Tag Archives: J. Scott Angle

Your Land Grant Partner

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

April 2025 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter 

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

Levy County Farm Bureau board member Aaron Lane is among the first to know about fertilizer innovations and how they work on his farm because of his partnership with UF/IFAS.

UF/IFAS scientists Mark Warren, Shivendra Kumar and Bob Hochmuth take what they see in the lab or on their research fields and test it on Lane’s farm to see if it works in the real world.

On Lane’s farm they’ve run trials on cool season forages, controlled release fertilizer for watermelon and Bermudagrass, forage herbicides, Bermudagrass variety establishment, and drip fertigation fertilizer uniformity.

The innovation that farmer and scientist pursue together keep farmers in business. And it’s key to reducing annual nitrogen use to help meet water quality goals for the Suwannee Valley.

Every year UF/IFAS and the Farm Bureau celebrate the gains we’re making toward that goal, one farm at a time, at Suwannee CARES, a celebration at the UF/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center—Suwannee Valley (NFREC-SV). The event highlights producers for their unpaid environmental stewardship as they make a living feeding Florida and the nation.

Please join me, Warren, Lane and hundreds of your fellow Farm Bureau members on May 1 for this year’s Suwannee CARES event. Register here.

Lane is a past honoree. The trials have helped him stay profitable and served as a model for how other Suwannee Valley farmers can meet water quality goals. The on-farm trials can show where innovations result in savings for farmers, and where the costs aren’t worth it.

In the ongoing trial of controlled release fertilizer on hay at Lane’s farm, so far the costs aren’t worth it. Lane suspected as much beforehand. A season’s worth of data reaffirmed that. But it also set the stage for trying a lower-cost fertilizer to see if scientist and farmer can make it pencil out at harvest time.

The reason Lane was even willing to explore this on 10 acres of his land was that he trusts Levy County Extension Director Warren. For six years Warren has given him answers to his questions instantly or said eight magic words that reaffirm his honesty and trustworthiness: “I don’t know, but I can find out.”

Warren doesn’t ask Lane to pay the costs of the field trial – Lane is already taking a risk with his land. Thanks to best management practices cost share and incentive programs from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the Suwannee River Water Management District, the additional cost of the new fertilizer and the time and effort of the UF/IFAS scientific team is covered.

But for Lane, on-farm trials still mean giving scientists access to his land, allowing them to collect data that represents trade secrets, coordinating his operation so as not to interfere with the research, and risking a reduced yield. That’s a harder bargain to make with a scientist who’s a stranger.

Neither of us can do this alone. We need to be scientific partners. Warren and Lane exemplify the mutual trust on which that partnership is based.

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).

 

 

Your Land Grant Partner

Uncategorized, , , , ,

March 2025 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

dr angle

By J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP

How has UF/IFAS helped your business? I’m eager to hear it and hope you’ll let me know. But for the next three months I’m even more eager for you to tell your state representatives.

The Legislature starts its session in March, and it will be voting on funding for UF/IFAS science. I have been meeting with legislators for months already to get them to yes on these votes.

A constituent (you) can often get greater traction than a university administrator can. I hope I can count on you to help us help you.

Please join President Smith, your leadership team, and me in Tallahassee on March 18 at the Legislative Briefing Breakfast. President Smith has granted me the opportunity to personally thank you at the breakfast for the day you’ll spend meeting with legislators and staff.

Our legislative budget requests can help Florida agriculture in numerous ways:

  • Extension expansion, $5 million: For state or regional Extension agents devoted to farm profitability, workforce development and environmental resilience.
  • Workload, $6.5 million: Agriculture’s needs are increasing and more complex, so we need to invest more in the research and Extension personnel to meet those needs.
  • Florida 4-H Camp Cherry Lake, $5.6 million: Address current and future workforce needs by providing year-round science, agriculture, and technology workforce programs for 6,000 youth at camp with improvements, that will support this goal.
  • Artificial intelligence, $4.5 million: Fund faculty, staff, and administrative positions for the UF/IFAS Center for Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture focused on design, construction, evaluation and demonstration of AI-based technologies that we can bring to your farm faster.
  • Nutrient management, $6 million: We need to finish food crop projects so that the most up-to-date science informs fertilizer rate recommendations to keep you profitable.
  • Crop Transformation Center, $5 million: Invest in using biotech tools to rapidly develop new cultivars. While the center’s early work focuses on citrus, we will expand the expedited processes to many more crops.

