A Year in the Life of a Farmer: Involvement in Discussion Meet develops speaking skills

Follow the Mitchell family throughout the entire year. Each month, look for updates about the family members and the decisions they make on their farm.

WINNEBAGO, Ill. — Competing in Discussion Meet events hosted by Farm Bureau is one way for young agriculturalists to improve their public speaking skills.

“I think it has helped me become a better public speaker and it’s a discussion, not a debate,” said Aaron Mitchell, who together with his brother, John, are partners in Mitchell Dairy and Grain LLC.

“It has also helped me think more critically about an issue,” said Aaron, who is serving as chairman of the Illinois Farm Bureau State Young Leader Committee this year. “It is modeled off a boardroom discussion to help people be more collaborative in finding solutions.”

People can have adversarial views on the same issue, Aaron said, but they can find common ground to work towards a solution.

“That’s the making of a good board,” Aaron said.

“During the closing remarks of the discussion, hopefully the group has a few good ideas that could be implemented since they pick topics that are pertinent to Farm Bureau and agriculture,” he said. “A lot of them come up with neat ideas that maybe one county is doing that could be done in other counties.”

Aaron competed in the Discussion Meet for the first time in 2013 while he was still attending the University of Illinois.

“I’ve competed every year until I got on the Young Leader Committee in 2019,” he said. “I competed at the state contest three times and made the Sweet 16 twice.”

John also competed in the Discussion Meet for 10 years and was selected a state finalist in 2015 and 2020.

“The last year I did it, the topic was natural disasters,” he said.

While assisting with the competition as the committee chairman, Aaron said, it has been interesting to listen to the ideas of the contestants.

“Sometimes I wish I could join in on this discussion because they have some good ideas and I’d like to add to them,” he said.

The Young Leaders will hold their meeting on Friday before the start of the Illinois Farm Bureau meeting, set for Dec. 3-6 in Chicago.

In addition to election of officers, the meeting will include Aaron’s retiring address.

“There will definitely be thanks to John for putting up with me being gone so much and my wife for the same,” Aaron said. “It has been a stressful year for all of us especially since they’re the ones that have to keep things going when I’m not around.”

In addition to the Discussion Meet, which is a big activity for the Young Leader Committee, Aaron also presented awards during the Illinois FFA State Convention and attended monthly IFB board meetings.

“Farm Bureau is currently working on strategic planning for the future of the organization and since I’m an advisory member they also invited me into those discussions,” he said. “They want to get more ideas from someone younger in the organization.”

Farm Bureau was founded 100-plus years ago, so what a farmer member looked like then, is not what a farmer member looks like going into the future, Aaron noted.

“We want to make sure we’re still providing services to that future member just as well as we have been in the last 100-plus years,” he said.

Last year as the vice chair of Young Leader Committee, Aaron served on the IFB resolution committee.

“I got to discuss the policy submittals that went before the IAA annual meeting in Chicago that included pandemic relief and dairy policy,” he said.

Aaron is expecting more discussion about milk pricing reform at the IFB meeting this year.

“There are a few dairy submittals for the IAA meeting that came from our county,” he said. “Our president, Brent Pollard has worked long and hard over the last year-plus trying to understand milk marketing to put together good dairy policy.”

In January, Aaron is planning to attend the American Farm Bureau Federation Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to serve as an alternate delegate.

“Last year with COVID, a few members were not able to go to AFBF, so I served as a delegate and sat on the floor the entire time,” he said.

Working on development of policy is relatively new to Aaron.

“My really first dive into policy was last year on the state resolutions committee,” he said. “When I was growing up, I was really into politics, but I don’t follow it as closely as I used to.”

The Farm Bureau policy book at both the state and national level drives how the members of the organization views bills that move through the legislative process.

“It’s a pretty cool aspect of Farm Bureau to see resolutions come from counties, brought to Chicago and then move onto the national level,” Aaron said.

For example, a resolution came from Cook County last year about urban agriculture that was discussed in the resolutions committee, approved during the IFB meeting in Chicago and submitted to AFBF.

“It was combined with a resolution from California and now it’s in the AFBF policy book,” Aaron said. “I saw the whole process as it happened so that was neat to see.”

People involved with urban agriculture are important for the future of the organization, the dairyman said.

“They don’t look like row crop or livestock farmers, but they’re producing food so they are just as important,” he said.

“With the knowledge of agricultural policy, Farm Bureau can be a benefit to help them deal with different zoning requirements,” he said. “And they can be beneficial to Farm Bureau to work with urban legislators because there are members that are farmers in their districts.”

Both John and Aaron are adjusting to using the Meyer TMR mixer they recently purchased for their 400-cow registered Holstein herd.

“The features are set up really well for us,” John said.

“It’s a little different because you feed off the other side and it has more levers,” Aaron said. “By the end of the day, I was doing a pretty good job of spreading the feed evenly along the bunk.”

Straw is part of the ration for the dry cows.

“This mixer chews the straw up a lot nicer with the new knives than the old mixer,” Aaron said.

“We did some shaker boxes on the feed last Monday and it came out pretty decent on the analysis,” John reported.

As harvest nears completion, application of manure from the dairy operation will be happening soon. Tim and Steven Mitchell plan to soil sample all the fields this year.

“They do variable rate fertilizer application and rather than relying on a soil sample from three years ago or whole field recommendations, they are really trying to pinpoint applications,” John said. “They want to save some fertilizer where they can and put it in the right spots.”