Here are student summaries of fall 2024 MCJD dialogical surveys with Willamette Valley farmers and ranchers. Click on any title for details, then return to see all titles.
Widening Perspectives: Think Like a Farmer
Event: Willamette Valley AgricultureInterviewer: Cece
Whom did you interview?
In our time talking with the farmers from Young Farmers and Ranchers, I had the pleasure of getting to know one farmer in depth: John. Like many of the farmers there, John grows a variety of crops on his farm, but does it mostly for fun.
How did your EcoTypes and SDG priorities compare?As John took and completed the EcoTypes survey, I found that a lot of our answers differed, but I didn’t disagree with what he was saying and how he justified his answers. He wound up being assigned the Land Stewardship EcoType, with neither an Old or New Knowledge type. When I took the test, I received the Earth Action EcoType, which is the complementary EcoType to Land Stewardship. This was interesting to me, since – as I said – I didn’t find myself disagreeing with what John said most of the time. I think that talking to him allowed me to enter his perspective in a way and see the logic behind his views.
What larger MCJD lessons did you learn?I think that the conversation I had with John really reiterated the main theme of MCJD, since I was actually able to interact with someone of a vastly different background than mine and see how they expressed concern for environmental issues. I could tell that he cared and had opinions, but they were mostly about issues that I didn’t have as much as an opinion about. Some of the questions meant different things to him than they did to me. For example, he had more of an opinion about governmental policies and overreach than I did, simply because it affects him as a farmer more than it would affect me. Overall, I really enjoyed hearing new perspectives, especially from John, who had very intelligent takes on the questions.