By RICK A. RICHARDS
Indiana Correspondent

ROLLING PRAIRIE, Ind. — LuAnn Troxel sees it as her mission to dispel some of the farming misconceptions in the media today.
Troxel, president of the Indiana Professional Dairy Producers, talked about some of those at the annual meeting of Purdue University extension in LaPorte County, at the United Methodist Church in Rolling Prairie on March 15; the annual meeting coincided with the beginning of National Ag Week.

Among the misconceptions she addressed was the perceived overuse of antibiotics and steroids in livestock. Troxel is passionate about farming. With her husband, Tom, and four sons, she operates a second-generation 120-head dairy farm in Cass Township in southern LaPorte County, near the small town of Hanna. Tom also is a veterinarian.

Walt Sell, extension educator in charge of the LaPorte County office, said Troxel was chosen as the speaker because she is local and because she has become a passionate defender of agriculture.
“People need to become critical thinkers on information about agriculture. They need to look for information that is based on research, and the best place to find that is from our land-grant universities,” said Sell.

Troxel’s talk, “Farmers Producing America’s Food: A Frank Discussion of the Facts and Figures,” looked at how the increase in efficiency in farming over the past half-century was more because of advances in machinery, technology and the use of more efficient production methods, than the overuse of medication.

The efficiency of farming, she said, has improved over the generations so that a single row crop producer now feeds 155 people. In 1940, Troxel said that same farmer fed just 19 people. As a result, farming today employs 2.5 million people, pays $2.4 billion in property taxes and $16 billion annually in income and sales taxes.

“We are a big player in the economy,” said Troxel.

But having a big impact doesn’t mean farmers have gotten so big they have forgotten their roots or have become too big to care about the environment or the products they produce.

Because the dollars have grown so much, Troxel said farming has increasingly become a target of some groups that want to eliminate agriculture. In particular, she mentioned the Humane Society of the United States and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

“These groups – and there are some others – do not want to see agriculture exist,” said Troxel.

“They don’t want us – the public – to consume agricultural products. My response is that we should always take care of our animals, that it’s not okay to mistreat animals.”

She said farming in the United States is among the most humane in the world: “We have the safest food in the world. We have solid systems in place. These organizations make it important for people like me to get my facts straight.”

During a presentation, Troxel showed copies of several publications in which agriculture’s safety and humane practices were challenged. One such article in the Chicago Tribune targeted 4-H as an organization that treated animals inhumanely.

Troxel’s voice rose in disagreement. “I have four sons and 40 years of experience – they’ve all been in for 10 years – with 4-H,” she said. “That’s just not true. 4-H is a wonderful organization. We all know that. But when a publication like the Chicago Tribune prints this, it validates those who argue against agriculture.”

She said there is so much conflicting information about agriculture available to the public, coming from so many different sources, that people can become confused.

So when one group or another speaks up loudly and often, people might be more inclined to listen to it.

For that reason, she said it is up to farmers to help the public sift through the information that’s out there.

“We all need to consider the source. Is the information coming from research? Is it coming from the extension service? Is it coming from a land grand university? Is it coming from an organization that wants to see people eliminate animal products from their life?” she asked.

Troxel said farmers no longer have the luxury of ignoring such groups by thinking they will simply go away. “It is a problem of perception versus reality,” she explained.

To support her argument, she pointed to figures from dairy producers that showed 25.6 million dairy cows produced 117 billion pounds of milk in 1944. Today, 9.2 million dairy cows produce 186 billion pounds of milk annually.

“How does that happen? Some people say it’s because we overuse antibiotics and steroids,” said Troxel. “We don’t overuse antibiotics in animals, because it’s expensive and they are difficult to get – more difficult than it is for us to get an antibiotic shot at the doctor’s office.”

She said most people think hormones are “awful things” but pointed out they exist naturally in all of us. “Without them, we wouldn’t exist,” she said.

A steroid like estrogen, for example, has become a big concern of ag opponents who say they won’t buy (and encourage others not to buy) beef with steroids. But, said Troxel, beef contains just 1.3 nanograms of estrogen (it takes 1 billion nanograms to equal 1 gram). By the same measurement, she said, males naturally produce 140,000 nanograms of estrogen a day.

“We really need to keep these numbers in perspective,” said Troxel. “They describe us all as factory farms, a term I detest. Most of us are small family farms and we’re doing the right thing.

“We need to speak up and never let that secret video be taken on our farm. That would be a bad day. So it means we need to always do the right thing. There’s a world out there that’s depending on us.”