Zollinger Discusses Importance Of Sharing Idaho’s Ag Story

Idaho is known for a variety of crops; potatoes, sugarbeets, cattle and calves just to name a few.  But more and more people who call Idaho home don’t appreciate the important role agriculture currently plays or how farming can help the state into the future.  Lance Zollinger co-chairs the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation’s Promotions and Education Committee with his wife.  He said as Idaho’s population has grown, and in some regions has drastically changed over the years, it’s become even more important to share the powerful impact farming has had on the entire Gem State.

"To all those organizations that support, agriculture, through offering production service, offering end products.  If you look at that, the reach beyond producers, it’s very significant and you can start to look at the economic side of things and get a feel pretty quick. I think we would all be surprised on how many of our organizations are dependent upon production Ag, even if they're not directly producing.”

Zollinger said when he has conversations across the state about Idaho’s farming industry, one of the biggest misconceptions has to do with the environment.  Noting many people not familiar with farming think production Ag is detrimental to the environment.

“The more people understand and they see that probably the most environmentalist type people are those of us that produce agricultural products because we need the land, we need the different resources around us to make the farms and ranches successful," Zollinger said.  "That that would be one common misconception that again, once a person understands who we are and what we're about, and how we produce, they find that that we're the most environmentally friendly and we're conscious because of how we need it to make the things that we grow.”

Beyond that, Zollinger said they work to educate the community at large about water, and how the farming community depends on water year in and year out to have a successful operation.

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