December 6, 2019

The heart of leadership

Topic: Leadership

The following is excerpted from Robin Kinney’s Focus on Agriculture post for American Farm Bureau Federation. Kinney is a former Minnesota Farm Bureau employee.

By Robin Kinney

Last week I found myself reflecting on the founders of Farm Bureau who provided our grassroots policy organization with such a solid foundation.

One of my favorite stories was about a county Farm Bureau board member who had been born in February 1912 and began farming at the age of 12 after the death of his father. He would often share memories of early Farm Bureau township meetings that were a social occasion for the entire section or neighborhood and involved the entire family. Meetings were hosted in the home of a member. Children would head upstairs or outside to play, the women would gather in the kitchen or dining room in the “homemakers circle” to share recipes and visit about family matters, and the men would talk farming and politics in the living room with the local Extension agent. This member recalled that the only way to purchase dynamite for clearing fields of trees and stumps was through an organized county Farm Bureau. He recalled interviewing agriculture school graduates for the important position of Extension director and how the county Farm Bureau paid the salary and travel expenses for this position.

Read the rest of Robin's post on My NDFB Life.