A lot of consumers do not know where their food comes from or the process it has gone through from Farm to Fork. This year, Ag Day set out to help consumers become more knowledgeable about their food and our growing industry.

Ag Day was kicked off Monday evening with speaker Marie Bowers from the Ag Chat Foundation, who grew up on a grass seed farm in Harrisburg, Oregon. She spoke about how Ag Chat on Twitter, helps keep farmers involved in social media to see what is going on in the world of agriculture and tell their story to consumers. Marie talked about her experiences with twitter defending agriculture from people who are misinformed about what we do or tweet misleading information.

On Tuesday, the clubs in the College of Agricultural Sciences and the Forestry Club came together in the MU Quad to show the OSU community and visiting FFA students how they are each involved in the process of producing food or other products that we use every day. Hundreds got the opportunity to actually participate in agriculture, from cleaning their own grain to hands on interactions with livestock, visitors got the chance to see agriculture in action. As fewer and fewer people produce the food and fiber we need, events such as Ag Day help us educate others and tell our story. Thank you to all the clubs and supporters who helped make this year’s event possible.

Often in the news we hear about different problems in agriculture all over the United States. Some of these problems may include water rights for farmers or the recent issues facing the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. I order to discuss these and other important issues in agriculture, we hosted experts from different of agriculture to hear their views on ethics topics from the perspective of where they work and live.

This year’s panel consisted of Katie Fast from the Oregon Farm Bureau, Charlene Troost from the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Karen Samek from Darigold, and Jack Gourley of Gourley Farms in Scio.

Each of them talked about their experiences in agriculture and the different problems that they have come across. The panelists presented many diverse views on topics, from a production standpoint, government standpoint, and advocacy organization view. While our industry consists of many opinions on a range of topics, it is the willingness to discuss these views that helps move our industry forward. We appreciate the time each of our speakers took to help educate our council members.

Oregon is known for its diversity in agriculture from cranberries to fish hatcheries. Each part of our state is known for a different emphasis in agriculture, and each year the Executive Council visits a distinct area of Oregon as part of the Spring Ag Industry Tour. This year, our group focused on the Oregon Coast and Portland area.

The tour started with the Oregon Farm Bureau in Salem where they talked about current issues facing Oregon Ag Producers including the new food regulations making their way through Washington. The tour also included a stop at the OSU Food Innovation Center in Portland to learn about how local foods get tested and marketed with a value added emphasis. Other stops included Tilla-Bay Farms in Tillamook, where the farmer uses a robotic milking system for his dairy, and the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center where participants got to see some the latest research being applied to help protect our fisheries. Overall, the tour exposed our members to new areas of our industry and related fields and helped broaden their perspective of what Agriculture looks like in our great state.