Celebrating farm life

Three Kansas brothers are enjoying a moment of fame while promoting agriculture. They posted a video parody, “I’m Farming and I Grow It”  a week ago, and it’s become an internet hit with over 2.6 million views by Monday morning. It’s great fun, with the three brothers illustrating life on the farm – on tractors and bales, running combine and feeding cattle, right on down to their grubby jeans and well-developed muscles. The rap, a parody on “Sexy and I Know It,” has a great chorus, “Gotta Feed Everybody.” 

Their local newspaper, the Salina Journal posted a story about how the oldest brother, Greg Peterson, 21, got the idea for the song parody and the making of the video with his younger brothers, Nathan, 18, and Kendal, 15.

What a great way to celebrate farm life around the Fourth of July.

Social media like Facebook and YouTube are a good way to get a message out. Fame is fickle, of course, and one can never predict what will catch people’s fancy and go viral. Watching the Peterson Brother’s video reminded me of another a while back that, while not quite as well done as the Peterson brothers’, is a light-hearted promotion for ethanol. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association has conducted a Fuel the Future contest for high school students. The winner earlier this year was done by Sam Ennis. The ethanol promo, “I Got You Ethanol,”  plays on a teenager’s love for his car.  IRFA’s Grant Menke says the organization has run the contest for two years now, receiving about dozen entries each year. Thanks to a cosponsorship with Faegre Baker Daniels, prizes for the top three videos were $1,000, $600 and $400. The contest opened before Thanksgiving and the winning videos were featured at the 2012 Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit on Jan. 24 and IRFA has plans to do it again this year.

Wouldn’t it be great fun if one of those went viral?