The Friends Who Changed the Way I Talk About Agriculture

We Don’t Look Like We Have Much in Common

If you looked at a picture of some of my closest friends from college, agriculture probably would not be the first thing that came to mind.

We come from different places. We have different backgrounds, different interests, different styles and, sometimes, very different opinions. Some of us grew up around agriculture and understood from an early age where our food came from and why the industry mattered. Others could not have told you the difference between a cow and a calf when we met. It is funny to look at a picture of us and realize just how different we can look on the outside. Different clothes, different personalities, different hometowns and completely different experiences brought us to the same place.

And somehow, that became one of my favorite things about college.

I came to Oklahoma State University with a pretty deep understanding of agriculture already ingrained in me. I grew up on a ranch in Osage County, Oklahoma, where agriculture was not something I had to learn about in a classroom. It was the backdrop of everyday life. I had plenty of friends from home and from other parts of rural Oklahoma who understood the same things I did. We knew what calving season looked like. We understood why grass mattered. We knew that a drought could change an entire year. We understood that agriculture was not just an industry. It was a way of life.

Then I went to college and met people who had absolutely no idea.

The People Outside of the Agricultural Bubble

At first, I thought those differences might make it harder to connect. Instead, they made the friendships more meaningful.

For the first time, I found myself explaining things I had always assumed everyone knew. And sometimes the conversations were about things so ordinary to me that I never would have thought they needed an explanation.

I have had to explain why my family drags calves instead of using a calf table. To someone who did not grow up around cattle, the idea of roping a calf and physically dragging it to the fire can sound completely foreign. To me, it is simply one of the ways we have always worked cattle. But explaining it to someone who has never been around a ranch makes you realize there is a whole world of knowledge hiding inside something as simple as handling a calf.

The same thing happens when I explain hay.

Why are we putting hay out right now?

Why aren't we putting hay out yet?

Why would we feed hay when there is still grass?

Why does the amount of hay change depending on the time of year, the condition of the pasture, the weather and the cattle themselves?

Those questions might seem incredibly basic to someone who grew up around livestock, but they are not basic if you have never had to think about what an animal eats throughout the year. There is a reason behind those decisions. Ranching is not simply throwing a round bale into a pasture because the calendar says it is winter. It is making decisions based on forage availability, weather, pasture conditions, cattle needs and what you are trying to accomplish with the land.

I have found myself explaining why grass can sometimes be more valuable than hay, why you might leave cattle on pasture rather than feeding them, why a drought changes the way you manage a pasture and why something that looks like a perfectly good field to an outsider may actually need to be rested.

These conversations have taught me something I did not fully understand before college. There is an entire language and logic to agriculture that people outside of it simply may not know.

And that is not their fault.

The One Thing We All Consume 

That is the funny part about looking at a picture of my friends.

You might not look at us and immediately think, agriculture. But agriculture is one of the things connecting every person in that picture, whether they realize it or not.

We all eat. We all wear clothes. We all use products made from agricultural commodities. We all rely on farmers, ranchers and the countless people working throughout the food and fiber system, whether we realize it or not.

The difference is that some of us grew up knowing it, while others are only beginning to understand it.

And I think there is tremendous power in that distinction.

Agriculture does not belong only to people who grew up on farms and ranches. It does not belong only to people who wear boots or know how to work cattle. Agriculture belongs in every community because every community depends on it.

That means agricultural advocacy cannot only happen within the agricultural community.

If we want people outside of agriculture to care about agriculture, we have to be willing to invite them into the conversation. We have to be willing to explain the why behind what we do, answer questions without making people feel stupid for asking them and recognize that someone who knows very little about agriculture is not necessarily someone who does not care about it.

They might just have never had someone explain it to them.

Some of the people who have taught me the most about communicating agriculture are the same people who knew the least about it when we met.