Crops and politics are in season year-round, and not just in Tallahassee. The state is a checkerboard of regulations on irrigation, fertilization and land use made by local officials.

4H youth on the steps of the Florida State Capitol building. Photo taken 01-30-20.

We believe at UF/IFAS that these regulations should be evidence-based and rely on solid science. Just like there’s always a new challenge for science to solve in the greenhouse, so is there an endless array of public policy questions whose answers can be informed by science.

We need to marshal ever greater scientific forces to keep up with these challenges and questions.

If you have a story about how UF/IFAS has helped your farm, please email me about it so I can share it when I’m in Tallahassee. And while you’re at it, please email that story to your elected officials, too.

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).

 

Your Land Grant Partner

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

February 2025 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

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

 

At UF/IFAS we’re making another investment in artificial intelligence (AI) to support Florida farmers. It’s not a machine. It’s a dean.

I can’t think of anyone who has devoted more time and thought to preparing the future workforce for an AI-driven world than Kati Migliaccio. That’s a big part of why I chose her to be the first new dean of the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) in a decade.

Dean Migliaccio (far right) takes a moment to celebrate the groundbreaking for the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering W.W. Glenn Teaching Building, a modern makerspace and hands-on mechanical workshop paired with an engineering design space, bringing together students majoring in biological engineering and agricultural operations management. We refer to the groundbreaking in the column.

As AI in Florida agriculture evolves, Migliaccio will reshape the education of the people who will work in it, some of them in jobs that don’t even exist yet.

In fact, she’s been doing it for years already. She led the group that developed a university-wide plan to ensure all students have access to opportunities to acquire AI knowledge and skills.

Migliaccio is an engineer and brings that problem-solving mindset to complex challenges. During her six years as chair of the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE) she championed a holistic approach to innovation, encouraging teams to consider how individual problems and solutions interact and contribute to the bigger picture, rather than addressing each issue in isolation.

She has also marshalled the expertise of other UF colleges, especially the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, to seek solutions to agricultural challenges.

As dean, her focus on AI-related instruction will also now benefit students in departments such as Family, Youth and Community Sciences or Food Science and Human Nutrition.

Her engineer’s focus on practical solutions to real-world problems has helped drive a campaign to build a new workshop for ABE. We held a groundbreaking in the fall to kick off construction of the facility. When it’s done, it will be a hub for hands-on learning, where students can learn to use tools and develop technological prototypes you’ll be using as the AI-literate corps of graduates begin working for and with you.

She has also emerged as a leader in standing up agricultural technology workforce development programs statewide through our state college partners.

Engineers like Migliaccio also share an ethic of striving for continuous improvement and experimentation. That’s what has kept her department near the top for so long. At a university with lots of engineering departments, ABE ranks by far the highest, perennially in the top 10 nationally.

Migliaccio brings this ethic to her new job. CALS is already one of the top schools in the nation. To become the best, we need someone who never stops trying to improve things.

Migliaccio demonstrates and fosters the culture of excellence I seek across all UF/IFAS. With few peers matching our level of distinction nationally, a culture of excellence will help us compete with ourselves—striving to be better this year than last. To do more for our farmers and ranchers and foresters and fishers, as well as those who manage our natural resources.

A culture of excellence supports students with a world-class education, combining great instruction with practical experiences like internships. CALS will continue to produce graduates ready for work, advanced studies or service.

Those graduates will be ready to help you help Florida feed the world.

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).

 

 

 

 

Your Land Grant Partner

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 2025 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

dr angle

By J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP

 

Senate President Ben Albritton has called for a “rural renaissance,” built in part on technologies that support agriculture.

UF/IFAS and the Florida Farm Bureau Federation are answering that call by developing the talent pipeline to use those technologies. Through what we call the AgTech Accelerator, we’re combining Senator Albritton’s call for a rural renaissance with our vision to make Florida the Silicon Valley of agriculture.

Homegrown technologies, talent and businesses are going to bring greater prosperity to places that have in the view of many been left behind in our state’s most recent economic boom.

It’s just the right time for this as Florida agriculture is about to be transformed by artificial intelligence. UF/IFAS was already dedicating research and Extension teams make AI useful and affordable on your farm, for example.

Now UF/IFAS and FFBF are mobilizing state colleges, technical schools and high schools to establish or redesign agricultural technology training programs. The agricultural jobs of the future will require education ranging from degrees at UF to two-year state college degrees to certifications that can be earned in just months.

