Farming hits YouTube

When you think of YouTube, your mind can go in many dif­fer­ent direc­tions as to what you might find on the web­site: music, how-to videos, and clips from var­i­ous shows. But who would have ever thought of using YouTube as a way of pro­mot­ing the agri­cul­tural com­mu­nity?
If you were to search for two dif­fer­ent videos enti­tled “I’m Farm­ing and I Grow It” and “Farm It Maybe” you would soon dis­cover how kids can be the best pro­mot­ers of the farm­ing com­mu­nity.
Three broth­ers from Kansas, bet­ter known as the Peter­son Bros., their stage name, have taken the pop­u­lar song “I’m Sexy and I Know It” pop­u­lar­ized by LMFAO and cre­ated a par­ody: “I’m Farm­ing and I Grow It”.
The video fea­tures Greg, 21, Nathan, 18, and Kendal, 15 pro­mot­ing agri­cul­ture on Peter­son Farm and Live­stock, the best way they know how…by first­hand expe­ri­ence.
Since the video was pub­lished on YouTube on June 25, it has been viewed 7,696,543 and count­ing, and in 218 coun­tries. The broth­ers have also made their way onto the social media scene via Face­book. Since join­ing the site on June 26, the page has had 16,260 likes.
The video has cre­ated so much suc­cess for the broth­ers that they have been fea­tured by radio sta­tions, news sta­tions, and news­pa­pers all over the United States. They were also invited to play at the 2012 National FFA con­ven­tion held in Indi­anapo­lis, Indi­ana.
Through the inspi­ra­tion of the Peter­son Bros., 9-year-old ‘Lil Fred’ and his brother Justin also made their own par­ody, to the Carly Rae Jepsen hit, “Call Me Maybe” and coined it, “Farm It Maybe.”
The video, which Justin, 18, filmed and edited with some help from their cousin Sam, showed what life is like grow­ing up on a Dairy Farm in New York.
“Farm it Maybe” has been viewed 1,500,276 times, and con­tin­ues to grow, with 1,460 likes on Face­book since join­ing the site July 19.
Both of these YouTube videos are just what the farm­ing com­mu­nity needed. After the drought that plagued much of the Mid­west dur­ing the past grow­ing sea­son, some farm­ers may need reas­sur­ance as to why they should keep doing what they are good at.
As farm­ers look toward the future, they are always seek­ing a way to pro­mote the impor­tance and impact agri­cul­ture has on every per­son in the world. What bet­ter way than to do it through youth and social media?
I know that it is said quite often, and it is true: we do need to look to our youth for the future. Just look at the impact of two YouTube videos on mil­lions across the globe.
Through pro­grams such as 4-H and FFA, youth every­day are being taught how (to pro­mote agriculture) by vol­un­teers and edu­ca­tors about the basics and essen­tials for youth to carry on the tra­di­tion of Feed­ing Amer­i­can, a pop­u­lar say­ing that is used among the agri­cul­ture world and its pro­mot­ers.
Farm­ing is gen­er­ally a fam­ily tra­di­tion passed down from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, from father to son, and now daugh­ters. Farm­ing is not just about the annual har­vest, it is so much more.
Out­siders look­ing in may say how cool it would be to just sit in a com­bine all day tak­ing out fields. How­ever, field work is only half of it, there are a lot of plan­ning and deci­sions to be made, like what type of fer­til­izer, seeds (tra­di­tional vs. hybrid), plant treat­ments, etc. to use.
Farm­ers are always plan­ning for what the next sea­son is going to bring, and dur­ing those times is when youth are learn­ing the how, what and where of farm­ing.
Youths’ roles on the farm are highly val­ued.
Youth can be seen up before the sun milk­ing cows, herd­ing the sheep at sun­set, and per­form­ing daily jobs such as clean­ing stalls, feed­ing and water­ing the ani­mals, and other basic needs an ani­mal may need. Grow­ing up on a farm is like on-the-job train­ing for farm kids, help­ing them secure them­selves a bright and suc­cess­ful future.
As the agri­cul­tural com­mu­nity looks to the next year, and many more years to come, we should all keep our eye on the youth and their ideas on how to improve life on a farm. Youth may be young, but they are very smart and are always look­ing for a way to make things eas­ier on every­one. Lis­ten­ing to them is going to be the best way for them to get their mes­sage across to gen­er­a­tions above them, whether it is through a song, a viral YouTube video, or in a local classroom.

Posted by Ashley Fritz on Dec 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.