Young area farmers attend Farm Bureau conference

Young farmers from Cape Girardeau County attended the recent Young Farmers and Ranchers Leadership Conference with more than 560 of their peers from across the state. The group met at Lake of the Ozark's Tan-Tar-A Resort to learn more about topics ranging from the Farm Bill signup to cooking with beef. Time was also set aside to learn from fellow farmers. The conference is the largest Farm Bureau young farmer conference in the nation.

This year's speaker included MFB president Charles Kruse, a farmer from Dexter, Mo., Missouri Farm Bureau YFR chairman Todd Hays and motivational speaker Bryan Townsend.

"It is not enough to see good things happen," Townsend said. "You have to plan for good things to happen, and have the right plan."

He talked to the young farmers about how their grandparents and great-grandparents took nothing and made it into something. "Your challenge as young farmers today is to take the best the world has ever known and make it better."

Informative seminars were held during the second day of the conference. Precision farming, agro-terrorism, farm accounting, re-establishing quail population and container gardening were among the topics dicscussed. Get-acquainted sessions and free time to explore the resort added to the conference's success while giving young farmers a chance to relax away from the farm.

"The committee of young men and women who put this conference together worked hard to make it a big success," said Jack Maxwell, director of the Missouri Farm Bureau Young Farmer and Rancher Program. "Despite the many economic uncertainties young farmers face, we still had a record-attending conference. That says a lot for the future of our Young Farmer and Rancher Program, and for every young farmer attending this conference."