agriculture continue.
Loos traveled to 23 states last year encouraging farmers to tell their story, spreading the good word about agriculture, and communicating positive agriculture via radio, magazine, and Internet.
