Team Agriculture

Iowa was the destination this past week for the state officers as they attended the National Leadership Conference for State Officers (NLCSO.) The state officers were in attendance along with four other state officer teams representing Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. The conference consisted of team development coving topics such as commitment, accountability, conflict, trust, and agriculture. During the conference, we had the pleasure of listening to Rodd Whitney of Monsanto and his thoughts pertaining to the growing world population and agriculture. It then hit me that the team development things we learned this past week will also be needed for the future of agriculture.





Commitment- as agricultural ethusiasts, we must be fully committed by sharing a purpose that supports a common goal for agriculture: produce enough food and resources efficiently for the growing population.

Accountability- we as a team of agriculturalist must be not only accountable for us, but for everyone else's as well ensuring everyone is disciplined to perform their best.

Conflict- as in anything, conflict will arise in the world of agriculture through differences in needs, wants, and interests. It is how the conflict will be handled that determines the result with a win-win solution.

Trust- if people fail to have mutual trust in one another while working towards feeding a growing world, dysfunction will occur. Instead we need to have trust in one another showing acceptance and support.

Now let's flash-forward to the year 2050 and join the other nine billion people on this earth. That's right, nine billion! Much like our state officer team, team agriculture has to develop these four components of a team. Team agriculture includes a wide variety of people including farmers, agribusiness people, researchers, advocates, and other supporters of agriculture. We have a goal to feed those nine billion people and together we can make it happen. So, will you be a part of the team?

Stationed by the emblem of Washington,

Tyler Warren