Bette is the Chief External Affairs Officer for Farm Credit of the Virginias, an organization that is part of a nationwide network of lending institutions that provides financing for the agriculture industry. Bette’s main role is to advocate for the farmers and producers in her network, either through working with legislators in the capitol or bringing them out to the area farms to properly educate them on current farming issues.
Transcript
My name is Betty Brand. I work for Farm Credit and I am their advocate and chief storyteller. My title is Chief External Affairs Officer for Farm Credit. And my job is to tell the story of our farmers and our rural communities to our stakeholders and primarily to members of Congress. The best way that we do it is connecting farmers and having them, providing an opportunity for them to tell their own story. Or bringing members of Congress or staffers or people from Washington, D.C., from other organizations that are weighing in on policy for agriculture. Bring them in so that they understand, not just about agriculture from a book, but they actually go out on the farm and hear the real-life stories of, this is what they're dealing with, this is what the operation is. A farmer is not just some person in bib overalls, that they truly have a business. It's more than just a way of a lifestyle. This week, for example, it started, I left home Sunday night and spend the night in a hotel and met early the next morning a group of students from a university that were graduating in agriculture and really didn't have a lot of on-farm exposure. And so we started off Monday morning over in Nelson County. We went to a family-owned orchard and nursery that's more than 100 years old. And we went from there to a fully robotic family-owned dairy that milks cows all by robots. We visited large operations all over the state for Monday and Tuesday. And then Wednesday, I was in Richmond, working with other agriculture industry people to work on developing policy to be prepared for when the General Assembly meets. Our territory, our footprint, Farm Credit of the Virginias, is basically two-thirds of Virginia, the western part, up from Fairfax, D.C. area all the way to Danville and everything west, and almost all of West Virginia. So, I travel a lot in that footprint, but of course, if I am trying to reach and tell the story to Washington, D.C. or members of Congress, then I use, a lot of times, I will go to Washington, D.C. And then we have national meetings and try to work together, so there are opportunities to travel across the country, but all the driving is done within our footprint, mostly.
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