Do you have any scientific education? Have you taken chemistry? Even one year in high school? A college degree? Your GPA? What makes you think being a farmer’s daughter qualifies you to defend an industry you really now little about aside from being a farmer’s daughter? The only people you will influence are those, like you, unable to discern truth from lies because you don’t have a grasp of scientific reasoning. Are you healthy and well? Do you go to an MD and take toxic drugs for medicine? Glad you are singing to the choir of the ignorant and really don’t matter – spreading false information is not real cool – you know? Of course not. Disgraceful.
Chuck Meece
Hi Chuck,
Thanks so much for your questions and interest in my educational and work background!
Yes, I do have scientific education. I took 4 whole years of science classes in high school. I even took AP Biology and passed the examination, which (at least at that time) granted you a certain number of college credits. I was fascinated with the genetics lessons and nitty gritty details of photosynthesis. By the way, I graduated as one of the top 5 students in my class.
When I started college, my major was Cellular and Molecular Biology. I wanted to be a genetic counselor. I took 3 chemistry courses (and passed with a B average, by the way). However, I quickly realized that my interests and passions lay in a different area. I still graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree with a History major and a Political Science minor. The Bachelor of Science was a hold over from my biology majoring days, but I’m glad I kept it. I had to take statistics classes and a social studies class. For the latter, we read the work of Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolution (which is a fascinating take on how the scientific community evolves and changes).
Then I went to law school. I wasn’t taking science classes, but I did take an agriculture law classes and completed internships related to ag. I wrote my third year scholar paper on the intersection of science and the new food production laws. Have you ever heard of Daubert?
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| Planting Spring 2014 |
I suppose if my parents had been lawyers or dentists or bankers I might have some residual knowledge of those professions. But the difference with farming is that even as kids we lived it. We were in the fields tilling, laying plastic and tunnels, planting, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, and clean up. I worked 25 years of my life at our farm market interacting with consumers and selling our products. We came home every day and had to help pick produce for the next day. I’ve ridden and driven all sorts of tractors. I even drilled soybeans all by myself. I know how to run the combine and I’ve been in the field at 2 am with the rest of my family trying to finish up.
And it’s obviously resonating with people.
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| Combining Fall 2014 |
(You apparently have some type of misconstrued fear regarding the medical profession and prescription medications. I won’t touch on that except to say that I’m thankful for the technological and scientific achievements we’ve reached in those areas as well.)
And all the while you failed to point out a single thing that I’ve written that you think is wrong, and you certainly haven’t provided anything to support your rude and irrelevant remarks.
[If you have an agriculture question you’d like The Farmer’s Daughter USA to answer, click here to fill out the form and ask!]
What exactly qualifies Chuck to be an expert on agriculture?
I love how average consumers assume that farmers have no higher education (or their daughters for that matter). Successful farmers today deal with extensive technology in all areas of production. I would like to see an average consumer try to run the equipment my family has on the farm.
ATTA GIRL!
Haha chuck just got owned. Well done.
Love your well-written, polite response. And love your blog!
Keep up all your hard work and research. There are a lot of "educated" folk out there that have no idea where their food comes from. You are educated (in more ways than any sheet of paper can show). Stay strong in your beliefs and true to what you feel is right. It's not easy being a farmer's daughter (or a farmer yourself!)
Chuck will have to clean off his boots after stepping onto that cow patty of his own ignorance.
I'm a bit disappointed Chuck left out the "SHILLLLL!!!" in his rant. 🙁 Maybe next time. 😉
Thanks for standing up for us "farm kids"! My siblings and I all have college degrees that have helped keep us on top of the latest technologies. Keep being classy!!
Whenever people ask "questions" in that tone, you can be sure they are not really questions – they are attempts to discredit. And almost without fail, they never state what their own qualifications are (or in a couple of cases that I bothered to track down, they lie about them).
Since I wrote my fear post on the Huffington Post, this guy regularly emails me 1x a week. He has no desire to have a conversation or hear another point of view. In fact, he tells me regularly "he wants to help me" all while calling me fat as well as telling me I am a hypocrite. Sounds like a real winner to me! 😉 Personally, it sort of creeps me out this same guy has nothing better to do than prey on young women online. Either way, nice post you've written here out of a truly horrible message!
I am also proud to be a farmer's daughter. A farmer who was the most talented engineer I've ever met, and I've worked with many professional engineers. I could ask my father about an advanced math problem when we started milking, and before we finished, he could explain how to solve the problem, what variables to explore and be ready to check my work because he had the answer but he wanted me to work through it on paper so that I would learn to work on that type of a problem. How qualified have I been to champion agriculture throughout my career? Does a BSc in Agriculture, major Dairy Science from The Ohio State University help? What about my MS and PhD from Kansas State in Adult Education? Have you traveled the country, as a volunteer, talking with many groups about modern agriculture? Have you actually farmed, helping to make sure that we have enough food in the US to feed all of our citizens and sell enough to the rest of the world to make agriculture our top export item? Until you've gotten your hands in the soil, your hands on the steering wheel of a harvester, or your feet into manure and not flinched at the experience, then you have little to say as long as your mouth is full of food you have chosen from the bounty provided by America's amazing farmers.
What a beautiful response!!! I hope this fellow responds with his credentials. I suppose he is from the organic vegetable industry.
Love your response!
Professor of Plant Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Florida and a family member of a large hog farm in Indiana
Well done! This guy was owned by a person of superior intellect and done with such grace. I just found your blog and wanted to thank you for taking time to set people straight. I did a paper on GMOs in school and it drives me nuts that people have the guts to slam an industry that produces food when there is so much starvation going on in the world. Most of the idiots have no clue what they have been eating for years was modified.
I live in SW Michigan and am happy to be represented by you.