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Your Land Grant Partner

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December 2024 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

dr angleBy J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP

Four Florida Farm Bureau leaders at October’s annual meeting gave me four different ways of thinking about how much agriculture does for the people lucky enough or wise enough to make it their livelihood.

I sat with each of the four-state board executive officers individually in between sessions in Miramar Beach. They were four very different discussions that demonstrated to me the multiple perspectives your leadership team brings to serving as champions for Florida agriculture.

President Jeb Smith and I talked about agriculture as a potential career that can provide meaning and purpose to young people searching for both. I was briefing President Smith on UF/IFAS efforts to develop training in agricultural technology. Beyond that individual initiative, we agree that agriculture is a way for people to feel they’re doing good while they’re doing well.

To Michael Dooner, agriculture is a way to protect the earth. As a forestry leader, your immediate past treasurer champions the benefits of agriculture to filter and produce abundant clean water and air, sequester carbon, and harbor wildlife. He wants to see producers recognized and compensated for what they contribute to society, not just what they produce.

Clay Archey, who was re-elected as your board secretary at the annual meeting, took time to meet with me and talk about how agriculture gives veterans a new opportunity for service after leaving the military. His family’s support for scholarships for veterans studying in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences demonstrates a way to recognize the value of the experience of our military personnel and channel it into another form of national security – food self-sufficiency.

Vice President Steve Johnson talked about agriculture’s values in connecting multiple generations of family. For three dollars per acre, his great granddaddy bought land in 1937 that the Johnson family is still farming in Manatee County. Steve hopes his son will someday take over the family business – but that his son will first attend the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and then get a few years of experience away from the Johnson farm.

Together these conversations reminded me of what a jewel agriculture is. Each conversation was like turning that jewel ever so slightly and appreciating the glint of each facet.

Agriculture is a business. My job is to help producers make money. But that’s not the whole story.

As you know, agriculture delivers far more benefits that food, feed, fuel and fiber. It’s an important way to knit families together, reinforce national security, fuel the economy, foster a lifestyle and keep parts of Florida green even as we see the land use map changing before our eyes.

Agriculture needs to speak with a unified voice. I heard that voice at the annual meeting from Jeb, Steve, Michael and Clay. Yet each does so in individual ways to create a fuller picture of the industry we love. And I look forward to amplifying that voice year-round.

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).

 

Your Land Grant Partner: J. Scott Angle

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January 2024 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

dr angleBy J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP

You know yourselves as food producers and as stewards of the land. You also know that not everyone sees you that way.

The question isn’t whether they’re right or wrong, whether they disregard their three meals a day while they focus on side effects of it getting to them. The question is how do you talk to people who have seemingly diametrically opposed views of agriculture to your own?

The Florida Farm Bureau Federation has been a great supporter of a part of UF/IFAS that prepares leaders to address this question.

For many years, FFBF has sponsored Fellows participating in the UF/IFAS Natural Resources Leadership Institute, or NRLI, so Florida agriculture can better engage with non-agricultural stakeholders and not just retreat to our own camps when contentious issues arise.

NRLI doesn’t teach people how to produce food. It does teach farmers and leaders how to communicate with people who see agriculture as a threat.

That’s been invaluable to Andrew Walmsley, a NRLI alumnus whose day-to-day job as your legislative affairs director involves communicating with policy makers who don’t understand agriculture and sometimes don’t appreciate it.

In fact, said Walmsley, NRLI helped him hone the skills to talk across the divide to organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund as he helped the American Farm Bureau Federation launch the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance.

Instead of regarding EDF as an adversary, Walmsley adopted the NRLI approach to working with it as a stakeholder with a common interest. It has resulted in mutual support for policy recommendations for the Farm Bill to help agriculture achieve its climate mitigation potential while preserving and creating economic opportunity.

FFBF leadership programs coordinator Michele Curts is a member of the current NRLI class. She finds it remarkable that beyond building valuable skills such as facilitation of difficult conversations, NRLI brings together people who normally would never cross paths and do not find themselves on the same side of all issues.

Charles Shinn, your retired director for government and community affairs, is a NRLI alumnus who credits it with helping him form relationships with classmates from government, industry and activist groups, a network that he still relies on years after his participation in the program.

Farm Bureau has also subsidized the participation of volunteer leaders such as Ben Butler, Clay Archey and John Dooner.

It’s time for applications. If you’re ready to step up and invest in yourself as a leader, please consider NRLI. Contact your field rep or county chapter president or reach out directly to FFBF professionals who can support your application and help you through the process of securing a nomination.

NRLI requires a three-day stretch each month for most of an academic year. It was an especially big commitment for Walmsley, whose first child was born during his time in NRLI.

He said it was worth it. He’s better for it, and as a result so is Florida agriculture.

J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Interim Provost. Since 2020 he has served as UF’s Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources and leader of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).