By Anna Lemm-Wiegandt
Hi! My name is Anna and my husband Troy, and I currently live in Fargo, North Dakota. I work for AgCountry Farm Credit Services as a Marketing Content Specialist, and I have my own photography business. Troy works for Peterson Farms Seed as a Sales Agronomist. We both grew up on farms and continue to help on our families’ farms. We hope to one day have our own farm/ranch and we are very excited thinking about our future.
On my family’s farm, we grow corn, soybeans, barley, flax, oats, sunflowers, and Hereford cattle. My sisters and I are the 5th generation to have grown up on our farm. On Troy’s family farm they grow corn, soybeans, pinto beans, sunflowers, and wheat. He and his siblings grew up as the 6th generation on their farm. We love to help with planting, harvest, and anytime my family needs help with the cattle.
To me, farming and ranching is such a rewarding business. We are helping take care of the land and we are growing crops and livestock that will one day become food, clothing, and fuel. There is also something amazing about working outdoors with your hands and doing work that is going to impact a lot of other people.
I had a lot of ideas of what I wanted to be when I grew up. At a young age I wanted to be a fashion designer (I really liked the movie The Devil Wears Prada), then a horse rancher, and for a brief moment in high school I thought I wanted to be a food scientist. . . until I realized chemistry is not at all my cup of tea! These career paths don’t have a ton in common, but as I got older, I knew I wanted to be part of the agriculture industry. I just didn’t know how I would fit in. When I went to college and it was time to pick a major, I picked Agriculture Communication. I didn’t know what I would do with that major, but I knew I had to mix my love of creativity and agriculture, and this was the perfect fit. In my full-time job, I get to be around the agriculture finance industry and help my team promote our financial services and provide information to current and potential customers. In my photography business, I get to help small businesses market themselves by providing them with images and content for their marketing materials. My favorite is working with small agriculture companies and helping them tell their story.
One thing I have learned, is that agriculture has a very large customer base. Everyone consumes an agriculture product every day. Everyone eats, most people drive vehicles and hopefully everyone wears clothes. So, one thing I wish consumers knew about agriculture as a whole, is that the people growing your food want you to have choices. They want you to be able to feed your family with whatever kind of safe, and healthy food you want for them. I wish consumers knew that each producer might have a different way of achieving an end product, but producers are all working toward the same goal. Whether you live on a farm, or in a city, we are all united by agriculture and the food we eat!
Anna is the District 2 representative on the NDFB Promotion and Education Committee.