Courtesy photo by Jennifer Parker
Learn More About Agriculture on Campus
LARAMIE, -WY For students who are deeply interested in agriculture on campus, there is a club dedicated to helping students learn more about the industry. The University of Wyoming Collegiate Farm Bureau is a club that was founded in 2003 and resurrected after covid, two and half years ago. This club is available to all students and meets every other Monday at 6 pm in the Animal Science building.
“I think that Collegiate Farm Bureau is one of the best clubs that you can get involved in because you get to see so many different aspects of the world of agriculture, you get to see the policy side, you get the meeting side, you get the hands on agriculture side, the opportunities from it are unreal.” said Jennifer Parker, president of UWCFB during an interview.
“Our motto is that we aim to create advocates for agriculture while advancing their future in the industry while expanding on their opportunities as a student.”
The UW Collegiate Farm Bureau has provided students not only with tons of opportunities to hear from guest speakers, but to hear from other students during their Monday meetings.
“We have a lot of guest speakers. We like to invite people in the agriculture industry whether they are in the policy or a farmer or rancher. Anything of that sort we have people from the university come to speak on different topics. It’s a big thing,“ said Parker.
“We love to have student lead presentations, so we use something called like hot topic,” Parker said, “We have a different club member give a short five-minute presentation on anything they are interested in for agriculture. We love those because it keeps everyone on top of those things and it could be a topic from someone’s home state that is over 2000 miles away from here.”
The UW Collegiate Farm Bureau also allows students opportunities to talk with legislators in Wyoming and opportunities to travel.
“We get to go to the capital building to listen to their session,” Parker said, “We also get to interact with people during lunch. In the spring of ‘25 we had the opportunity to go to Washington D.C. and meet with the American Farm Bureau. All of those different opportunities I wouldn’t be able to do if it wasn’t for the Collegiate Farm Bureau.”
For the UW Collegiate Farm Bureau farming is an important part of Wyoming life, and UWCFB would like to spread that message.
“Farming and ranching is a big chunk of Wyoming, so we just try to connect with as many of those people as possible.” said Parker.
“A thing we do a lot of is we work with the Wyoming Farm Bureau,” said Parker, “We are a direct branch of a Farm Bureau organization so we go to all of their conferences with them and we do meetings with the president of the Farm Bureau.”
The UW Collegiate Farm Bureau is still setting up for the fall semester since it is still early, but as the semester comes along, more information on upcoming meetings will be announced on the UWCFB Instagram.
“Also, we are very spring heavy with conferences,” said Parker, “I think is really good because when you join the club in the fall you kind of get to know everyone, get know what we do get to meet all the Wyoming Farm Bureau members, and then you transition in the spring semester where you get to attend all the different conferences.”
For those who are interested in learning more about the UW Collegiate Farm Bureau club are able to contact the UWCFB president Jennifer Parker at jparke46@uwyo.edu. Additional information can be found on the UWCFB Facebook and Instagram.