The Friends Who Make You Think Bigger 

That might be the most unexpected gift of a diverse group of friends. We spend so much time thinking about what we can teach other people that we sometimes forget how much they are teaching us in return.

Some friendships remind you where you came from. Others make you wonder where you could go.

College has introduced me to people who have different ambitions, different definitions of success and different ideas about what makes a life meaningful. Some want to build businesses. Some want to create art. Some want careers that take them around the world. Some want to raise families and live a quiet life close to home. Some want to change entire industries.

None of those lives is inherently more valuable than another.

I think there is something beautiful about a simple life that makes a lasting impact. A rancher caring for land and livestock, a parent raising children with good values, a teacher investing in students or a neighbor quietly serving their community may never become famous, but their influence can stretch far beyond what they ever see.

At the same time, I have learned that I need people around me who make me want to dream bigger. People who are curious, driven and willing to take a chance on something more. People who look at the world as it is and wonder what they could do to make it better.

Being around people like that has made me think more seriously about what I want my own life to look like.

I do not want to live simply for the sake of being successful. I want to contribute something. I want to build something. I want to use what I have been given to make an impact somewhere, whether that impact is large enough for thousands of people to see or small enough that only a handful ever know about it.

More Than Being Remembered 

Maybe that is why I have become less interested in being remembered for who I was and more interested in being remembered for what I did with the life I was given.

I do not need my name on a building. I do not need to be famous. I do not need everyone to know who I was.

I want to write things that make people stop and think. I want to tell stories that might otherwise be overlooked. I want to advocate for agriculture in rooms where agriculture is misunderstood. I want to use my skills to contribute something meaningful to an industry and a way of life that I care deeply about.

And maybe that is where agriculture and friendship come together again.

Ranching taught me early that impact is not always immediate or obvious. You care for grass you may not be the one to benefit from. You make decisions with the next generation in mind. You work long days knowing that much of what you are building belongs to something bigger than yourself.

A meaningful life can work the same way.

You do not always get to see the full result of what you contribute. Sometimes you plant something that someone else will harvest.

What We Give Each Other 

That is what I think these friendships have taught me.

Diversifying your circle does not mean finding people who are completely different simply for the sake of being different. It means allowing people with different experiences, perspectives, ambitions and definitions of success to challenge the way you see the world.

My friends outside of agriculture have helped me understand how agriculture looks from the outside. They have given me opportunities to explain things I once assumed everyone knew, from why we drag calves to why we put out mineral. They have reminded me that there is an entire population of people who depend on agriculture without necessarily understanding it.

And they have challenged me to think beyond agriculture, too.

They have shown me different ways to build a life, different ways to define success and different ways to make an impact. Some have made me want to dream bigger. Others have reminded me that a good life does not have to be loud to be meaningful.

I think we need both.

We need people who remind us to slow down and appreciate the life right in front of us. We also need people who make us ask what else we could do with the time we have been given.

Most importantly, we need people who make us better.

Leaving Something Behind 

When I look at a picture of my friends now, I see more than a group of people who happened to find one another during college.

I see different backgrounds, different dreams, different perspectives and different definitions of success. I see people who have reminded me that the world is bigger than the little corner I grew up in.

Maybe you have to know where to look for it, but I see agriculture too.

That may be one of the most important things my college years have taught me.

We do not have to be alike to learn from one another. We do not have to want the same life to encourage each other. And we do not have to have the same definition of success to leave a meaningful mark on the world.

Some people will change the world loudly. Others will change it quietly.

Some will build companies, write books, shape policy or transform industries. Others will raise good children, steward a piece of land, teach a classroom or show up for their neighbors year after year.

All of it matters.

I may not know exactly what my name will mean someday. But I know what I hope it means.

Not that I was the most successful, the most accomplished or the most well-known. But that I cared deeply, worked hard and left something better than I found it.

Because at the end of the day, I do not want my name to be remembered simply because it was mine. I want it to be remembered because of the impact attached to it.