Young Farmers Show Optimism

Young Farmers Show Optimism. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Optimism can sometimes run a bit short these days but a recent poll done by the American Farm Bureau Federation at the 2011 YF&R Leadership Conference in Orlando, Fla. shows some good signs according to Anne Marie Moss, communications director with Oregon Farm Bureau.

MOSS: It’s an informal survey done of attendees to the conference and this years’ pool of respondents was 373 and we had I think maybe 5 or 6 young farmers and ranchers from Oregon attend this conference so we were represented in this informal survey. It’s something the American Farm Bureau does every year.

That optimism has come a long way from the recession just a couple of years ago.

MOSS: It’s a record breaking level of optimism. 90% of the nation’s young farmers and ranchers say they were better off than they were 5 years ago and that’s good. I spoke with Mike Hathaway, the chair of the Oregon Young Farmers and Ranchers committee about why he feels this way and he was saying it’s generally because commodity prices were up. You know obviously the market’s pretty volatile but that always helps optimism and with wheat prices up that made him feel better and I think it will have a ripple effect for producers of other commodities.

Moss says that communication while still being very important is changing.

MOSS: The survey highlights the importance of how young farmers and ranchers need to communicate with the public and to politicians about what they do. I noticed that 76% according to the survey use Facebook and that social media is becoming more and more important with great use of Twitter and YouTube but that’s kind of how stories are told these days.

Some people view politics as an older generation issue but Moss says more and more young farmers and ranchers are gaining their voice.

MOSS: We need farmers and ranchers to volunteer to testify at the legislature, write letters to the editor, meet with elected officials. It’s a huge concern for young farmers and ranchers, always one of the top three issues – government regulations and that’s the way they can make a difference by speaking up and making their voices heard. That’s what we do at Farm Bureau.

Computers and the Internet are vital tools for the nation’s young farmers and ranchers, with 92 percent surveyed reporting using a computer in their farming operation. Nearly all of those surveyed, 98 percent, have access to the Internet.  More tomorrow.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.