Graduate Provides Agricultural Briefing

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Photo by Media Services

At the briefing - (left to right) Lance Douglas, Dain Strickland, UAM alumnae Dana Brooks, Brian McDuffie, Brian Hobson, Blake Williams, Randy Cox, Mark Couch and Keith Sowell document Brooks' visit. She works as the American Farm Bureau Federation's congressional relations director.

   Agriculture students and faculty at the University of Arkansas at Monticello recently received a briefing on agriculture policy development at the federal level from a UAM graduate now working as a congressional lobbyist. 

   Dana Brooks, a Portland native and a 1996 graduate of the UAM agriculture program, provided the briefing from her perspective as congressional relations director with the American Farm Bureau Federation in Washington, D.C. Brooks also spoke to the Ashley County Farm Bureau board of directors during her visit.  

Photo by Media Services

Alumnae visit  - Agriculture Chair Kelly Bryant, AFBF Congressional Relations Director Dana Brooks and Paul B. Francis, UAM plant and soil science professor and Drew County Farm Bureau board member, pause for a photo.

   Brooks was previously on the staff of U.S. Representative Marion Berry of Gillett and was a marketing specialist with Riceland Foods of Stuttgart. During her visit to UAM, she outlined issues that will be discussed for the 2007 Farm Bill and identified key players on the national scene. Brooks discussed alternative fuel development, international trade negotiations and the federal budget deficit as issues that will influence the final legislation. She also described the approaches used by Farm Bureau and other lobbyists to inform, persuade and monitor the legislative process.  

   Mark Couch, an agribusiness major, and Bob Stark, associate professor of agriculture economics, extended the invitation to Brooks in early January while attending the American Farm Bureau Convention in Salt Lake City.