By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor

Passion for agricultural advocacy, dedication to their community and a growing membership earned Smith County Farm Bureau (CFB) one of the most coveted awards given by Texas Farm Bureau (TFB).

The group was named the 2017 Most Outstanding County Farm Bureau at TFB’s 84th Annual Meeting in Frisco.

It took the county organization working together to win the recognition and share their agricultural stories.

Throughout the year, Smith CFB hosted community activities, educational events and engaged with consumers and state and national elected officials to earn points toward the award.

“The points and the competition are great, but our main focus is to promote agriculture in our area. We definitely are focused on agriculture,” Malcolm Williams, Smith CFB president, said.

That focus on agriculture, its county and TFB paid off, said Dale Bullock, former Field Operations director for TFB.

“This program or county competition was designed to be a program of work that, if the county follows the guidelines, they’re just going to have a really good year because this program touches every aspect of Farm Bureau,” Bullock said.

The key points of the program include promoting agriculture, political activism, attending state meetings and hosting youth activities. The Most Outstanding County Farm Bureau program allows every county to earn points in each of those areas to become the best across Texas each year.

Program eligibility begins Nov. 1 and runs through Oct. 31 of the following calendar year.

The county leaders took action early in the year—planning their events and activities.

Being active in developing grassroots policy and keeping elected officials up-to-date were high on their priority list.

The group was also active in the community—hosting agricultural tours for farmers and ranchers.

“Of course, we always have our ag tours, and they’re always a big hit,” Williams said. “This year, we went to a large vegetable farm that supplies a large grocery store chain in our area.”

In addition to the ag tours, the group was active on social media—consistently updating their county’s Facebook page with their activities.

They also promoted youth activities and encouraged young farmers and ranchers to be active in the Collegiate Discussion Meet and Young Farmer & Rancher competitions on the state level.

Williams said it takes the board and members working together to achieve this recognition.

“Our young people really help out and, of course, we’re proud of our young farmers and ranchers,” Williams said. “It’s just a well-rounded group of people who work well together. Everybody on the board has a strong suit, which makes everybody’s job easier, because we all balance each other out. With all that diversity, it really works well.”

But the coveted award wasn’t a clear win this year for Smith CFB. The group was tied with Anderson CFB.

The tiebreaker was membership. Smith CFB had a larger increase in membership for the year, which pushed them to the top.

This is the second time for Smith CFB to win the award. They’ve also been runner-up twice.

Anderson CFB was runner-up and Lamb CFB was third overall for this year’s contest.