After a Trip to Washington State, Blueberry Yogurt Will Never Be the Same
Submitted by Paulsen
After our summer vacation, my family
will never look at blueberry yogurt the same way again.
As a Midwest farm kid and ag
communicator, I feel confident in a pair of work boots, standing in a pen of
beef cattle, or discussing corn fertilizer and value-added soybeans. But an
agriculture tour in Washington state opened my eyes to just how vast and varied
farming can be.
It also gave me a rare chance to see
agriculture through the eyes of an unknowing consumer. Standing in a blueberry
field, watching machines shake fruit from bushes, I realized—if I, someone
immersed in agriculture, still had so much to learn about different types of
farming, how much more could consumers gain by knowing the farmers behind their
food?
Farming Is a Business, But No Two Are Alike
Consider this: farmers are some of the
hardest-working, smartest business owners in the country. They don’t just plant
and harvest; they make decisions like CEOs—managing risk, forecasting markets,
investing in technology and ensuring sustainability, all while keeping their
family and legacy at the heart of it.
But just like no two businesses are
exactly the same, no two farms are either. The skills, challenges and expertise
of a dairy farmer are completely different from those of a wheat grower or a
berry producer.
A potato farmer in Idaho isn’t
automatically an expert on a cranberry bog in Wisconsin. A wheat grower in
Kansas might not know the first thing about running a 1,000-cow dairy in
California.
It would be like asking a brain
surgeon to perform a root canal—both are medical professionals, but their
expertise is worlds apart. Or like putting a NASCAR driver behind the controls
of a Boeing 747—sure, they both move fast, but the skill sets are completely
different.
Lessons from the Pacific Northwest
Every morning for the past year, our
three-year-old has started his day with the same thing—blueberry yogurt. After
our trip to Washington, that simple cup of yogurt has taken on a whole new
meaning in our house.
During our vacation, we connected with
a dairy farmer in northwest Washington. He showed us his family’s 750 head cow
operation and obliged my Iowa curiosity. But his farm was just the start. As he
drove us around his county in his truck, we saw potato fields, haylage being
made for feed, a neighbor’s multi-million-dollar robotic milking barn and
endless acres of raspberries and blueberries.
In Iowa, farming is mostly corn and
soybeans. Here, it was a patchwork of different crops and livestock, each
farmer an expert in their own piece of the puzzle.
From Farm to Yogurt Cup
Standing at the edge of 1,000 acres of
blueberries, we watched machines shake berries from the bushes—a far different
harvest scene than I’m used to with grain carts and combines. My toddler tried
to eat his weight in fresh berries, but most were headed for a much bigger
journey. From field to processor, they’d be sorted, frozen, dipped in
chocolate, or turned into the fruit mix that ends up at the bottom of his
yogurt cup.
A few miles down the road, we toured a
dairy farm where 1,250 cows were milked by robotic systems—no staff tirelessly
manning the milkers, just a quiet, steady rhythm of cows walking in to be
milked. That milk, like the blueberries, had its own journey—processed,
transported, and eventually blended into that morning yogurt.
Seeing it all firsthand makes
breakfast feel different now. That yogurt isn’t just yogurt—it’s the result of
specialized farms, expert farmers and countless steps along the way.
Agriculture Is Everywhere—But It’s Never
the Same
Farmers may face similar
challenges—labor shortages, market demands, technological shifts—but the way
they farm is unique to their land, climate and customers.
At Paulsen, we’ve worked with all
kinds of producers—row crop farmers, dairy and livestock producers, pecan
growers, even crop innovators. Agriculture isn’t one story—it’s thousands of
stories, all woven together to feed, fuel and clothe the world.
So, the next time you open a cup of
blueberry yogurt, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. A farmer
made that happen. And while their farm may look nothing like the one down the
road—or in another state—every farmer deserves to be celebrated today and every
day.
Happy
Ag Day!
