By J. Scott Angle | [email protected] | @IFAS_VP
Mark Mauldin never really stops working with and for his Farm Bureau friends and clients. He was recently chasing a bull off his property to get it back to his neighbor’s ranch when his phone showed an incoming call from FFBF headquarters in Gainesville.
The bull could wait. Mauldin found shade under an oak tree and answered. It was Jared Lanier, FFBF’s director of field services, who called to inform Mark that he is the 2026 Farm Bureau Extension Professional of the Year.
When I saw Mauldin at our annual Farm Bureau Appreciation Dinner at the Alachua County Extension Office weeks later, he still appeared a bit stunned by the honor. He said it was still sinking in that he’s now on a list whose past honorees include legends like Bob Hochmuth and Gene McAvoy.
Washington County Farm Bureau President George Fisher is Mauldin’s nominator, client, and friend. He goes back 13 years with Mauldin. At the time, Mauldin was a high school agriculture teacher applying for the job of county agriculture Extension agent. Fisher was on the search committee, and he recommended Mauldin as the best hire.
Fisher was in Mauldin’s office on the new agent’s very first day on the job. Fisher was president of the Washington County Cattlemen’s Association board – he was on the county Farm Bureau board but not yet president — and he wanted Mauldin to know that he had the support of both organizations. Fisher also had a bunch of questions about baleage.
That conversation has never really stopped. Mauldin is at every Farm Bureau meeting briefing the board on Washington County Extension activities. Sometimes it’s Mauldin’s own programming on weed control or herd management. Sometimes it’s about the events on which Farm Bureau and UF/IFAS Extension cooperate, like the Washington County Youth Fair, which the Washington County Farm Bureau helps sponsor, or the Panhandle Watermelon Festival.
Once the board meetings end, Fisher and Mauldin reconnect as friends. Fisher might ask about wet baleage and dry hay, and once in a while about cows.
Mauldin visits Fisher’s farm perhaps a dozen times a year. Mauldin brings a coring tool that drills holes into Fisher’s bales and allows him to take samples. Mauldin gets lab analysis done and reports on the nutritional content – energy, protein, digestibility.
This helps Fisher allocate his feed most efficiently to his herd.
Mauldin is also a self-described “weed guy.” Fisher is one stop on his many travels around the county, identifying weeds, advising farmers on how to kill them without negative impacts on operations. When Mauldin doesn’t know what a weed is or how to treat it, he consults with pasture weed science faculty in Ona. It’s classic Extension, in which our research faculty channel their knowledge to producers via an Extension agent who translates it to the needs and situation of the producer.
Mauldin doesn’t just translate. He comes up with his own tools to help producers. He created a tracker that helps peanut producers optimize harvest timing by giving them easy-to-understand actionable data on a crop they can’t see because it’s underground. Mauldin also compiled the NW Florida Ag Service Directory to connect producers to agricultural service providers. He played a role in developing a statewide invasive species training program. Mauldin’s work is all about practical solutions.
I can’t say it any better than Fisher did in the nomination:
Mark Mauldin’s work exemplifies the mission of the Florida Farm
Bureau Federation by directly supporting agricultural producers
through education, advocacy, and the delivery of science-based
solutions that strengthen Florida agriculture.
I’m looking forward to seeing Mauldin get honored in October at the annual meeting, and I thank Fisher for lifting up one of our agents. We do what we do because of you, so an FFBF award is one of the greatest validations of our work.
J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources and leader of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).
