By Jenny Mills and Charlie Elrod
Several NEAFA board and staff members attended the Cornell Nutrition Conference October 18-20, 2022 in Syracuse, NY to connect with members, recruit new members and share accomplishments with attendees. Approximately 425 attendees heard from us during the conference.
NEAFA set up a booth and shared messages at a breakfast and during the general session. Charlie Elrod, Jenny Mills and Rick Zimmerman put out a call to action around signing up for membership and the need for engaged members to help preserve agricultural production in the Northeast. The group also highlighted NEAFA’s accomplishments, including:
Organizing and completing a campaign that raised $1 million of industry funds to seed two faculty positions in the Department of Animal Science at Cornell University. Today, Dr. Joe McFadden and Dr. Kristan Reed are making significant contributions to animal science and the dairy industry.
Providing excellent educational programming for our members and the dairy industry through annual meeting presentations and seminars and partnering with PRO-DAIRY on the Herd Health and Nutrition Conference.
Actively working with agriculture commissioners in New York and all New England states.
Successfully supporting state budget appropriations for key agriculture programs including PRO-DAIRY, Integrated Pest Management, Agriculture Environmental Management, and NY FarmNet.
Maintaining a working coalition of agricultural stakeholders such as NEDPA, AFIA, NGFA, NYFB to strengthen our advocacy on budget and policy issues impacting the agriculture industry.
Actively working as a member of the Animal Ag Alliance: a national association focused on promoting science-based animal welfare practices
Member of the Grow NY Coalition and actively engaged in the overtime threshold issue and fight to keep 60 hours at 60.
Supporting and administering a Good Works Program that has donated over $100,000 to worthy programs which complement the growth and development of the northeast agriculture industry.
The NEAFA board would like to thank all the members who recruited new members, cajoled lapsed members to renew and promoted participation in NEAFA activities. Also, thank you to John Mitchell, who was there during the entire conference and engaged with many participants at the booth.