What results will you obtain?

As I traveled to our November session, our first in-person session, I wondered what my fellows would be like and what was in store for us. As the miles went by my mind continued to wonder and I became more and more filled with curious excitement. What I wasn’t prepared for was the question asked on one of our last stops by Mr. Bill Jardine, owner of Quail Cove Organics. Mr. Jardine asked our group, “You are the Virginia Agriculture Leaders Obtaining Results, so what results will you obtain? “ While this seems like a very simple question, none of us had a response. This question has continued to resonate with me since asked and as I reflect on this session, I can’t say that I have a good answer yet.
While in a lot of ways this seminar felt like being in a whole new world, there was a familiarity at each place we visited. Every person we met and spoke with talked of the same underlying themes: community, the future, resiliency and leadership. There were parents who were excited to see their children take on more and more responsibilities with their operations and bring new ideas to the table. There was the next generation putting new ideas into practice with the community supporting them and their families. We heard stories about the challenges and hard times these operations and people had faced. I am sure you’ve heard the saying “tough times don’t last, tough people do.” We met a lot of tough people during this seminar and their resiliency and leadership have brought them to where they are now.
So, what results will we obtain? I’m still not sure but I do know from the experiences we have, the people we meet, leadership skills we hone and resiliency we show will make us better equipped for the challenges we are faced with in agriculture. I might not know much at all about cotton or sweet potato production but I have grown my network through these experiences. I hope to one day be able to use my network and skills to help the agricultural industry obtain great results!