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Beef farmer featured in online informational campaign, contest

JANESVILLE TOWNSHIP — For cattleman Allan Arndt, farming is all he knows.

Arndt started out feeding dairy calves as a kid and has been working full time in the family business, the 3,000-acre Arndt Farms Inc., for the past 25 years.

Arndt, along with seven other Wisconsin farmers, is hoping he can help people understand what really goes into making a farm work.

The Wisconsin farmers are part of an online Wisconsin Farmers Feed US Sweepstakes that launched July 6 and runs through Oct. 3 at www.FarmersFeedUS.org.

Two Wisconsin residents can win free groceries for a year, a $5,000 value.

“Hopefully it gives a face to the product we build,” Arndt said. “You don’t know the guy who built your car … but when you get to meet somebody and get a better idea of the job they perform, it certainly instills confidence in the product they produce.”

The website features virtual tours of all eight farms, and over the course of the 90-day campaign, consumers throughout the state also will see and hear from the farmers as they are featured in television advertising and online at Facebook and Twitter.

Arndt said some groups and media outlets sympathetic to them portray farmers as untrustworthy.

“They work hard to depict farmers in a negative light in order to encourage consumers not to consume the product,” Arndt said. “(The contest) is a response to that.”

Read the full story in the July 28, 2010 e-edition of The Janesville Messenger, HERE.