Commodity Conference

"A three day meeting packed with tours, educational seminars and entertainment. The meeting promises to help farmers improve their operations while highlighting the diverse economy and sites in and around Montgomery County and South Alabama."

It was all they promised and so much more. ALFA does such a wonderful job bringing the people of the industry together, helping them grow and stay up to date with new information and events. 

The conference started on Thursday with an opening banquet where guests were introduced and the State Champion Enterprise FFA String Band played an hours worth of music that could compete with most artists on the radio.They also showed the Alabama Farm City multimedia contest winner, check it out here. I promise it's worth it!

Friday morning, we loaded the buses at 7:45 and left the hotel at 8:00 on the dot. There were 6 different tours going all over Montgomery & surrounding areas. I chose the green tour and enjoyed almost every minute. We started the day at the Jones Bluff Lock & Dam. We toured the entire dam.

Our second stop was at the Alabama SuperTree Nursery. I don't know much about forestry or trees, but it was interesting to see how they picked good varieties for planting (no forks, not a lot of limbs, straight). They plant 25 different "families" in a plot and see how each does.

We had a BBQ lunch at the Central Alabama Farmers Co-op, which meant we got to see the World Record Alligator that was on display there!

After lunch, we headed off to a catfish and tilapia farm! It was definitely different and so cool!

Our last stop was at a cotton field with some unique electric fencing to keep out wildlife, especially wild hogs. Hogs ruin crops and farm land overnight, and these farmers and wildlife officials have figured out how to keep them out, with no damage to their crops since they implemented the fencing.

We got back to the hotel around 5:30 and I grabbed some sushi for dinner with some friends and headed to the Montgomery Biscuits Baseball game.

Saturday morning brought educational speakers and young farmer competitions. I sat in on  a few pre-lims for Discussion Meet. It's where 6 people sit together and discuss a question about issues in agriculture and how we can take steps to further educate and handle the news and events that are present in the industry. It's encouraging to see the next generation of agriculture leaders, most of them Farmers and Ag Teachers, come together and talk about how they want to make the world a better place for farmers, especially Alabama farmers.

The Excellence in Ag competition was also held Saturday, something I would like to compete in next year. It's a 15 minutes presentation and 10 minute question and answer based on your application. The applications consist of a personal background along with agriculture involvement & impact of the presenter, three important issues that agriculture needs to address in the next 5 years, and how you feel the agriculture industry should address one of those issues. It also asks for the applicants leadership roles in the federation and other organizations. 

I sat in the audience, with a grateful heart, along with other supporting people, watching these young farmers and agriculture industry leaders speak about how they wanted to work together to change for the better and address the issues at hand. With all the negative comments about animals and agriculture, it's important for us to stand together and stand up for ourselves. "We have to tell our story, or someone else will." I'm already looking forward to the conference next year, hopefully to share my story and encourage other people as they have encouraged me.  

xoxo

Samantha