MAAI
Minnesota Agricultural Ambassadors Institute
July 9-11th
The 2008 MAAI conference was held in Rochester; Justin, Caitlin, Sydney, and I were able to attend this conference representing MN FFA Association. This conference is put on by the MN Pork producers and MN Farm Bureau. This conference is designed to target the agricultural industry leaders of tomorrow. We had the chance to meet pork ambassadors from across the state, leaders from local FFA chapters, and several adult leaders in the Ag industry. This was my 3rd time attending, but I again learned something new, and met so many new people.
At this conference we had an Ag issues session, David Preisler, Minnesota Pork Producers Association, Kevin Paap, Minnesota Farm Bureau, and Robin Kinney Minnesota Department of Agriculture Representative were the individuals on the panel who answered our questions. All day Thursday we were able to take several tours in southeastern Minnesota. We first stopped and toured the Hormel meat packing plant in Austin; from there we traveled to Claremont and toured Al-Corn ethanol plant. Lastly we traveled west of Rochester and had the pleasure to tour the Allen dairy farm. I am a swine boy so the Hormel plant was my favorite, but wow talk about a dairy operation at the Allen farm, it was very interesting!
Another highlight we had at this conference was getting to meet with the makers of the “Farmboy” clothing brand; I look forward to this part every year. With all of us farm boys and farm girls here they asked us for ideas for new products, and to help pick out a few products that are ready to hit the stores. If you know me, you know that I love to eat! To end this conference with a BANG we went to Michael’s restaurant (probably the nicest restaurant in Rochester) for an etiquette luncheon. WOW what a meal, and I leaned so much more to improve my dinning skills
A special thanks to Trudy Wastweet, Robin Kinney, Kevin Paap, and Tara Sammon for an outstanding conference, it was a pleasure to work with all of you once again! Best of luck to all county pork ambassadors running for MN state pork ambassador in January, as a past MN State Pork Industry Ambassador I’m rooting for all of you, keep representing our industry well!!
