The UW chapter of the Collegiate Farm Bureau just wrapped up another year of successful learning and advocating for American agriculture. Social Outreach Chair Rhiannon Cole sat with the Branding Iron to discuss the club’s achievements and goals.
“One of our goals as a club is to reach out to more than just Agriculture Majors because there’s a lot of interesting things that can streamline off of it. You can do finance, marketing, law/policy, and more,” Cole said. “The club aims to create advocates for agriculture while enhancing students’ future in the industry and expanding their opportunities.”
The club offers many opportunities, such as community service and speakers at their bi-weekly meetings.
“We also attend events throughout the state. We went to the annual Federation Farm Bureau meeting in Casper, where we got to network and see what opportunities were out there. We got to tour the Capitol building and sit in on legislature and senate sessions in the Cheyenne,” Cole said.
But the club isn’t limited to local meetings.
“In April we went to Washington D.C. where we got to go to a lot of places. We go to do the basic touristy things, tour monuments and whatnot. We went to the ag senate committee, and they told us what they do and we talked about some of the current issues in agriculture, including trade tariffs and things like that. We went to the Mexican embassy and talked to them about their role in American agriculture and how current laws are affecting them. We went to the American Farm Bureau building and they gave us a run-through of all their departments, and leadership, and told us what they did, giving us updates as necessary,” Cole said. “It’s a lot of traveling, but it’s worth it. Membership fees are only 40 dollars for a year.”
“From the club, we gain knowledge on learning how to advocate for certain issues in agriculture and overall gain more general ag knowledge as well. We’re able to share that with others and see eye-to-eye,” she added.
At the meetings, the club president typically gathers together a slew of internships and scholarships available for students. Being a member of the chapter opens doors to several of these.
“I feel like the biggest challenges students face in ag would be the misconceptions. Ag education isn’t required in schools, so unless you grew up on a farm you aren’t going to know as much about the way of life. You might end up forming opinions such as “agriculture is bad, all agriculturalists are trying to harm the planet,” which isn’t true,” Cole said. “Most of us are just people who are trying to better the environment, we’re just taking a different path than the traditional environmentalist. I wholeheartedly believe that agriculturalists are the original environmentalists.”
The Collegiate Farm Bureau Chapter and the University of Wyoming meet every other Monday at 6 p.m. in the Animal Sciences building, room 103. There are no further meetings this semester, but students from all departments are encouraged to join next semester and learn about agriculture advocacy.
