Agricultural News
Social Media AGvocate, Farm Babe, Opens Up About Life as a Facebook Sensation
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 18:05:30 CDT
You have probably heard of Michelle Miller, or perhaps you know her by her alter-ego as the Facebook sensation, Farm Babe. Miller's Facebook page, boasting well over 31,000 Likes, has served as her platform for advocating and educating about agriculture. Growing up as an involved 4-H member is Wisconsin, Miller ultimately decided to move away from her rural surroundings and spent the next 12 years in LA and Chicago working in the fashion industry. She admits during her time in the big city, she became swept up in the organic and GMO-Free rhetoric commonly heard today. However, after meeting a fifth-generation farmer from Iowa five years ago and moving to his family farm, Miller became enlightened to the safe and proud practices of American agriculture. She has since become an advocate for agriculture, sharing her experiences on the farm with anyone who will listen.
Farm Director Ron Hays ran into Miller at the Oklahoma Women in Agriculture Conference and asked what she learned being on the farm that changed her perspective on GMOs and animal agriculture health methods.
"There's so many great things going on with GMOs," Miller said, "and it's unfortunate because the science is sound. Scientists and farmers get it but there's so much money and loud things being said on the other side of things that are usually funded by the organic industry."
Miller says that traditional agriculture has and is making great environmentally conscious strides to advance the industry including the growing adoption of no-till practices that reduces erosion and improves soil health and the elimination of harmful insecticides and herbicides by utilizing genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, that allow farmers to produce more on less land while conserving resources. She argues that the influence of the organic sector is really pushing production in the opposite direction that its consumer base wants. The crops they choose to use require more pesticides, more herbicides, more resources - which means worse effects on the environment. She says many of the same things are true in animal agriculture as well.
She says when it comes to teaching the public about agriculture, they are willing to listen, they want to know what the American farmer is doing on his or her operation. She says the average person today is so far removed from the farm that they simply just don't know anything about farming.
"We've got the science on our side. People are well-intentioned, they're just misinformed," Miller said. "It's up to us to tell our story before the other people do."
You can learn more about Miller's ag advocacy as Farm Babe by visiting her Facebook page or visit her website at www.farmbabe.org
To listen to more of what Michelle Miller had to say about her experiences advocating for agriculture, click on the LISTEN BAR below.
Miller will join Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays for his weekly In the Field segment on KWTV News9 in the Oklahoma City area on Saturday morning at 6:40 a.m
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