UF/IFAS can create curriculum, host technology demonstrations, and connect colleges to industry partners.

FFBF leadership brings insight on what challenges we actually need to help farmers address so they can contribute even more to the economies of their communities.

FFBF subsidiary Agriculture Education Services & Technology already offers certifications in at least 10 specializations. We’ll need to build on that with state college programs that reach every county and a wider array of specializations.

Vinay Vijayakumar uses a laptop to program a smart robotic weed sprayer to run a demonstration on row crops at Southwest Florida Research and Education Center. Photo taken 11-14-24

Our vision is for a series of hubs of technical expertise at UF/IFAS Extension offices and research farms. Farmers, students and anyone with a great idea could come to these hubs for job skill development, entrepreneurship training or advice on how to turn ideas into products in the marketplace.

This will turbocharge your local economy in three ways. It starts with developing a tech-savvy local workforce as your sons, daughters, employees and future employees get the education and training they need without having to move away.

In addition, these regional hubs will foster creation of homegrown businesses as they help local entrepreneurs commercialize their ideas. Third, the centers will be magnets for investors looking for opportunity in rural communities and for businesses seeking affordable communities with a well-trained local workforce.

We and Senator Albritton have the same aim – to create high-paying jobs in rural areas and to make sure we have local talent to fill those jobs.

The Florida Department of Commerce and Department of Education are stepping up with funding for the early iterations of our partnerships with state colleges to launch agtech workforce training pilot projects.

It’s been invaluable to have:

  • FFBF President Jeb Smith with us in Ocala to talk out this vision with Central College of Florida;
  • Raulie Raulerson and Kyndall Bauer joining us in Apopka to strategize with Valencia College;
  • Hannah Love and Keitha Bennett and their background in certification at our discussion with Santa Fe College;
  • District 5 field representative Greg Harden’s experience with assessing farmers’ needs as we met in Palatka with Johns River State College.

Please help us bring the AgTech Accelerator to your community by letting your FFBF field representative and your legislative officials know how important technology is to Florida farming’s future.

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

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

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

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

November 2024 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

By J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP

Christa Court helps you bounce back from hurricanes. She asks what happened on your farm, combines your account with hundreds of others, and tells the big story in numbers.

She tells that story to members of Congress, disaster relief officials, commodity association leaders and a public that needs reminding that you are the bulwark against empty grocery store shelves.

Court is the UF/IFAS day-after economist. Legislators and disaster relief officials rely upon her numbers and reports in making decisions on disaster declaration, recovery, and relief.

After the winds die down and the Weather Channel leaves, after you’ve had a first look at trees down on fences, cotton blown away, fields flooded and center pivots mangled, she leads us in asking the collective question: How bad was it?

Your communications team at the Farm Bureau shares links to her surveys to collect the information she needs to make the case for relief. I urge you to participate in these surveys, for your own sake and to help the entire Florida agriculture industry. She’s got three going now:

Hurricane Debby Damage Survey
Hurricane Helene Damage Survey
Hurricane Milton Damage Survey

Court joined UF/IFAS Department of Food and Resource Economics in 2016. It wasn’t her plan for so much of her work to focus on the impact of disasters, but they came in rapid succession – including Irma, Michael, Sally, Ian, Idalia, Debby, Helene, and Milton.

But she chose the work because it was guided by her ethic – to do what producers need from their land-grant university.

Over time, she built a team with specialists in economics, GIS, policy, project management, and communications. That combined expertise produces not just numbers and reports but maps and other visuals that relate with compelling imagery the scope and scale of weather damage.

The day-after economist is working hard to get you to the year after, the decade after. Her work can drive a conversation about more and better risk management tools.

Court’s work will in the long run produce insights on what kind of programs are needed and at what funding levels. Then Florida agriculture can advocate for them.

When you answer a UF/IFAS damage survey, you’re helping Court help you in two long-term ways.

First, with every storm she builds bigger disaster-specific databases that will someday allow for accurate and rapid damage assessment without the need for surveys. No more filling out forms at moments when you’re hurting and need to be doing other things.

Second, Court and her team are refining data collection to develop a single industry standard so that you’re not asked to answer redundant questionnaires from academics, agencies and associations.

Every state’s farmers suffer weather damage. Not every state has a Dr. Christa Court. Two years ago, the Southern Agricultural Economics Association honored her with the Outstanding Extension Program Award. Colleagues in other states ask Court to share her expertise in documenting damage in detail rapidly and accurately.

