Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Missouri Corn Talk, your go to weekly agriculture podcast, delivering fast, reliable updates on market development efforts, ethanol demand, and the issues shaping today's corn industry. I'm your host, David Geiger. The Missouri Corn Roots Leadership Academy gives young corn producers an opportunity to learn more about leadership, advocacy, and the policy process, then put those skills into practice. The 15th Corn Roots class wrapped up its final session in Washington, D.C. earlier this year, and today we're talking with Brooke Holloman, one of its participants. Brooke, thank you so much for joining us. Before we dig into the details, can you tell me a little bit about what interested you in Corn Roots in the first place?
[00:00:38] Speaker B: So, originally, when I started Corn Roots, I had not heard about it until the day that the application was due last year. One of my good friends from college had done it the year prior, and he sent it to me and thought that I would make a good candidate for it. So I went ahead and applied. I knew about Missouri corn and kind of what they did, so I was interested in getting into it and learning from a young producer about what we could do as farmers and producers to help other farmers and producers in the policy and lawmaking industry.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: That's really interesting because learning more about that policy side of things, it really demonstrates just how valuable and important it is that there are people of many different backgrounds and experiences getting their voice out to get behind that policy. So tell me about learning how to use your voice to advocate for issues that are impactful to you, specifically around agriculture.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: Yeah, so I've always been pretty involved with different organizations, so I've always been interested in any opportunity that it arises to join different ones with all sorts of different ways to get involved in agriculture. With Bean Policy, I had never taken a huge interest in it, and I honestly didn't know where to get started.
So joining the Corn Roots Leadership Academy really pushed for that, and I was able to come together with different farmers and producers to actually see other people's thoughts and sides and hear what is going on in the corn industry?
[00:02:13] Speaker A: A big part of Corn Roots is the fact that you don't have to be a policy expert to be a part of it. Can you tell me about some of the classmates that you interacted with and some of the folks you learned from that had the background of maybe not having as much involvement with that policy side of things?
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah, so my class is actually one of the smaller ones of the Corn Roots. There was five of us, and we all had very different backgrounds. Some of us, including myself, were probably not as educated in the policy world, it is not something I had taken time to sit down and focus on. But there's another girl that was in our group, and she was very involved with policy, but not maybe so much with the corn side. So she joined the group to kind of see that side of the education. So it was cool to have her come in and give her update on what she was learning with policy, but also being able to apply it to the corn education and then also being able to sit down, talk with board members and everybody involved with Missouri corn, whether that be staff or anyone else, it was great to kind of see what everybody's thoughts were. I enjoyed sitting down and actually getting to conversate with people and kind of seeing, well, why do you think this? Why, why are we pushing for this? And just getting to talk to people and know people. That was the best way for us young people coming in with the leadership program to actually understand what we were doing and pushing for and what work we'd be doing at the Capitol and when we went to Washington D.C.
beyond
[00:03:43] Speaker A: policy, there's a lot of other aspects about the corn roots program. It covers leadership, communication, a whole variety of issues that are valuable to people within the agricultural industry and associated fields. What is your experience in the rest of the opportunities the program gave you?
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so the rest of the opportunities, we were not just focused mainly on policy. What we were able to do is actually advocate and be a voice for producers in the corn industry. I think it's very important that we can actually go and share our story. Is one thing that we did that is a big way to actually sit down and talk to people is just sharing your story.
So what you can do is we had all these different leadership groups. We would go and talk to different leaders, learn about them, learn their story, give them our story, and kind of just explain who we were, what we were doing.
But it doesn't always have to be about policy. A lot of times people just want to know who you are and what you're there.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Promoting the classroom is just a part of the experience. You talked a lot about what you learned, but there's also an aspect of putting it in practice.
So what was an interaction or experience you had through this program that really stuck out to you about putting these words and learning into actionable uses?
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So we were able to actually go to Jeff City and speak with people inside the Capitol about what Missouri CORN was doing. That was very interesting to me because I had never actually been in lobbied before. So it was a new learning experience. So that was cool to actually get to go out and talk to people. And then that thing that we do is we actually go to Washington, D.C. and you will be going to the House and the Senate. So you get to see both sides of a policy, whether that's on the House side or the Senate side. They come in two different ways.
Just their thoughts on things, how it's progressing, what they see for us in the future, how we can help them and how they can help us. Getting out there and talking to them. I had never been out to Washington, D.C. to do that. So being able to go in and actually talk to your lawmakers was very exciting. To be able to just sit down and have a conversation with them.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: How did that experience connect those issues being talked about to the people making decisions about them?
[00:06:10] Speaker B: I personally come from big farming background, so me being able to bring my story and my involvement to the people on Capitol Hill, that is what they truly wanted to hear. They wanted you to be able to sit there and talk to them. And they just wanted to know what you were trying to promote was important to you and what you could bring to them for them to understand in their terms, what it was important to them. There's people on Capitol Hill who are in agriculture and they understand all the aspects, and there's some people that are not super in touch with agriculture. So you need to actually be able to go on there, tell your story and understand where they're coming from so they can also understand where you're coming from.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: You also had this opportunity to learn from other farmers as well. Corn Roots brings together younger growers from different parts of Missouri to listen to each other, build relationships, network, essentially. Tell me about that side of the experience.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Yes. So we were able to do a lot of group activities besides just going to the capitals and talking. We were able to go have dinners and different interactions with board and staff. And our Corn Roots classroom that we were in, being able to sit down and talk with all the different farmers, producers, or ones that maybe weren't even corn producers, just wanted to get involved and understand how corn is important for them because they have a cattle operation. It was good to get everybody's opinions, whether that be from northern Missouri, southern Missouri, central Missouri, since that was our focus area. It was really interesting to see what people benefit from in their areas, what people struggle with, and how we could all help each other in different ways and what Corn Roots actually brings to the table for them.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: So would you recommend this experience to other folks? Applications are now open for the 16th Corn Ridge leadership Academy what's your thoughts about getting others involved and what's your recommendation for if they're on the fence?
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Yes, I highly recommend this program. I was glad that I ended up signing up to do it on the day the deadline was due.
I was on the fence because, like I said, I was not big into the policy world and I honestly was not sure if I had any idea what to expect or what I was going to be doing. But it's one of the best opportunities that I could have taken to actually get out there and learn about policy and regulations. Just kind of getting out there and talking to people and understanding what farmers are looking for and what organizations are doing to support farmers.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Before I let you go, Brooke, how's harvest looking like in your area?
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Harvest is going good. A lot of people have been in the field since probably mid September.
Most people last week have been switching over to soybean harvest. So we're getting it, getting it out of the ground and we haven't had too much rain here in central Missouri. I know northern Missouri has gotten quite a bit, but we've been doing good here.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: Is there anything you'd like to add that I didn't touch on during the conversation?
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Brooke I just really encourage people to go out and try things that maybe they would be uncomfortable to try. There's learning opportunities everywhere and to best benefit yourself and other people is to get out there and try.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Brooke, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your experience with corn roots.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Yes, thank you for having me.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Today, applications are now open for the 16th Corn Roots Leadership Academy, with applications due on October 30th. To learn more and apply, visit mocorn.org and that's it for this week's corn talk, made possible by the Missouri Corn Merchandising Council and the Missouri Corn Growers Association.
To learn more about Missouri Corn's programs and how you can get involved, visit mocorn.org or follow on our social channels. Thanks for listening. I'm David Geiger.
