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The faces of agriculture’s future

The Agribusiness Council of Indiana’s annual conference provides attendees an update on issues crucial to the agriculture industry.  ACI president, Beth Bechdol says while issues like trade, regulations, and risk are key components to agriculture – they can often be “heavy topics”.  “There could be the potential that someone could walk out of this conference and have their shoulders slumped, head hanging, and wonder what is going well here (in agriculture),” she says.

Bechdol tells Brownfield – one of the things that is going well – is the young, up-and-coming emerging leaders in agriculture.

And this morning’s session, entitled “The Faces of Our Future” highlighted three of those faces.  “They each come from a very different background at Purdue,” she says.  “We have one student who is involved in heavy agronomy, biotechnology, and genetic research. He went to high school here in downtown Indianapolis at Brebeuf.  He’s the kid who didn’t grow up in agriculture and doesn’t know a thing about farming – ends up at Purdue’s College of Agriculture and is committed to a long term career in genetics.”

And with two other students with similar stories – Bechdol says there is a sense of optimism for the future of agriculture.