WICHITA, Kan. — Kansas State University student Greg Peterson and some friends were unwinding at a drive-in restaurant when LMFAO’s song “Sexy and I Know It” came on the radio. He groaned.
But as the chorus droned on, the 21-year-old found inspiration. He switched “sexy” to “farming” as he began rapping. Then he started coming up with lyrics. It would be fun, he thought, to do a video parody with his brothers when he returned home to the family farm in central Kansas.
Peterson said the brothers aimed the video at their city friends on Facebook because they “hardly knew anything about the farm.” They ended up educating the world. “I’m Farming and I Grow It” video has become an Internet sensation with more than 3.2 million views since it was posted June 25 on YouTube.
Its success has been hailed by farm groups, documented by newspapers and even won the brothers a whirlwind trip to New York for a television appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”
Peterson’s 3:32-minute video begins at the break of dawn with him and his brothers, Nathan, 18, and Kendal, 15, walking across a field of golden wheat that sways gently in the wind. The scenes then shift rapidly to the song’s beat, showing the brothers doing chores, driving combines and tractors and jumping on hay bales
One scene shows Peterson feeding cattle as he raps, “When I step to the bunk, yeah, this is what I see: All the hungry cattle are staring at me. I got passion for my plants, and I ain’t afraid to show it, show it, show it. I’m farming, and I grow it.”
