AGvocacy in the limelight...

When most people from outside California think of the sunshine state, they like to imagine the "Hollywood lifestyle." In fact, I have had a couple people here in Kansas ask me if I know any famous people. All that I can tell them is that my hometown has produced some famous people, including Star Wars creator George Lucas, Justified Star Timothy Olyphant and Jeremy Renner, who you will see in the Avengers next summer. I have never actually met any movie stars personally. In fact, I have respect for hardly any film or television stars, the same goes with musicians. A lot of them sell out their values and beliefs for fame and fortune.

I have, however, met celebrities of a different kind. These people are the ones who I respect on a much higher level. The people I am talking about are people in the agricultural community promoting and defending the industry. People that risk being personally attacked for supporting an industry that feeds the world. Some of the real celebrities I have met include: Past CA Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura, Past US Secretary of Ag Anne Veneman, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, and the young lady I met yesterday evening.

I'm talking about Teresa Scanlan, but you may know her as Miss America. She is the youngest Miss America ever at only 18 years old, although if you spoke to her you would think that she was much older. Her platform she chose to advocate for during her reign is the promotion of farmers and agriculture, as well as educating about eating disorders, and this woman knows her stuff. She came to give a lecture here on campus about production agriculture and the challenges that we will face in my generation.

Yes, I know I'm blinking. I think when you stand next to Miss America, you look less attractive by comparison.

Here's a better picture.

While she was not raised on a farm, her parents taught her the importance for agriculture. She has a deep respect for farmers and everything they go through day-to-day. I am glad we have someone like her who can intelligently describe our position to mainstream audiences. Her motto for her platform is "Not everyone farms, but everyone has to eat."

I'd like to thank Ms. Teresa Scanlan for coming to Kansas State and even more thanks for her choosing agriculture as her platform and working with farming organizations and charities.

WTF?

On Thursday I participated in what was known as the WTF Day, or in other words, the "Where's the Food...Without the Farmer Day. There is an organization called I Love Farmers...They Feed My Soul founded at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo from a group of agriculture students (some of whom I've known from FFA or MJC) and they wanted to plan a national event on multiple college campuses promoting the American farmer.

When I found out Kansas State wanted to participate I wanted to help. When I was at Cal Poly, I felt bad that I never really helped out with the organization except once at the World Ag Expo, but I always felt guilty for not doing more.

We had two groups of students, one group was in front of the student union, the other in front of the agriculture building. I think for next year we should just concentrate everyone in one location, because I think it shows strength in numbers.

Overall it was a good day, although we may have not gotten the amount of media coverage that we wanted, we still reached a lot of people on campus. And that, in the end, is the most important thing.

Agriculture Future of America Conference

Last weekend, I went to the AFA conference in Kansas City, MO. AFA stands for Agriculture Future of America. First off let me say, this was in my top two best weekends I had since I moved to Kansas, the other being when my sister came to visit. I hadn't left Manhattan since May, so it was refreshing to get out of town and see someplace new.

I carpooled with a few other K-State students over to our hotel in Kansas City. It's interesting how many people I've met here that are either from the west or east coasts. I'm beginning to think this is a trend.

This conference was awesome, one of the best I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot of them. Not only were the speakers and workshops great, but I met a lot of people from all over the country.

I think my favorite part of the conference was the time I got to spend with the other people from Kansas State. Before this conference, I don't even think I said hello to them, which was terrible. That weekend I must've met 8-10 people from Kansas State that I never talked to, and it was great getting to know them. Above is a picture of a few of us with Orion Samuelson, a broadcast journalist for RFD-TV.

I also enjoyed the speakers and workshops. Our first speaker was Captain Charlie Plumb, a navy combat pilot from the Top Gun Academy who was captured in Vietnam and kept in a Vietnamese prison camp for years. We also had a woman named Jan Hargrave who was a body language expert teach us about how to read people. She even taught us how to read romantic body language, which I will make sure to remember.

There was also a career fair, where I met a lot of great industry professionals for internships. I found out I was paired with a company called ICM, which I later found out was a biofuels company. At first, I thought I would have nothing to say to these people because I knew hardly anything about ethanol, but it turns out their internship they offered was right up my alley.

All in all, it was a great conference. I learned some great things, met some great people and was re-engerized to come back and put these skills I learned to good use. It's something I'm definitely looking forward to next year and may even try to become a national officer for the organization. We shall see.