Behind the scenes

Today Kris went to the MMPA (Michigan Milk Producers Association) 95th annual delegate meeting. He’s a voting delegate for our district.

It was an all-day meeting, including a retirement recognition for Velmar Green, who was on the board for 42 years. (He has a huge farm in our district – Green Meadows. He always says really nice things to me about Kris’ grandpa Wiff Wardin, who I never got to meet, but he knew well.)

Then they went over the resolutions, which are initiatives the co-op tries to implement. To name a few to give you an idea - working with Michigan State University to support the College of Ag and Natural Resources, enforce labeling claims on dairy products, and encouraging political efforts to help make Michigan bovine tuberculosis-free.

They awarded everyone who’d been a member for 35 years and they all said a little something. Kris said one woman said she was a city girl. The first time she drove up to the farm her husband-to-be and his brother were standing by the MMPA sign and she thought to herself, “I wonder what that stands for? Manly men potentially available?”

I was looking over the annual report and just thinking about everything that goes into a co-op. Resolutions, marketing, the board … I was in student council every year in school. As a result, the rest of my life, I could never look at a dance or a pep rally or an event without thinking about all the work that someone did to put it on. After you’re involved in the planning and organization - of anything - you always look behind the scenes.

So our farm is much larger than just our farm. We’re a business, but a co-op is a business in and of itself.

But on the small scale, today my oldest son said, “Look! That black and white one is my favorite.”

Big farm, big business, all working together with the little things that make you happy. And full of manly men, pointing out their favorite cow.