It’s not St. Patty’s day yet but green soy beer was flowing in Jefferson City this evening at the second annual Shamrock Shindig. This is our Missouri Director of Agriculture’s showcase reception for our legislators. It’s a great party.

In the picture you can see Director of Ag, Fred Ferrell (right), welcoming guests. I avoided the name tags since they didn’t have one made for me. They were ear tags and they had pre-loaded the guests names into a computer. Then when you walked through the entrance the tag was read and you showed up on a computer screen. It was to demonstrate the animal id system that the Department is supporting. I thought it was a little scary that the Department is tracking people!

I interviewed Director Ferrell, although I had to edit out his greetings since he would stop and individually greet each person that came in. You can hear my interview with Fred here: Fred Ferrell Interview (1 min. MP3)

By the way, Missouri’s commodity groups all cook up and serve food. It’s judged and the overall winner this year was the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association with their beef stew.