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Agricultural advocates and community leaders are essential to the future of agriculture. The American Soybean Association(ASA) DuPont Young Leader Program strives to identify new and aspiring leaders and provide them with opportunities to enhance their skills and network with fellow growers. The current class brings together representatives from 23 states and Canada including an Ohio farm couple, Dan and Cindy Sturgill of Miami County.

“The Ohio Soybean Association (OSA) is proud to have Dan and Cindy representing Ohio,” said Tommie Price, OSA president and soybean farmer from Putnam County. “The ASA DuPont Young Leader Program strengthens our industry and provides agricultural leaders with the training to enhance their leadership skills. Congratulations to all the winners of this year’s program.”

The Dupont Young Leader program consists of two multi-day workshops that focuses on educational and skill-building opportunities. While both Dan and Cindy have full time jobs off the farm, they find time to take on leadership roles and participate in these programs because they believe farmers should be the ones to speak for farmers.

“The media training has really stuck out in my mind that you should be thinking about your message ahead of time and always bringing that question back to resonate with our core message while also addressing their question,” said Dan.

The Sturgills learned about the program from a past participant during their trip to the Commodity Classic conference last year. This year they returned to the conference during the second session of the ASA/DuPont Young Leader Program.

“We learned about it last year at Commodity Classic and it seemed like a good opportunity. It’s a great way to network and learn more about issues that are facing agriculture today. For new participants it may be eye-opening to realize how much we need to step up and give a voice to agriculture,” said Cindy.

“Young farmers need to show policy makers that we are the next generation. We’re concerned about many of the things that our friends and colleagues outside of farms are concerned with as well. That’s why we all need to be involved and work together,” said Dan.

Off the farm, Dan works at Proctor & Gamble in a research role while Cindy is employed at Heritage Cooperative and runs her own photography business. The acreage they farm was his grandfather’s. Through high school and college, he worked closely with his grandfather on the farm and later returned home to take on more of a management role.

“My grandfather farmed, when I came back from college I wanted to take over management of the land, that’s where we’re at now, it’s all family owned. It’s been a blessing to do that and grow with it, it would be nice to be at a point to be able to farm full time and be more involved within agriculture and the community,” said Dan.

Being very proactive in efficiency and environmental responsibility, Dan has slowly upgraded the equipment line to take advantage of current technologies and allow for more precision in their practices.

“Technology today is a must, in my opinion. It’s going to get more precise moving forward than where we’re at now with using larger management zones for fertilizer and herbicide application. The zones could be down to less than three feet by three feet areas that allow us to change the seeding rate or amount of nitrogen applied. I think the technology is there to drive that,” said Dan.

Dan recognizes many challenges the industry faces such as delivering a quality product while looking at the variety of end uses for soybeans. Protein and oil content continue to be a focus and he believes that can be an advantage the United States has and maintains in the market. In fact, being analytical by nature, he has taken the initiative to run several test plots over the years to collect data on performance of soybeans in different conditions and under different practices.

The data collected from the test plots fuels the decisions they make on the farm, but there is also a goal to one day host a field day and share the findings to encourage other farmers to evaluate what they are doing and potentially make a change.

“When you’re looking to get into the industry, don’t be afraid to fail. Part of growing and learning is trying – try new things on a small scale and adapt,” said Dan. “It’s easy to fall into that rut of how it’s always been done instead of evaluating things and coming up with a scenario maybe no one has thought of.”

The Sturgills are very grateful for the opportunity to be involved in the ASA/DuPont Young Leader Program. They recognize that the relationships they are forming with other participants today will be influential down the road as they continue to collaborate with others and provide leadership within the industry.

“Agriculture faces many challenges and opportunities as American farmers work to help meet the growing global demand for food,” said Randy Wanke, senior manager of Industry Relations, DuPont Pioneer. “We are proud to support the young leader program, which is developing the future growers needed to capture those opportunities and meet those challenges.”