COUNTRY CORNER

Agriculture is a unique constituency that needs unique leaders.
By Steve Fairchild

One of the most overlooked contributors to global warming is the fact that the election cycle starts earlier than ever. Turns out that in their scramble to measure gasses and other airborne compounds, scientists haven’t noticed the columns of hot air emanating from the American political class. Historically, the hot air would only blow for a few months before November. These days it gusts for over a year. It’s hardly surprising that the place is warming up.

And in these hot days before an election, it’s time again for every politician who comes by your patch of the Midwest to regale you with stories about their life on the farm. It might have been summers with grandpa. It might have been riding a rickety old bus to detassle corn. Political office seekers will find a connection, however tenuous, to a farm. They want to show that they, too, are earthy folk like you. Even as the farm constituency shrinks in power, politicians find dirt under their fingernails.

It should be flattering—a sign that as a voting bloc, agriculture still matters. But it puts me ill at ease. There are genuine farmer legislators, of course. And there are politicians with genuine ties to agriculture. We should be thankful for both. But there aren’t as many as there used to be, and you can bet that those who try hardest to twist some farm experience into their biography are quickest to forget ag issues when elected.

That’s why we should invest in developing our own leadership, promoting agriculturists to positions of influence—not just political and not just state-wide or national, but on regional commissions, local school boards and city councils.

Yet, agriculture is an umbrella term for so much. Agriculture has cattlemen and corn growers, fertilizer dealers and bankers—links in a common chain, but each with a specific agenda.

That’s why I’m a proponent of Agricultural Leaders of Tomorrow, Missouri’s premier ag leadership program. A broad representation of agriculture, members of ALOT aren’t hemmed by any political leaning or vein of industry; they are democrats, republicans, farmers, bankers, retailers, government workers and the rest of the gamut.

Through a 2-year ALOT class, participants learn the issues of Midwest agriculture and politics. They travel internationally to better understand how global changes can affect local agriculture.

An ALOT class will never agree unanimously on an agricultural or political issue, but they will have a common experience to work from.

In full disclosure, I point out that I’m an alumnus of the program and currently serve on its board of directors.

It is from my service on the board that I’ve taken one of ALOT’s great lessons, which is: outside of politics, effective leadership typically has narrow focus. People with passion tend to rise from the fray of work-a-day life. They deeply believe in the issues they take up. And from that belief and passion emerges leadership, whether it is on public display through positions held in organizations or simply the silent leadership brought by example.

ALOT can help foster this kind of leadership in agriculture. ALOT shows that it isn’t whether you can find genealogical roots linking you to a farm that makes you worthy of agricultural leadership, it’s if you can prove your passion right here and now.

Until Sept. 15, ALOT is accepting applications for Class XII. Contact: Kristin Perry, Box 418, Bowling Green, MO 63334. Call (573) 324-6538.

Or e-mail ALOT@onemain.com.