WVFB Young Farmers and Ranchers Attend YAP Conference in Ohio
Sara Wayne
Members of the West Virginia Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee were invited to attend Ohio’ s Young Agriculture Professionals Conference or YAP. On January 29th, eight WVFB members traveled to Columbus for the conference, hosted by the Ohio Farm Bureau. Those in attendance were Eric Thomason, Joe Hatton, Jeremy and Danielle Grant, John and Sara Wayne, Teighlor Cross, and Kearsten Huffman.
The YAP conference was first held a few years ago, with only 100 producers in attendance. Each year the conference has continued to grow. This years’ YAP conference boasted nearly 700 young ag professionals! The conference is designed to provide young agriculture professionals with an opportunity to build leadership skills and better their agriculture operations. The conference also provides attendees with a great chance to network with other producers.
On Friday, the conference opened up with the first round of the discussion meet and the general session, followed by the final round of the discussion meet. Saturday was dedicated to a wide variety of educational workshops ranging from food safety, marketing, business financials, farm succession planning and communicating with consumers about their concerns involving agriculture.
One of the workshops that we chose to attend was by Dr. Leah Dorman from Phibro Animal Health Corporation. Her presentation,“ Having Conversations with Ease,” further opened my eyes to the many misconceptions consumers have about agriculture. Dr. Dorman explained how farmers can engage in conversations about food production, as well as what types of information consumers are concerned about. Dr. Dorman also stressed the importance of consumers learning about how their food is produced from the people who are actually producing it. For more information you can visit www. fooddialogues. com.
Mark Ankerman, from Ohio State University, held a workshop titled“ Perfecting Your 30 Second Elevator Speech.” Professor Ankerman shared with us the art of getting and holding the attention of the audience, no matter how big or small, in order to deliver your message. By combining the information from these workshops we hope to improve our ability to be advocates for both agriculture and the Farm Bureau. The opportunity to be immersed in such a positive atmosphere with other young people who were passionate about agriculture proved to be truly inspiring to all of those attending.
Photo: Sara Wayne and husband, John.
22 West Virginia Farm Bureau News