American Farm Bureau Federation Young Farmers & Ranchers Program

This weekend I am spending time in Nashville, Tennessee for the AFBF Young Farmers & Ranchers program. NDSU has a collegiate chapter of Farm Bureau and I have had the opportunity to participate and discuss ag issues within the organization for the past three and a half years.

One of the features of the AFBF YF&R conference is the collegiate discussion meet. The discussion meet is a contest where participants are presented with a question related to and issue in agriculture or Farm Bureau and are given the task of coming to a consensus on a feasible solution.

I was fortunate to enough to compete in the collegiate discussion meet this year. The questions we were given this morning included, "How would the condition of government-managed public lands change if they were managed privately? What are the pros and cons of government ownership of land versus private ownership?" and "The farm bill crop insurance provisions offer a safety net for crop loss due to natural disaster and/or price risk. Should a safety net for livestock producers be developed, and what provisions might it include?"

In each round of the discussion meet this morning four other participants and I from across the country brought points to the discussion specific from our geographic region that furthered the discussion. On the first question, our group came to the conclusion that both publicly and privately managed lands have their advantage, and that there are pros and cons of government ownership. 

On the second, our group came to the consensus that free markets work but safety nets are necessary for livestock producers for unexpected natural disasters, like the blizzard that hit SW South Dakota early October 2013. 

The delegation to NDSU Collegiate Farm Bureau members are set to attend breakout sessions on different aspects of Ag tomorrow and Monday, along with keynote speakers and Ag/historical tour of the Nashville area.

Pictures to come later!