Please continue to help her help you. Some day she may get us to a post-survey world. But right now, she needs you to tell your individual story so she can tell the collective one.

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

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

October 2024 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter
dr angle
By J. Scott Angle
[email protected]
@IFAS_VP

Agricultural land disappearing. A new expressway cutting through pastures. A generation of youth who need to learn where their food comes from.

Sound familiar? It’s what UF/IFAS Clay County Extension Director Annie Wallau and Clay County Farm Bureau President Gayward Hendry are facing as they work together to promote local agriculture.

On the strength of Hendry’s nomination highlighting Wallau’s efforts to teach Clay County’s next generation about the role farms and farmers play in their community and economy, she will be honored at this month’s annual meeting as the Florida Farm Bureau Extension Professional of the Year.

Wallau has been a leader in educating youth about agriculture, food, health, and nutrition.

When the pandemic shut down the county fair, it stopped the popular AgVentures® station-to-station hands-on projects to teach students where their food comes from.

Wallau worked with Clay County Farm Bureau and Clay County Fair Association on the idea of bringing the lessons to the students. The field trip in a box was born.

UF/IFAS and Clay County Farm Bureau packed and delivered the boxes with lesson plans and hands-on activity supplies on forestry, beekeeping, gardening, and beef, including the game Beef-o Bingo that gives students a fun way to learn about the many by-products of the beef industry that we find in our everyday lives.

And Annie worked to create Story Walk, which engaged students in ag literacy and physical activity by posting pages from a book on Florida agriculture throughout schools grounds, giving teachers the opportunity to take their students outdoors to walk and read.

(Left to Right) Greg Harden, Florida Farm Bureau District 5 Field Representative; Annie Wallau, County Extension Director – UF/IFAS Extension Clay County; Gayward Hendry, Clay County Farm Bureau President

Wallau has partnered with Farm Bureau to organize the Farm-City week luncheon that brings together Clay County’s civic and agricultural communities. She even hosted it at the Extension office until the event was so successful that it outgrew the space.

In addition to making Clay County a place to grow food, she is working to grow leaders. When Wallau met 4-Her Cross Middleton five years ago, she saw in him a future agriculturalist. She talked to him about careers in Extension, and she met with him frequently at her office to counsel him on selecting a college major at UF compatible with his learning style, background and career goals.

Cross graduated from the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences in May, and Wallau has continued to advise him on how to engage with Farm Bureau. Cross now leads the county’s Young Farmers & Ranchers chapter and serves on the county board. Cross and Wallau are now working together to try to bring a new farmers market to Clay County.

My thanks go to President Hendry and Administrative Assistant Terri Davis of the Clay County Farm Bureau for nominating Annie. Thank you, too, to President Jeb Smith for personally informing Annie with a call that she said absolutely blindsided her in the best way.

Extension professional of the year is one of the highest honors an agent can earn because of who it comes from. Our decades-old partnership has great value to us, and when Farm Bureau elevates an agent, it is meaningful to our entire organization.

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).

 

 

 

Your Land Grant Partner: J. Scott Angle

Uncategorized, , , ,

February 2024 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

dr angleBy J. Scott Angle
[email protected]

When I arrived in Florida three and a half years ago to lead UF/IFAS, my message to Farm Bureau members was, “I work for you.”

I still do, but no longer as UF’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources. They’ve made me provost, the academic leader of the entire university. This is my last FloridAgriculture column.

That doesn’t mean I’ll stop working for you. As I told Florida Farm Bureau members gathered in Tallahassee last month for a day of legislative visits, there are experts in many UF colleges, not just the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, who can help Florida agriculture and rural Florida.

As provost I’ll be in a position to encourage the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering to bring more its expertise, Extension-style, to rural counties. Our medical care doesn’t have to be accessed only in large urban hospitals. I’d like to see it reach more of rural Florida, more farming communities.

And I’ve laid the groundwork for a successful transition at UF/IFAS. Dr. Rob Gilbert will continue as interim senior vice president and head of UF/IFAS. When I appointed him interim senior vice president, I was hoping to get my old job back in six months. Rob’s ready to run UF/IFAS without me now.

You’ll find him personable, committed to delivering relevant science, interested in stakeholder input, extremely well organized, and eager to meet as many of you as he can.

