I was gone a few days last week serving as the National North Central Vice Chair for Agronomy at our National Association of County Agricultural Agents conference. It is always an uplifting time to interact with colleagues throughout the U.S. and to reflect on “my why” for being in Extension.

Often it was reiterated the importance of 4-H and FFA in shaping the future agriculture workforce. It was emphasized by USDA and Industry speakers in addition to the keynote speaker Temple Grandin that we need to be intentional in providing youth opportunities and be thinking about where that could lead in 10 years when they leave for college. I think about how 4-H was such an important part of my life. It was through 4-H that I learned the importance of public speaking, leadership, healthy competition, and plant ID skills. I desire to instill that love of plants and science into youth as well! It would be good to consider ways to partner with others in agriculture to speak into youth.

Artificial Intelligence was a topic of conversation from the USDA and Industry speakers. We also discussed dealing with unintended consequences of AI. The reality of a wrong answer being provided by AI and Chat GPT is real and I saw that first-hand with wrong herbicide applications this year to non-liberty tolerant corn. Companies are racing to train their own AI tools using data and technical sheets with the power of google in the background. While I consider myself fairly innovative in the things I try, I’ve been much more hesitant to jump on the AI bandwagon, even though I recognize there are many positive tools to help.  My concern is the need to balance information from a tool with still talking with people to fact-check. Yet, we were also challenged that if our research-based information is not showing up when people query AI, then we’re not making our information known in a world that is constantly adapting to technology.

Dr. Temple Grandin is a distinguished professor of animal science at CSU and a highly functioning autistic. She shared the importance of visual, mathematical, and verbal thinkers and how we need all of them.  She also shared that we need to provide youth opportunities for different experiences so they can better explore their interests. If it wasn’t for her aunt having a farm and Temple spending some summers on it, Temple wouldn’t have learned an appreciation for livestock and most likely wouldn’t have pursued a career in animal science. She shared there was scene in the HBO movie made about her life that is the most powerful scene to her. It’s when she walked up to the man and handed him her business card asking if she could write for his publication. She shared how that launched her career in allowing her to share about animal behavior and livestock facility design. It allowed her to begin building credibility and respect.

I was reflecting on that too in how blessed I’ve been that 22 years ago, a few area newspaper editors allowed me to write a weekly column for them. They gave me a chance to share what I was seeing in the fields and in providing timely agricultural and horticultural information. I am grateful to those editors for that opportunity! And, I’m grateful to those of you who read this column. It’s something that I find so humbling….when there’s so much information available to people to choose from, there’s still people who will take the time to read what I write. That gets back to “my why”. I joined Extension to serve people…to help people everyday to the best of my ability. It can definitely be challenging with the assortment of calls received and in being spread so thin, like many are. Since March, beyond the normal assortment of questions, I’ve received questions about planting cover crops for forage in wildfire and hail damaged areas, questions about decisions after hail, and field visits for three weeks on herbicide damage complaints. I’m grateful people utilize Extension with their questions and also don’t take that for granted. It does take a lot out of a person and it was good to get away for a few days just to be encouraged to keep going in serving people. Ultimately, at a time when University and Extension budgets are challenged, I just wanted to thank those of you who find value in and support Extension.