Celebrate Manufacturing Workers, Too!

Bryan Riley / July 29, 2010

If Congressman Peter Defazio (D–OR), sponsor of the End the Trade Deficit Act, had grown up in Kansas instead of Massachusetts, he might have learned a valuable lesson from an association called the Kansas Agri-Women.

In 1978, this group started placing billboards across the state proclaiming, “One Kansas farmer feeds 55 people + YOU.” The Agri-Women regularly had to update their billboards as farmers became more productive. Each year, one Kansas farmer could feed more people than he could the year before.

By 1999, the billboards advertised that one Kansas farmer feeds 128 people—plus you. Eventually, rather than continually having to update the billboards as farmers kept getting better at their jobs, the group changed the text to read: “One Kansas farmer feeds more than 128 people.” (more…)