And the champion is?

I truly believe we are all a product of our experiences and our interactions with others. When you think about the human mind, it continues to accumulate data and in turn drives our lives in a certain direction, based upon the summary of the data entered.

I have just completed a trip delivering essential food supplies (pigs) through 19 states including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Alabama. As you drive through each state today, a different feeling comes to you. Clearly folks have a better understanding of the importance of state’s rights and their governor than they did on Jan. 1, 2020.

I have always found it interesting with folks who do not travel much outside of their local community how different the mindset is from people like myself who would be considered a road warrior. This pertains to my original thought process of how experiences lead to general tendencies about life and such things as policy. Clearly, if you see more things firsthand, you have more insight into the decision-making process.

Today, I choose not to talk specifically about policies or government because everything is tied to that but more importantly how decisions being made by politicians affect everyone whether you are into politics or not. Early on, it was reported that 46,000 schools are closed and students are studying online. One of the repercussions of the closures, which has received some lip service but not enough action, is that 30 million kids are struggling with adequate daily nutrition.

I am willing to bet that no matter what your life experiences are, when you learned that farmers were destroying animals, milk and crops because of a bottleneck while folks are going hungry, it was just a little hard to get your head around. It’s hard for all of us to accept but the one thing that 2020 has vastly assured me of is that the government is part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Recently on my Rural Route Radio program a friend of mine from Texas was sharing what his wife was championing at their church. They are feeding those who are struggling day to day with having enough access to food. Yes, while I have often blamed individuals for being lazy or just relying on handouts instead of finding a way to provide essentials for their family, the truth is that regardless of the circumstances leading up to their situation, life is tough for these kids.

This may seem to have a simple solution, Let’s go to a dairy that is dumping milk and also load up a dozen hogs that could potentially have been euthanized and head down the road to help out. Once we get there is when the challenges really begin to mount. First off, Brian shared that most of these kids live in homes without electricity so if we give them milk, anything they don’t drink today is spoiled. If we butcher the hogs and don’t cure all of the meat, what do we have? We have a ton of wasted food.

For someone who daily prides himself in producing the essentials of life, it just really wears on your mental health to think what you have dedicated your life to can’t help the people who need it most. As I have been saying for weeks now, we have the ability to push the reset button on our nation’s food system. I think it is vitally important that the individuals who are taking care of land and livestock step up to the plate and shape what that future system looks like.

Let’s be honest, those millions of kids who are truly food insecure are not going to be fixed by the generosity of these caring individuals. The volunteers are simply providing what the kids need today for them to have another chance at tomorrow. The true reset involves doing what we can to prevent families from being in the position of not knowing where their next meal is coming from.

I will not pretend to have the solution for that bigger picture problem, but I certainly hope we can facilitate a discussion about what steps in the right direction might look like. The one thing I am very certain of is that the answer does not reside in Washington DC. Big Brother needs to stop spending trillions of dollars pretending like they are helping. The bigger question is: who will be the real champion of the cause?

Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].