March 4: Stories That Caught Our Attention This Week - Modern Farmer

March 4: Stories That Caught Our Attention This Week

Things to check out: A seeing-eye goat, ingenuity in water conservation, and a therapy pig.

miss snuffles
Miss Snuffles, the therapy pig, doing her thing.
Photography Screen grab courtesy of WGME

First things first: Tuesday was National Pig Day and we found this fun piece on a therapy pig in Maine. Four-year-old Miss Snuffles spends her days cheering people up, and on one particular visit, she spent time at an independent senior living facility with a few ladies who grew up on farms. Ah, to be young again.

In another dose of cuteness, Marcia is a blind goat with a seeing-eye goat as her best friend. His name is Maurice and he helps Marcia out every step of her day, or so says a director at the farm sanctuary where they live. She literally leans on him. And he loves it.

Meanwhile, an Israeli-Canadian couple found themselves enamored and amazed with the majestically horned Jacob sheep when they realized the breed reportedly followed the Israelites to ancient Egypt/everywhere else back in the day. “It’s a Jewish value to conserve animals, repair the world and bring back this lost heritage to the Jewish family,” the couple told The New York Times. They plan to fly the Jacob sheep they’ve been raising – 130 of them – to Israel later this year.

Shifting to people, young farmers out west often get the short end of the stick in terms of water rights. When their well runs dry, they have little opportunity to seek water out elsewhere for their crops and livestock. With ingenuity, though, many are getting by with active water conservation techniques such as cover cropping.

Lastly, a closing thought: farmers are people, too. We know this. You guys know this. Theoretically, everyone knows it. But, as Medium writer Sarah Mock points out, they’re often vilified for not acting on the recommendations of the celebrated food and ag writers of the world. After a ten-hour workday, would you sit around and read books about what you did all day? Like all other people, farmers need a mental break. “If we want farmers to take our goals around ecology and sustainability seriously,” Mock writes, “we have to stop believing that they’re either holy or evil; they’re people, people who are more than their jobs.”

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