A large crowd was at Santa Fe High school on Wednesday, Jan. 9, to hear Missouri Director of Agriculture Katie Smith speak at the Santa Fe Agri-Leaders winter meeting kickoff dinner and the Central District Young Farmers/Young Farm Wives annual meeting.

Smith spoke to the crowd about several priorities in the Department of Agriculture and urged the crowd to be ambassadors for the agriculture industry.

"What I think we need to do is really become ambassadors for the industry and start talking about the stories we have, not just about the challenges, but also the wonderful opportunities in agriculture," she said.

Pointing out that agriculture is Missouri's top industry, Smith talked about the Governor's Conference on Agriculture recently held in St. Louis, noting that 20 percent of the workforce in the St. Louis area on both the Illinois and Missouri sides are involved in agriculture.

She said that agriculture has a local regional economic impact of $23 billion in that area.

"It's amazing that St. Louis, an urban center, is so dependent on a strong agriculture sector for their local economy," she said.

Smith said Gov. Matt Blunt announced a new program at the conference that the administration will be asking the Missouri legislature to fund called the Farmland Legacy Exchange Program, noting it's very similar to the Land Link program in other states.

Smith said when thinking about the farming industry and the growing age of that population this program will be able to help make sure young farmers are able to enter the industry.

"We have to think about how are we going to grow that industry and make sure we don't have a 'brain drain'," she said.

The proposed program will serve as a "match service" to link farmers who want to phase out their operation with young people who are interested in becoming young farmers.

"Or if someone wants to expand their operation we can help them find people who would be a good fit in their operation," she said. "We'll sort of act as a matchmaker for those folks," she said.

A second priority for the department is Dairy Parlor Renovation Grants, which will give cost share up to $10,000 to help small dairies in the state renovate their parlors in order to milk more efficiently.

"I'm excited that we are going to get both of those things in this year's budget," she said.

She also touched on the challenges of agriculture and mentioned several businesses in the state that are meeting those challenges and revolutionizing agriculture in Missouri.

In taking questions from the audience, Smith said that this year Blunt has asked for approximately $175,000 to continue the Missouri Branded Beef Initiative, a program he kicked off at the Missouri State Fair in 2006 as an opportunity to help promote growth for Missouri cattlemen.

The agriculture department has met with packers and has hired a brand manager to assist in marketing. If the legislators fund the request, the funding for the initiative would rise dramatically from the initial $58,000 approved last year.

Noting that Missouri is the number two state in the country in cow/calf pairs, Smith said a significant percentage of the animals and genetics in the Certified Angus Beef brand is from Missouri.

"So when you think about that, why are our animals going into other branded programs outside the state of Missouri?" she said.

In addition to starting a Missouri Branded Beef label, the long-term goal is to keep the animals in the state longer and grow a packing and processing industry in the state.

"It's another one of those situations where we need to take advantage of those resources that we have," she said.

The Santa Fe Agri-Leader's next program will be Monday, Jan. 14 at the high school. Ron Plains, of the University of Missouri-Columbia, will present a program on markets. He will review last year's markets and give his thoughts on the market prospects for this year.

Contact Marcia Gorrell at marshallag@socket.net