Megz Reynolds says consumers need to know what farmers go through
By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com
A Saskatchewan producer’s blog post pulled back the curtain to unveil some very real challenges farm families can face on a yearly basis.
Megz Reynolds, who with her husband has a peas, lentils and barley operation near Swift Current, said her family has had to fight to survive this year.
“Every single aspect of our lives this year have been an uphill battle,” she wrote in her blog, titled “Dirt Sweat N Tears.”
In her post she says her basement was flooded. The family may not be eligible for an insurance claim and Reynolds is concerned about how some bills will be paid, she wrote.
“This year our area had well over 25 inches of rain. There are still farmers with fields underwater and crops sitting in the field that couldn't be combined because we had so much rain and multiple snow storms in October,” she told Farms.com in an interview.
In one portion of her post, she contemplated leaving the agriculture industry because she’s done “fighting with consumers so far removed from agriculture that they think we are trying to kill them.”
For Reynolds, the post was about letting people outside the ag industry know that farmers are putting themselves under immense pressure in order to feed the world.
“There’s been rumours that farmers have it easy, they make a lot of money and the government supports them,” she said. “I want to change that. It’s not easy (and) a lot of farming depends on things we can’t control, like the weather.”
Reynolds said farmers spend much of their time discussing issues with one another, when it’s the consumers who need to be educated.
“One thing that I’ve noticed is a lot of the ag advocacy people are talking to each other,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like their voice is getting heard past that ag industry.
“Everybody needs to try getting out of their bubble.”