Howdy folks. My name is Gwynn Simeniuk, and I currently reside in Glasgow where I work as a sales agronomist for PRO Co-op. I work with primarily cereal and pulse acres – spring wheat, durum, lentils, peas, chickpeas, as well as canola and some alfalfa. While I enjoy working with a diverse variety of crops, my pup, Annie, particularly looks forward to field scouting as every new field provides new smells, new critters to chase, and new plants to fertilize.

My history with Farm Bureau dates back to my freshman year of college at Montana State University. 12 years after joining Collegiate Young Farmers and Ranchers, I am still a proud member of this organization. I find the programming Farm Bureau offers is intentional in its focus and worthwhile for members, so ACE is something I’ve had on my radar for some time. Having watched several friends go through the ACE classes, I thought I’d better join the club!

There are two main objectives I hope to bring home from ACE. The first is more directly focused on creating a vibrant county Farm Bureau. We are currently working towards increasing active membership in our county Farm Bureau to provide greater service to our rural communities. The second objective is to more fully understand the legislative process and to identify key stakeholders to collaborate with on issues that affect farmers and ranchers in our area. I find this particularly important because we have so few people who can give their time to be a voice in Helena from our area. This challenge is not unique to our area, so being part of ACE and learning from other leaders in rural areas will help in collecting ideas to address this issue in my county. Hopefully, our county Farm Bureau can improve the infrastructure of communication with our members conducive to having better representation from farmers and ranchers in our local policy discussions.

It's hard to pick one issue in agriculture that stands above the rest as critically important, but one issue I see relating to many is a generational leadership gap. We feel it in our county Farm Bureau – very few young members are actively engaged in our organization. I also see it on some farms and ranches. The current owner/operators are the same who were running things thirty years ago. But I’m happy to say this isn’t the case on every operation! There are several young people in farming and ranching working alongside their parents taking on more decision-making every day. They are also sharing with their children the great opportunity and great responsibility of this way of life.

So, I can’t be very surprised when I don’t see young folks wanting to take on another commitment. They are running a family business, have small kids of their own, might have a spouse with an off-farm job, serve on the school board or volunteer fire department, and occasionally they might have time to grab a libation with me at the local watering hole. If I were them, would I want to go to an Annual County Farm Bureau meeting once harvest is finally over, or would I rather spend quality time with my family?

This is the challenge of the current generation of Farm Bureau leaders. In a world where there is an endless flow of information, continuous pressure to implement new technologies in production agriculture, and trying to be an engaged parent who participates in all of their child’s activities, we need to change our expectations of what membership involvement looks like for young farm families. There are so many great ideas on various agricultural issues from successful, intelligent, hard-working growers outside of our organization. While I would love to have a Field of Dreams “build it and they will come” approach to membership recruitment, I think we really need to ask ourselves how we can provide easier accessibility for new and current members.

And what that looks like today looks a lot different than just inviting folks to a meeting. It might mean being more intentional about rotating the location of meetings in the county and having activities for children during the meeting. It could mean more policy-focused discussions in some areas or more community picnics and networking functions in other places. Or it might be a much bigger fix we have yet to determine. However, if we are steadfast in this endeavor and find ways to make it easier for growers to advocate for their farms and ranches and still have time to do manage everything else on their plate, I think we’ll have the right folks at the table to provide thoughtful questions and potential solutions to long list of issues we face in agriculture. And in this way, we are staying true to our grassroots mission.