6 minute read
Farmers help fill community leadership roles
Farm Bureau leaders give back, educate and promote
Community activists come from all walks of life, and many Virginia Farm Bureau members lead the charge.
Some promote agricultural conservation by serving on local soil and water conservation boards, while others support agricultural products by assisting commodity promotion boards. Certain Farm Bureau leaders are appointed to local governing boards where they can connect decision-makers with information about issues that impact farming. And other leaders strive to bring the next generation into farming’s fold by working in agricultural education.
What unites them is an unselfish desire to participate in community roles for the betterment of Virginia agriculture. Read about four VFB leaders who are doing just that.
Smyth County farmer bridges gap between farmers and community
BY ALICE KEMP
In the far reaches of Southwest Virginia, Smyth County cattle farmer Charlie Atkins stays active in his community.
As a chair of the (Smyth County) Board of Supervisors, he acts as a liaison between farmers and county residents, keeping them informed about current agricultural issues.
“What I learn through the Smyth County board of supervisors helps me get back to the Farm Bureau and the farming community,” he said. “I can keep them a little more up-to-date on legislative issues or grants, so we know if we need to put something together to get it to Richmond, or maybe make calls to our congressmen.”
With his finger on the pulse of the community, he’s talked with legislators about the lack of broadband in the area—something that heavily impacts rural farming families. He also works to ensure policies like the county’s land use assessment taxation ordinance remain in place so farmers pay real estate taxes based on farm properties’ actual use.
“I’m always having to educate and keep (county) board members attuned to what land use really means to the individual farmer out there,” Atkins explained. “Some people feel land use favors a few individuals, and it doesn’t benefit the county as a whole. We’re basically an agricultural county so we need the land use.”
Working to improve Virginia’s beef cattle industry is another of Atkins’ agricultural focuses.
Serving on the Virginia Beef Cattle Improvement Association board, he helps oversee bull testing programs. Bulls are graded on factors like their ability to gain weight and expected prodigy difference—predictions of their ability to pass various traits onto offspring. The highest-performing bulls are sold, improving the genetics of what goes back into the farm.
Grayson County supervisor promotes regional ag activities
BY NICOLE ZEMA
Grayson County supervisor Brenda Sutherland has a heart of service that beats for Southwest Virginia agriculture.
Sutherland’s childhood on the farm, and a long career in education and administration, led to highly visible, influential regional leadership roles.
She taught, coached and worked in personnel for a neighboring school system for decades.
“Nothing I have ever done has been about me; it’s about my students,” Sutherland said. “I retired in 2010 and tried it for a month, but I couldn’t do it.”
She took a part-time gig at Grayson County Farm Bureau, and earned her insurance license. Four years later, Sutherland was encouraged to run for a one-year term on the Grayson County Board of Supervisors.
“I won, and I guess the rest is history,” she said. “Maybe I felt the need to give back to my community. I was a bedroom resident of Grayson, and traveled out of the county to work for 32 years. I thought, this is one way to give back.”
Sutherland represents the board on Grayson County’s Agricultural Advisory Committee, formed in 2018 to develop inclusive strategies to enhance agriculture and forestry enterprises and related industries, with a focus on agricultural education, communications, economic development and wildlife.
“I think that’s a pretty powerful mission,” she said.
In 2020, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation President Wayne F. Pryor tapped Sutherland as a trustee of VFBF AgPAC, the organization’s legislative action committee.
Sutherland also chairs the Virginia Association of Counties Economic Development and Planning Board. And she currently serves as executive director of the Crossroads Rural Entrepreneurial Institute, an educational initiative intended to revitalize the regional economy.
She helps manage a beef cattle and cow-calf operation with her husband, Richard, who serves on the VFBF board. They are members of CarrollGrayson Cattle Producers Association, and Brenda Sutherland represents the group on the Virginia Cattlemen’s Association Policy Committee. “I help him feed (cows) every day,” Sutherland said, and joked, “but I’m really a glorified gate opener.”
BY NICOLE ZEMA
Lynn Graves wasn’t intentionally vying for all the jobs that now require his attention. But his multiple leadership roles are opportunities to improve conservation and enhance agricultural activities in the Upper Piedmont and beyond.
Graves was appointed to the Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District board when a seat was vacated in 2005. The district covers Culpeper, Greene, Madison, Orange and Rappahannock counties. Fifteen years later, he serves as Madison’s district director and as board chairman.
“You don’t get paid for it, and it takes up a lot of your time,” the Madison County farmer said. “But you see benefits for the county, the state and especially trying to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.”
Apples and agribusiness alone are enough to keep Graves busy.
You might find him in his cannery pressing apples, or troubleshooting the Wi-Fi at the family’s Graves Mountain Farm & Lodges, an agritourism operation that includes crop fields and 50 acres of apple orchards.
Graves was eventually asked if he wanted to serve on the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts.
He now serves as first vice president of the VASWCD, and will rotate into the role of president in 2022. Involvement with the VASWCD offers a broad perspective of environmental needs throughout Virginia, demanding regionally specific strategies to help farmers implement best management practices.
In Central Virginia, “we’re fencing out streams,” Graves said. “But east of here, it’s more about cover crops. And out toward the bay you have shoreline erosion problems. You get to widen your knowledge on the association, and meet wonderful people.”
CHARLIE ATKINS
BRENDA SUTHERLAND
LYNN GRAVES
Surry County farmer and educator encourages youth participation
BY ADAM CULLER
As Daniel Judkins explains it, when you’re born into a farming family, an innate passion for agriculture runs through your veins.
Judkins grew up on Pecan Knoll Farm in Surry County, where his father, Tommy, and his late grandfather, Sidney, raised row crops before pivoting to cow-calf production in 1990. A sixth-generation farmer, his first agricultural experience was riding in a car seat in a combine while his father harvested corn.
Now 33, Judkins is dedicated to sharing agricultural experiences with youth as farm manager of the Isle of Wight County Schools Agricultural Land Lab. He and Jason Brittle, an Isle of Wight agriculture teacher, were selected to lead the lab when it began operating in 2017.
Since its inception, the lab has transformed 6 acres of unkempt land into a working farm, and students now learn small-plot farming practices by raising livestock and produce. About 80 students participate in the lab each school year, and Judkins said sharing a lifetime of farming knowledge with his pupils has been rewarding.
“It’s important for the students to understand where their food comes from, and that it takes hard work to produce that food,” he explained. “And to see our students, who are as green as you can be to the agriculture industry, grow and learn, you couldn’t ask for anything more.”
In addition to his endeavors as a fulltime educator, Judkins raises 50 head of beef cattle and serves as vice president of Surry County Farm Bureau.
As he continues to lay the foundation for young farmers in Surry, Judkins’ primary interest remains in expanding agricultural education at the land lab. His hope is that the lab eventually will become a model program for other Virginia counties.