Rob and I are aligned on many priorities. Namely, we’re focused on your future. I told the members gathered in Tallahassee that artificial intelligence is going to change the way they farm and UF/IFAS is going to help them make the most of this new generation of technology. It will help drive a future of lower inputs and higher yields.

Part of the future was in the room. Scores of blue-jacketed FFA youth attended the breakfast. They are learning early what didn’t occur to me until my college days, that there are so many exciting careers and opportunities in agriculture and natural resources.

IFAS is special, but so is all of UF. I told the Tallahassee gathering that President Sasse is out to change all of American higher education for the better. We’re on a similar mission at UF/IFAS, to help make Florida agriculture the model for the entire nation and for the world.

I was honored to have President Jeb Smith say from the podium that he considered me a blessing to Florida agriculture. But I feel I have received more than I have given.

You’ve welcomed me to your communities as I visited every Florida county. You’ve provided opportunity to students for which I’ve worked to find beyond-the classroom experiences. And you’ve hosted research on your farms.

It’s been my pleasure to serve you directly for three and a half years. No matter where I am on campus, I’ll never stop working for you.

J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Provost. From July 2020 to January 2024 he was UF’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

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

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).

Your Land Grant Partner: J. Scott Angle

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

December 2023 FloridAgriculture eNewsletter

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

UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) student Julia Heijkoop delivered an important message at this year’s FFBF annual meeting. Farm Bureau doesn’t tell you what to do. Instead, it offers opportunities.

That’s something UF/IFAS and FFBF have in common. We’re agents of opportunity. Together, we grow that most important crop—future leaders.

Heijkoop pursued opportunity by registering for the Collegiate Discussion Meet at the annual meeting. It’s not a debate, it’s a simulation of a committee meeting in which participants are judged on cooperation, communication and analysis of challenges to agriculture.

Heijkoop distinguished herself with a command of Florida farm facts, the organizational structure of FFBF and youth development programs.

She spotlighted a need for an inclusive FFBF that serves both an increasing number of producers serving specialty markets (e.g. organics or value-added products like ice cream) and larger acreage producers. She identified the opportunity for FFBF to mediate and bring together older versus up-and-coming generations of farmers.

And in perhaps her most powerful statement, she called for a continuing investment in youth to raise their awareness of agriculture. Even if they do not become agriculture professionals, she said, they will become something equally important to our future—consumers and voters.

Heijkoop’s road to Orlando, where she competed in the Collegiate Discussion Meet, was guided by two important mentors—Staci Sims at FFBF and Dr. Charlotte Emerson at CALS.

Sims helped Heijkoop learn how to function effectively in a committee setting when they served together on the state’s FFA board, which Heijkoop earned a place on as state FFA president in 2021-22.

Emerson came into the picture about a year ago, when she helped Heijkoop through the process of entering UF CALS as a transfer student. Emerson’s official title is director of student development and recruitment, but I consider her associate dean of opportunity for the way she helps students find great experiences.

Under Emerson’s mentoring, one of the first things Heijkoop did upon entering CALS this fall was to join Collegiate Farm Bureau. Then Emerson encouraged Heijkoop to register for the Collegiate Discussion Meet.

Heijkoop won the state Collegiate Discussion Meet. FFBF and UF/IFAS will support her in her journey next year to compete at the national level in the American Farm Bureau Federation Collegiate Discussion Meet. FFBF supports students through the CALS Partnership Program, which expands professional development opportunities for students like Heijkoop, both on campus and through travel. Emerson will likely accompany Heijkoop.

Over the next two years, CALS will continue to prepare Heijkoop as a future Florida ag leader as she majors in agricultural operations management. She’ll have opportunities to join clubs and to become more active in our Collegiate Farm Bureau chapter.

And we’ll encourage her to pursue internships to give her experience in real-world settings in areas she’s interested in, such as public policy and marketing. FFBF has been a great CALS partner in offering such opportunities. Sims herself was an FFBF intern as a UF law student, but based on connections she made when she was a CALS student, she said.

Heijkoop, who grew up on a family dairy farm in Sumter County, was a winner the moment she entered the Collegiate Discussion Meet. She wants to hone the skills of thoughtful discussion, finding common ground, and facilitation and practice them in a career in policy or marketing for the dairy industry.

Heijkoop saw opportunity through both FFBF and CALS. We, in turn, see opportunity in developing the leaders we’ll need for the future of Florida agriculture.

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).