Welcome to AgZINE!

Greetings family, friends, neighbors and strangers alike!

Many of you know me quite well but for those who do not, allow me to introduce myself and what I do.

My name is Luke Coomer. I live on a small ranch a few miles outside beautiful Baker City Oregon with my parents and two brothers. We raise commercial and registered cattle for a variety of markets from grass fed beef to herd bulls with a large portion of sales being show steers for local youth to take to the county fair. I have been interested in agriculture as long as I can remember and have helped out on the ranch my whole life. I am passionate about the agricultural way of life and all it has to offer. I show cattle and have my own (tiny) breeding herd and have friends among many of the farmers and ranchers in the Baker Valley. This blog is part of my FFA Ag SAE (Supervised Agricultural Experience). I decided to have an Agricultural Communications SAE because of my desire to correct the misinformation being spread about Ag by people who, in general, know nothing about it. Approximately one year ago, I joined the Baker FFA Chapter and dove in headfirst. I was a member of many of the chapter’s competitive teams and had a blast! I was on the Parliamentary Procedure, Ag Sales and Service, Horse Judging, Livestock Judging, and Ag Issues teams. The Ag Issues team was extremely interesting to me as it ties in with my career choice very well. In Ag Issues, we have a team of seven members who prepare a presentation about an issue facing agriculture today and then give it to several groups around the community before competing at the state level. My responsibility on the team was to write the script for our presentation (it will be included on this blog). Our presentation was entitled “A Tale of Two PETAs”. The two PETAs are People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and People Eating Tasty Animals (which is actually a website that is the subject of one of the longest domain fights in internet history). The presentation explores the claims of both sides of the animal welfare debate as well as some of the assumed health concerns associated with eating meat.

My purpose in having this blog is to form a bridge between ag and non-ag, as well as between different sectors of the ag industry. I will be updating this blog weekly with a comment on some issue and I will post full articles as I write them. This introductory letter will also be revised occasionally, so check back often! If you have questions or suggestions for AgZINE feel free to send them to luke.agzine.coomer@gmail.com. I am always happy to listen to input from you, my readers.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you enjoy reading and learning!

Sincerely,

Luke RW Coomer

Luke Coomer, Owner, AgZINE Communications