Young Farmer and Rancher Update
Susan Wilkins, YF&R Chair
February saw young farmers
and ranchers from across the
country – and the world –
converge on Virginia Beach,
Virginia for the 2014 AFBF
YF&R Leadership Conference.
Fourteen folks attended from
West Virginia. As Secretary
of the national YF&R Committee, I had the very
special privilege of opening up the conference at
our General Session on February 8th and giving
remarks to the 1,000+ attendees.
Our theme for the conference was “All Hands
on Deck.” As each of us know, farming is truly a
family effort and it takes everyone lending a hand
on our farms to make them successful. The same
is true for Farm Bureau. Our work is a lot easier
and our voices a lot stronger when we all come
together. In my welcome, I used Lois Alt’s story
as an example of the power of being “all hands
on deck” for the farming industry and the type of
advocate that we each need to be for agriculture.
Consumers today have a lot of questions about
the food and products they are purchasing, and
we have to be able to answer those questions.
Agriculture is doing more than ever to meet
the needs of Americans and people around the
world. If we hope to pass this lifestyle on to our
children, we have to help more people understand
why agriculture is so important.
Throughout the conference, we learned new
ways to use our voices and our stories to ensure
a bright future for the ag industry – we learned
how to become more involved in the policy
development process in our states, gained new
business tools to try on our farms, and networked
with other farmers and ranchers. We also
attended workshops focusing on what we can do
after the YF&R program and using the leadership
skills we’ve gained for the Farm Bureau
organization as a whole.
12 West Virginia Farm Bureau News
A highlight of the conference was the
Collegiate Discussion Meet. We were very proud
to have a member of the West Virginia University
Collegiate Chapter represent our state in the
competition. Amber Huiet, an agriculture and
extension education major, competed in the first
two rounds of the Discussion Meet.
Some extremely special additions to this year’s
conference were guests from the Canadian Young
Farmers Forum, as well as a group of young
farmers from Russia. When people from around
the world were flocking to Sochi, Russia for the
Winter Olympic Games, this group of farmers
chose to visit the United States to attend our
conference instead! The Russian delegation was
accompanied by an interpreter as most of them
knew very little – if any – English.
On Monday of the conference, we traveled by
buses to tour a variety of farms, ag businesses,
and historical sites around Virginia Beach. My
group happened to include the Russian delegation
and we visited the early settlements of Jamestown
and Yorktown. As a proud American, I was
a little awe-struck by visiting Jamestown and
standing on the exact ground where the history
of our country truly began. In fact, the history of
the Wilkins family began in this place in 1618,
when John Wilkins arrived in Jamestown on the
ship “Marygould”. A few years later, he married
Bridget Craft who had just arrived with a group
of prospective brides hoping to help settle the
new world. I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact
that despite my having vacationed in the Virginia
Beach area for the last fifteen years I had never
been to Jamestown. And when I finally did, I
went with a group that included international
visitors on their very first trip to our country!
I always leave this particular conference
feeling motivated and excited about the YF&R
program, but this year was especially unique
because of the added international perspective.
Throughout the day of riding around on the bus,