Sheep Shearing, Founding Fathers, Benson, and Ag in Haiti

Hello all,
This week has been a really fun one for me.  On Tuesday I got to go to the University Sheep Farm and help with their big shearing day.  I had an awesome time, AND I got double extra credit for it in my Animal Science class- things don't get much better than that.  :)  Of course, my dorm room and my brown cowboy boots both smell like sheep now, and I'm not sure how much my roommate appreciates that.  But I got to gather the wool after the expert sheep shearers did their job (like 10 minutes per sheep!), weigh it, sort out the second clippings, throw it all in an 12 foot bag and then get inside the bag and stomp it down.  And after we finished one group, I got to herd them out of the barn and then herd the next group in.  I've really missed being around animals, so I had a really good time.  And my boots got nicely oiled from the lanolin in the wool- even though they smell bad now. 

So, as part of my study, I'm going to do at least one post a week sharing current agricultural news with everyone.  But I also will share with you historical things I learn and find interesting.  This week I've been studying from a book called, "FFA at 50" which goes through the first fifty years of FFA history, and from a USDA online presentation called "A History of American Agriculture."

While I was going through "A History of American Agriculture,"  I made a note of the fact that in the year 1790, 90% of the labor force were farmers.  This shouldn't be surprising to me, but right now somewhere between 1-2% of the American population are farmers, roughly.  America also has the safest and cheapest food supply in the world.  I am convinced that if you aren't impressed by American agriculture, you just don't know enough about it.  But I digress.  Back the 1790s- I just was thinking about how many of our founding fathers were farmers (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc.) and I always thought that was odd.  I was just convinced that its because farmers are incredible people.  I guess now I realize that although they were incredible men, the founding fathers were farmers because well...everyone was a farmer then!  I had never thought about it that way before.

Some other interesting trivia (at least for some of you):  1953 was the Silver Anniversary FFA Convention- a celebration of 25 years.  I knew that Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke there, the first time a U.S. president addressed the FFA at the convention, but did you know that Ezra Taft Benson, who was the United States Secretary of Agriculture at the time, also spoke there?  This doesn't mean much to most people, but it was cool for me to learn about because Ezra Taft Benson was also the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, of which I'm a member, from 1985-1994.  I like that he knew the FFA was a priority.  :)

And last but not least, Haiti.  We've all heard about it since the terrible earthquake there.  We haven't heard much about their agricultural situation though, which I think is important.  After all, you can't rebuild a country without food.  That's why in the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations are recommending national aid of $700 million to help rebuild agriculture in Haiti.  You can read the whole article here:  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=at_vFIabEsso
Also, if you are interested in finding current ag news yourself, check out Google Fast Flips at http://www.fastflips.googlelabs.com/, just search "Agriculture" and you'll be able to read as many ariticles of the day about agriculture as you can handle!

Well I'm signing out, have a great week everyone!
Rachel