Imagine you are flipping through your TV channels and you stumble upon a new, suspenseful action movie. On the screen, there is a community in need of someone to step up and make a difference. Someone who will go above and beyond, making sacrifice after sacrifice and why? It’s simple, because they know that they can be the change. They use their superhuman strength to provide a solution to a problem and their lightning-fast speed to be able to be in multiple places at once. Their superpower is being able to look into the future and help the community see it too. What superhero am I talking about? The farmer.
It is truly the mindset of the farmer to consistently want to make a difference on not just our own farms, but in our communities, country and on a global scale. The practices we adopt are inspired by the next generation. For example, when I think of sustainability as a sixth-generation farmer, I focus on wanting to see my family’s farm continue for another six generations. This can be accomplished through using recycled sand to bed the stalls for our cows, putting manure on our fields using precision technology and sharing our story to make a difference.
On our farm, we recycle the sand to be washed, dried and then put back into the free stalls for the cows to lay down on. We recover approximately 96% of the sand. Before our sand separator, we were getting eight truckloads of sand delivered each week to use as bedding. Now, we only need two dump truck loads per month. Additionally, to apply manure onto our fields to grow crops to feed the cows, we are using new technology to help us be more efficient and precise. Utilizing a hose and drag line system eliminates using tanker trucks to haul our nutrients. We now have seven miles of 10-inch dragline hose making our system more efficient in addition to having the technology to know how much we are applying at a time. These practices were all implemented with the mindset that we wanted to become more sustainable, not just for our farm, but for our entire community.
Like every good superhero story, nobody knows what you do unless you tell them. Farmers, like superheroes, have the power to make a difference in the world and we are already doing it! But we must also keep in mind the importance of sharing what we do. Sharing how we are superheroes, not just feeding our community, but caring for it. The sustainability practices on our farms are important to share. Visit Larson Acres on Facebook to see how we are being sustainable today and everyday. Don’t be like Superman and hide behind the glasses, put on your cape and fly towards the next opportunity to share your story as a Farming Superhero.
We all share the responsibility of caring for our resources. You have the power to be a hero for the next generation! Simple actions like recycling and composting make YOU a superhero for our planet. Start a garden at your house, use reusable water bottles, or carpool! Any action is a positive towards protecting our environment.
Brooke Trustem is a sixth generation dairy farmer from Evansville, Wisconsin. She works as a herdswoman on her family’s dairy farm, Larson Acres, delivering calves in the maternity area, working with prefresh and fresh cows, and works with the calf feeding department. An active philanthropist, Brooke is on the board of her local FFA Alumni, Chair of her county Young Farmers & Agriculturist Committee for Farm Bureau, and a member of the Wisconsin Agricultural and Life Sciences Alumni Association Board of Directors.
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