Beth has pointed me toward a news report on French TV today about a farmer in France who’s a U2 fan … stay with me on this … and this farmer plays pop music, including U2, while his cows are being milked because he says it helps the cows produce more milk.

There’s more: The farmer guy has named a couple of his cows after U2, and in the TV news report we hear him calling out to one of them as “Edge.” Beth, who speaks more fluent French than me, also says the farmer shares his thoughts “on the potential great future of the Bono cow.” The photo above is Edge Cow, I think.

I’m not making this up, and neither is Beth. Wanna see it for yourself?

1) Go here: http://videos.tf1.fr/video/

2) Along the top navigation menu items, click the link that says “Infos” and then select the first item on the dropdown list, which should say “JT 13/20H en video”.

3) When you click that, a new window will popup with the video player. On the right side will be some navigation, including a dropdown menu with the date. You’re looking for “5 sep 2006″, and then be sure to click the circle that’s marked “13h”, too. Click the little GO button and the window will refresh.

4) On the list of available videos, scroll way down until you see a thumbnail image of some cows. The headline will say “les vaches aiment la musique” — which translates to “Cows love music” — bingo!

5) Sit and enjoy, and thank Beth and @U2 for helping to brighten a few moments of your otherwise boring day.