Family Farm Friday #22: Gate to Plate

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” ~Galileo

I love it when I can find great examples of agriculture telling our story. The New Mexico Beef Council puts on a great event every other year in order to educate New Mexicans about the agricultural industry in the state.

Each year, the Gate to Plate tour highlights agriculture in a different region of New Mexico. On the tour, the participants get a crash course in agriculture. In 2010, the participants saw branding and roping at a family cattle ranch, visited a dairy, went to a livestock auction, toured a feedlot, and saw a wind energy project. In addition to these visits, there were many speakers who rode along with the tour discussing a variety of agricultural issues facing the state.

The tour participants are important leaders who have the power to shape public perception, and to make policy decisions that will have far-reaching affects on our industry. On the 2010 tour, there were freelance journalists, the general manager of a Albuquerque television station, a Taos filmmaker, the legislative finance committee chairman, a popular food writer, state representatives, magazine editors, and the executive chef of a popular Santa Fe restaurant.

Many of these people had probably never been on a ranch before. Without the Gate to Plate program, they probably never would have. But this program puts these people right in the middle of agriculture....there is a picture in the New Mexico Stockman magazine of a senator branding a calf.

Not only that, but they get to hear our side of the story. They meet the people, see the operations, and understand what agriculture is truly about, instead of hearing slanted propoganda from anti-agriculture advocates who seem to keep getting in the mainstream media.

This is a way to get lawmakers, the media, resturant owners, and the public on our side. One jouranlist said that after this year's event, she already had an idea for 20 different stories to write. Those are 20 different stories that she would have never thought of without this type of event. The people who read these stories will get an important insight into agriculture that might not otherwise ever exist.

Gate to Plate is a wonderful example of agriculture reaching out to the public in order to promote our products, share our way of life, and tell our stories. People are interested....we just have to find opportunites to bring them in!

(Photos courtesy NMBC)