Farm Gate #194

Last week’s Take Root conference was a timely example of some of the challenges the mere passage of time poses to agriculture. Providing sound guidance through the thorny thickets of farm succession seems a valuable service. When your effective population is less than 2% of the whole, ensuring continuity between generations strikes me as a high priority worthy of the attention Take Root gives it.

As someone “of a certain age,” I can’t help but notice age- and time-related transitions in almost every direction my arthritic vertebrae allow me to look. 

Another timely example is the upcoming Young Farmer Leaders Conference. There was a day when, staffing that event, I felt I could almost kinda sorta maybe pass for one of them. Early in my tenure I was still YF age myself, and while I can’t pass as a farmer, I was at least familiar with the same pop culture landscape: I could hold my own in a conversation about the movies, shows and music of the early 2000’s.

That’s no longer true. Technology is outpacing me, there’s snow on my roof, I don’t really get social media, I wasn’t joking about the arthritis, blah, blah, blah... I’m not complaining, though, because the benefits of my age/status don’t get the praise they deserve.

A coworker once shared with me what a fulfilling pleasure it was for us staffers to witness Young Farmers mature and assert their place in leadership on the farm, in Farm Bureau, or elsewhere. Seeing them take on succession planning — often attending Take Root alongside the elders whose operations they’ll eventually take over — is another watershed that makes us “experienced” staff well up with an almost parental pride.

But wait; there’s more.

Your Lansing-based staff is undergoing a similar transition. At every level of its hierarchy, young newcomers are percolating into entry- and mid-level positions. As always, newbies are a mix of folks with and without real-world farming backgrounds. Early in my career I responded clumsily to frequent inquiries about my farm background. I had none, but I did bring other skills that’ve proven useful enough to keep me around.

My eulogy for Tim Matchett last year mentioned him taking part in a workshop about the challenges posed by today’s generational spectrum: Boomers, Xers, Millennials, Gen-Z, etc. Ten-plus years ago, much of that chatter was warning my Gen-X demographic that those darned Millennials would soon be flooding into the workplace: Strap in! Take cover! Hell in a handbasket!

If anyone’s still nursing that bubble, let me burst it for you: That sky is not falling. If Millennials aren’t the majority here yet, they will be very soon, and take my word for it: They don’t suck. They’re not physically in the office as much as I’d like, but they’re not at home playing video games and picking their noses either: They’re working their tails off for you, Farm Bureau member.

Their contemporaries within the membership ranks aren’t goofing off either. Look at the people the Young Farmer program's churning out: Look at Abby Vittore and Riley Brazo and Rich Baker. Look at Madeleine Smeltzer fer cryin’ out loud. Look at Drew and Beth. 

For 22 years I’ve been part of endless conversations and hand-wringing about the long-perceived involvement drop-off that supposedly happens when Young Farmers “age out” of the program. There will always be some truth to that notion, but looking around at the moment, um, we have other fish to fry.

From some angles, Farm Bureau can look almost comically rigid, stuck in its ways, slow to change, etc. But the longer you’re here, the more you realize it’s also proven flexible enough to adapt as necessary — at a deliberate, calculated pace that won’t burn much rubber, but which will continue doing what it’s done since 1919: Investing in and looking after its people.