A new Wisconsin Farm Bureau conference made its debut this year on February 15 in Deforest – and it was a success! Cultivate & Connect, hosted by the WFBF’s Promotion and Education Committee, was a new opportunity to inspire, educate and empower members to advocate for the agriculture industry. Members left the conference with ideas on how to have effective conversations with consumers, the importance of building trust and ideas to take back to their county Farm Bureaus on how to engage with consumers locally.
The morning session started with Tricia Sheehan from Dairy Management Inc., who spoke about the Animal Agriculture Alliance and their initiatives to connect, engage and protect animal agriculture. Tricia spoke about some of the hot topic issues among consumers and the “dos and don’ts” for having effective conversations. The takeaways were the importance of listening to other perspectives when it comes to contentious issues and preparing for the tough questions. Members were able to practice these skills with some on-the-spot real-world scenarios.
“I’m going to take home some good points on how to speak to people who aren’t from a farm background,” said Cassidy Finke, a UW-Platteville Collegiate Farm Bureau member who participated in the activity.
Brandi Buzzard, a rancher and creative strategist, ended the morning session on a high note with her presentation about standing up for the agriculture industry in an impactful way. Brandi spoke about her advocacy journey, which started with writing clickbait headlines and evolved into several meaningful national television appearances and how building trust is one of the most important tools for addressing consumer disconnect.
“Our goal in agriculture is to be the ones who are trusted, not feared,” urged Brandi in reference to new fear-based marketing and labeling.
She explained how her original clickbait blog posts designed to make certain producers feel better were not a productive approach because they did not build trust nor were they empathetic. Brandi emphasized that you cannot reach consumers if you are not willing to get outside of your comfort zone and meet them where they are, whether that be certain social media platforms, different knowledge levels or various interests.
Brandi ended her presentation by emphasizing that not all advocacy takes place on social media, it can range from talking to someone in the grocery store or having school kids visit your farm. The little things matter when it comes to advocacy, and everyone must use their unique skills to advocate.
“Both keynote speakers did an excellent job sharing how to connect consumers to agriculture and how we can do it on a variety of different platforms, whether it be social media, in person or other one-on-one connections,” noted Stephanie Hammerly, a Columbia County Farm Bureau member.
After a break for lunch and good conversations with fellow members, the afternoon session kicked off with an update from Lynn Leahy, a member of the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Promotion and Education Committee. Lynn presented more opportunities for members to gain advocacy skills and emphasized that “We’re uniquely positioned in agriculture to tell our story.”
Lynn was followed by Rachel LaCount, WFBF’s director of Foundation and sustainability communications, who highlighted the success of Gather Wisconsin during its first two years. Rachel displayed some of the resources and activities provided by the Gather Wisconsin program that can be used by members to initiate meaningful conversations with consumers and connect with local communities.
The conference wrapped up with a chance for members to work in teams and use the information they had received to brainstorm consumer outreach events opportunities, plans to implement them and how to foster partnerships with other local organizations to strengthen outreach.
“I really enjoyed my time meeting other Farm Bureau members and finding out what they are doing in their counties and getting new ideas from them,” shared Columbia County Farm Bureau member David Mickelson.
When asked to reflect on the day as a whole, Dodge County Farm Bureau member Danelle Miller said, “Being a small farm and direct to consumer, this was such a good event to learn how to reach customers, what to talk about and what organizations have valuable resources you can use to help answer questions you don’t know the answers to.”
Danelle added, “There was so much good information today, I’m going to need days to process what I will bring back to our farm, our county and our consumers.”
Mark your calendars for next year’s Cultivate & Connect Conference which will take place on February 21 in Neenah.
Kelly Herness is WFBF’s 2025 communications intern. Herness is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying agriculture and applied economics, life sciences communication and public policy. She is active in UW-Madison’s Collegiate Farm Bureau chapter and the Association of Women in Agriculture.
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