eady, Set, Solve! Advancing Animal Agriculture
By Abby Kornegay
In May, the Animal Agriculture Alliance hosted our 2024 Stakeholders Summit, themed “Ready, Set, Solve: Advancing Animal Agriculture.” This theme, geared towards teamwork and a sports-driven mentality as we’re in an Olympic year, carried through Summit as speakers from varying points along the food supply chain came together to discuss the value of building a strong team, how to tackle hot issues, and ways to keep working towards the finish line.
The Summit featured a dynamic group of speakers including Hinda Mitchell from Inspire PR Group. She discussed the need for creating a positive workplace culture to emphasize retention. Mitchell shared that it is imperative that employers in agriculture take an active role in being an employer of choice – as there is competition out there from bigger, non-ag companies, like Amazon and Google. She also discussed the need to thoroughly examine your hiring process as activists continue to try to get hired and create “undercover videos” targeting ag. Here are some quotes from her session:
“Employees can either be brand ambassadors or brand assassins.”
“There is no greater purpose then creating food for people.”
- “If an employee seems too good to be true, they probably are too good to be true.”
To provide a legislative update including updates on Right to Farm legislation, California Proposition 12, and activist-driven ballot initiatives, we invited Brianna Schroeder, Janzen Schroeder Agricultural Law LLC; Rick Stott, Superior Farms; and Chelsea Good, Livestock Marketing Association to be on a panel. Schroeder and Good both shared their legal expertise and relevant updates to legislation impacting the farming community. Stott gave an impassioned presentation regarding a current activist-driven ballot initiative targeting animal agriculture in Denver, Colorado that would put an employee-owned plant in the city operated by his company, Superior Farms, out of business. Here are some quotes from this session:
- “If this can happen in Denver, in the cow town of Denver, it can happen in Omaha, it can happen in Philadelphia, it can happen in Portland, it can happen in Seattle, it can happen around the country…This is a national issue. Every industry will be affected by this. Every packing plant is threatened by this.” - Stott
- “We’ve got a public that is more and more removed from production agriculture, and that’s become a problem for us.” - Good
- “It’s hard to get something passed on a national level…so I think we’re going to see more state, county, municipality rules, regulations get passed.” - Stott
- “It starts with education.” – Schroeder
Save the date for the 2025 Summit, set for April 30-May 2 in Arlington, Va., and follow the hashtag #AAA25 for updates as the date approaches.
