Agriculture Future of America Leaders Conference

Claire Dohmen

Agriculture Future of America Leaders Conference (AFA) is a four day conference dedicated to the education of agricultural majors throughout the country.  I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to go.  We spend four days discussing the issues and problems facing the agricultural industry will.  Not only do we talk about the issues but we also discuss how to handle them.  Every situation is different and agriculture is the underdog, so we need know and understand the facts.  Like all conferences there were some fascinating times and some boring times.  I wanted to highlight two of the speakers who I think are most prevalent to this blog. 

Charlie Arnot from the Center for Food Integrity spoke on what agriculture needs to do to improve our image. 

Agriculture needs to be ethically grounded, scientifically verified, and economically viable.  Producers and farmers need to tell the public they care by reinforcing what is important to the consumers.  We, as agriculture, also have to depend on the practical side of people as well.  Producers and farmers take care of the land and animals because that is when we get the best return on our investment. We have to remind the public that we comply with all the environmental regulations and laws.  The agricultural industry has made strives with technology: producers and farmers have tractors with low emissions, we use no till practices to lower erosion, we minimize waste runoff, and that’s just a few examples.  We also have an ethical obligation to consumers, employees, and the environment.  The public forgets that people farm and produce cattle.  We, as agriculture, are one of you. 

~ My personal observation of Charlie Arnot

with the Center for Food Integrity

The second speaker was Daren Williams from the National Cattlemen’s Association.  He spoke on the distance between consumers and producers. 

Agriculture in general needs to own up to what we have done.  Our consumers have been distanced from the farm which means they don’t understand why we do the things we do.  We have to be able to explain what we do and why.   There is a disconnect between the consumer and producer that needs to be rectified.  Agriculture has stopped listening to the consumer and we need to start again.

Producers don’t let anyone in anymore.  We have lost our transparency so it looks like we are being secretive even when we aren’t.  Agriculture has become very suspicious of everyone because of everything that has happened.    We don’t trust the people and the people don’t trust us.  We need to start from scratch, and find common ground again. 

Change in agriculture comes in the form of regulations. We don’t implement change because agriculture is a conservative industry.  But we need to learn to respond to the change and explain our standpoint.  We need to learn to stick together and work together.  We are a individualized industry and we need to form a community. 

Our enemies have grown clever, they twist truths and don’t tell the whole story.  Agriculture is left to finish telling the story so that everyone knows the truth. 

 ~ My personal observation of Daren Williams 

with the National Cattlemen’s Association

Williams and Arnot make good suggestions but we, as agriculture, have to start implementing them.  We need to go on the offense and get the information out there so that the truth is accessible to the general public.  We have started a movement throughout agriculture and everyone is joining in and taking the initiative.   At the AFA conference 500 college students from around the nation came together to learn about the issues facing agriculture and what we need to do to solve them.  At Missouri State in the Agriculture department students are doing this everyday.  We have started and that is half the battle, now we just have to keep going.