Staff writer
After the Peterson Brothers’ video parody, “I’m Farming and I Grow It,” went viral, it seemed like the public could not get enough of the farmer-made YouTube videos portraying life on their farm.
The Peterson Brothers — Greg, Nathan, and Kendal made their video a year ago to raise awareness about how hard farmers work to feed the nation. However, Peabody farmer Derek Klingenberg was ahead of the curve. He uploaded his first video, “Bumble Bees in the Hay,” five years ago, “just for fun,” he said, and has been creating videos ever since, including his newest addition “Walking around the T-Bone Steak,” a “Rocking around the Christmas Tree” parody.
The video was posted on Dec. 11 and depicts the hassle of cooking the perfect T-bone steak. He said he does not expect it to go viral like “What Does the Farmer Say?” which currently has almost 4 million views, but it was fun to make.
Klingenberg’s video fame has won him national recognition via Fox News, the Los Angeles Times, and an upcoming feature on CNN special about this year’s viral videos.
Now the Kansas Department of Agriculture has jumped on the bandwagon with their video “From the Land of Kansas (YMCA parody)” created in conjunction with the Peterson brothers. The video already has 180,000 views, and features the musical talents of the three Peterson brothers.
“We developed a relationship with the Peterson brothers as they were performing at many of the events where we also were,” Stacy Mayo, From the Land of Kansas director, said. “Through that interaction, we realized their goals for agriculture advocacy and promotion of Kansas aligned with our focus for the re-launch of the new From the Land of Kansas trademark program.”
The video was created to describe the KDA’s new program by the same name. The program’s goal is to help Kansas businesses that grow, produce, process, or manufacture products in Kansas and promote those products and help businesses develop and market those projects. Members also include restaurants that serve Kansas products or agro-tourism destinations.
“Our goal was to create a fun, entertaining way to promote the re-launch of the new program,” Mayo said. “We are utilizing multiple communication vehicles and tools to promote. This video was one of our approaches.”
Mayo said the KDA would consider doing similar videos to promote programs in the future.