Jayden Simpson - 2024 Rising Star Award Winner

my name is Jaden Simpson and I proudly hail from putam County and we're here at my family's Farm my background primarily started here with my family's Farm my first year of 4 AG my Grandpa bought me a heer I named her Misty and that instilled my passion for the Herford breed and showing cattle here we are a fourth generation Herford show cattle operation where we raise and show Herford cattle across the country I am a rising Junior at Purdue University majoring in agricultural economics with a concentration in policy and pre-law during my time of Purdue I've had the opportunity to intern with Indiana Farm Bureau is the public policy intern during the 2023 legislative session in addition to that I have also been able to be the policy and coalition's engagement intern with the envoy Group which is a small agricultural consulting firm concentrating in sustainability and climate policy within agriculture my primary involvement in Farm Bureau is being involved with the Purdue Collegiate Farm Bureau chapter at Purdue University I'm currently serving as the president of the chapter and that involvement started um after working for the Indiana Farm Bureau as the public policy intern I'd never really heard about Purdue far buau until that internship and then once I got to Purdue the next fall I decided I was going to be involved in Collegiate Farm Bureau and I'm fortunate to lead that organization now after applying and going through the process I learned how important it is for Indiana Farm Bureau to recognize Rising Stars within agriculture receiving this award and being recognized by the young farmers and Agra professionals is very humbling for me as I continue to grow within the agriculture industry one of the big things about the application process that was very striking to me was the policy portion of the application the application was um structured where we had to talk about local state and federal policy I'm one that knows a lot about state issues but not necessarily local or federal so being able to learn about local issues in my community as well as learn about Federal issues such as the farm bill was really important to not only my growth but my knowledge within agricultural policy receiving the Rising Star Award is extremely important to me I not only am humbled by the opportunity to be named the rising star but it also goes to show how great of a support system I have here at my family farm if it wasn't for my parents and my grandparents and family friends I would not be where I am today as a rising star my path postgraduation is either to go to LA school or go straight into the workforce as a lobbyist lobbying for agriculture and the industry that we all love and being able to tell those stories to legislators and help them understand what agriculturalists and Rural communities go through on a daily basis is extremely important for us to get policies passed that are in favor of Agriculture especially here in Indiana [Music]