Advocate For Agvocates

Spring quarter has started at The Ohio State University and at our respected branch campuses such as ATI. I have courses in biology, farm finance, small business management & my highly anticipated independent study on advocating for our industry of agriculture.

I am extremely excited to learn how some of the best advocates communicate with the public and to build my skills as an agvocate. My "syllabus" outline has me working towards becoming a better public speaker & learning how to put together an event with some speakers coming to OSU ATI to talk about agvocating. I will be increasing my use of facebook, twitter and my blog as I proceed through this process. I will also be completing a program that helps me build character and understanding of how to be a positive impact on our industry. Some of the choices I have is to take the Master of Beef Advocacy & get my "MBA" which I think would be a great program! I will also be looking at Operation Mainstreet with the Pork Producers, Agripower with OFBF and some other things.

While on vacation last week I had PLENTY of time to think about my study of agvocating while I drove and I think that one thing that kept standing out in my mind was that agvocates are pillars to our industry and especially in Ohio we need strong pillars in our industry. I think that this independent study will help me to build myself as a pillar with strong roots in Ohio agriculture. I hope that I can be a positive agvocate in my community and at OSU. I want to become an advocate for agvocates. By that I mean I want my advocating to be channeled in a way that I can recruit new advocates my age with similar interests here at my school. My professor Dr. Carrie Pickworth has given me an excellent chance to do this and to succeed and I hope that with some help from my friends in the industry I can stay on track to become that advocate.

So stay tuned to my blog for the important updates over the next ten weeks for this process.