Farmers Union Enterprise Leadership Program Prepares Young Leaders to Visit About Ag Policy

Late August, in a Buffalo café surrounded by friends and neighbors, Harding County ranchers, Kaeloni and Jason Latham helped restart the Harding County Farmers Union.

Although they lead full lives - the couple has three young sons and they both work full time - Jason ranches with his dad, Darwin, and Kaeloni is the office manager for a local construction company - they said "yes" to Farmers Union because of their experience as members of the 2024 Farmers Union Enterprise Leadership (FUEL) Program.

"Saying 'yes' when we were asked if we wanted to participate in FUEL is the best thing we could do," Jason said. "It put us in a position to do good work for our ranching community that we otherwise would not be able to do."

Kaeloni agreed, adding, "FUEL gave us an opportunity to take an in-depth look at Farmers Union and we realized, we pay dues to several ag organizations, but of all the organizations we are members of, Farmers Union gives us the loudest voice. And they give us the tools we need to make a difference."

Sponsored by Farmers Union Enterprises, the organization which oversees Farmers Union Industries, FUEL is designed to strengthen young producers' leadership and communication skills. FUEL seminars are held throughout the year.

"Looking to the future of agriculture and Farmers Union organization, we need to actively prepare the next generation of leaders," said Karla Hofhenke, SDFU Executive Director. "This is the reason we invest in a variety of educational programs for members of all ages."

Clark farmer and SDFU board member Gail Temple added, "anytime we can support opportunities that provide ag producers with in-depth, information on advocating or other leadership training it is a good idea because the more comfortable they are with advocating or speaking in public the better able they are to be leaders in their rural communities and in the agriculture industry."

Preparing FUEL participants to advocate for the policy they need to succeed on their family farms and ranches was the focus of the most recent workshop held two days before the 2024 National Farmers Union D.C. Fly-In. Along with the Lathams, Chaz Blotsky, a rancher from Hidden Timber, also participates in FUEL.

"The workshops focused on how to best share our stories and conduct our meetings with poli-cymakers," Blotsky explained. "We actually practiced meeting with different types of people based on how receptive they were to our policy asks - those who agree, those on the fence and those who do not agree. The chance to practice prepared me and calmed my nerves. If I had not had this practice, I would have sat quietly. Because of this, I was able to speak up and advocate for what our family ranch needs."

Reflecting on their Fly-In meetings with policymakers, Kaeloni and Jason agreed that being prepared was key.

"I learned that even if someone agrees with you, we need to make the ask that they help us advocate for what we need," Kaeloni said. "We live in the middle of a very rural South Dakota county, and we need their help sharing our stories so we can have policy that helps family farmers and ranchers."

To learn more about FUEL, contact Karla Hofhenke, Executive Director, SDFU at [email protected].

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