Mike Rowe on agriculture; plus his early days on TV

Mike Rowe, who hosts “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel, has spoken several times about farming and farm life - and how sometimes farmers do indeed know the best way to do what they do. (See this video on lamb castration, farming and hard work.)

It's also interesting to note that many of his "Dirty Jobs" segments involve farming in one way or another.

Recently, Rowe sat down with AgriTalk's Mike Adams for an interview.

Rowe talks about a "war on work", his website MikeRoweWorks and specifically about agriculture and animal agriculture.

For the full radio interview, click here.

“Anybody from a city, in my opinion, who spends a day, a week, maybe even just a few hours on a working farm is going to be quickly disabused of a lot of what they believe” Rowe told Adams.

Rowe said he is not looking for trouble with OSHA, PETA or “any other angry acronym.”

“But I’m amazed and really curious to know how they’ve become so influential over the last 40 or 50 years,” he said. “I can’t imagine a political organization dedicated to the elimination of U.S. animal agriculture, as the Humane Society [of the United States] appears to be today.”

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Before going on, let me just say that I really like Rowe.  And we've all got to start somewhere.

If you dig a bit at MikeRoweWorks you'll find the Warehouse. It is here where Rowe, in his classic style, discusses his early days on TV - where he worked for QVC in the overnight hours - "sleepwalking through the graveyard shift, and doing my best to amuse myself at a time when the sound of my own voice was the only thing keeping me awake."

He later learned that people at The Onion would videotape his shift on QVC "on purpose and then - inexplicably - watch it at work for the purposes of fostering 'the proper level of subversion and irreverence'. How crazy is that? At a time when I was offending the gentle sensibilities of insomniacs and doll collectors everywhere, I was simultaneously providing inspiration to aspiring writers and starving artists."

Rowe links to a few YouTube videos that you may find entertaining, provided you appreciate his sense of humor. Be sure to check out the dirt shirt and art glass links, too. (And, yes, QVC eventually let him go.)

Also, fyi, Rowe in on Twitter - click here.