Butler County Farm Bureau officials took umbrage with comments former New York City mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg made about farmers during a 2016 interview that went viral this week.

The comments were included in a video clip from the Distinguished Speaker Series at the University of Oxford in England that landed in the national news Monday.

In the segment, Bloomberg said the farming and manufacturing economy has been replaced by an information economy and that he can teach anyone to be a farmer.

“You dig a hole, put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn,” Bloomberg said in the video, which was posted on Foxnews.com and many other websites.

In addition, he said the information economy “is built around replacing people with technology” and jobs require “a lot more gray matter” and different skill sets.

Bloomberg said factory jobs were just as simple during the same interview.

“That is just totally untrue,” William Thiele, of the Thiele Dairy Farm in Cabot, said about Bloomberg's description of farming.

“We farmers are not just farmers. We're mechanics. We're vets. We have to be up on the latest tech trends. It helps us save money, save time and labor. To use a baseball analogy: You have to be a five-tool player.”

Growing crops and raising cattle is not as simple as many people think, Thiele said.

“People need to be educated that farming is a tough business. It's more than just riding around on a tractor all day; it's more than putting a milker on a cow or complaining about the weather. There's lot more to it than most people see,” Thiele said.

He said farming has become one of the most technologically advanced industries in the world, and farmers must have a wide breadth of knowledge and skill to thrive.

“You're constantly learning,” Thiele said.

Durng this time of year, after the previous year's harvest and before the new planting season, farmers regularly attend meetings held by seed dealers, cattle breeding organizations and look for apps that help track crop production, rainfall and other aspects of agriculture, he explained.

“Farming, it's not for the faint of heart. Most people couldn't do it, including politicians,” Thiele said.

Larry Voll, president of the county Farm Bureau also said Bloomberg oversimplified farming.

“I'd just like to see him try,” Voll said about Bloomberg's corn planting instructions. “It's not as simple as he put it. That's not how it happens.”

A lot of people share Bloomberg's opinions on farming, he said. Planting corn as Bloomberg described it was before scientific advancements modernized the industry.

“There's a lot of science that goes into it anymore. A 150 years ago, that's what you did. But now with micronutrients and fertilization ... It's not that simple,” Voll said.

Voll said he saw the video on social media and then showed it to his wife, who laughed along with him.

“I think he stepped in something when he said that,” Voll said.

Evelyn Minteer, information officer for the county farm bureau, found Bloomberg's comments disrespectful toward farmers.

“It's very appalling that a man of his caliber comes down on farming that way. We're 2 percent of the population feeding the rest of the world,” Minteer said. “I don't have much respect for the man.”

She said Bloomberg doesn't grasp the passion it takes to be a farmer.

“It takes the love of a farmer to learn the land, and this has been handed down from generation to generation. It just hurts that somebody would say that,” Minteer said.