The 12th president of American Farm Bureau is a self-proclaimed “workaholic.”
Zippy Duvall is a third-generation dairy farmer from Georgia.
“I dairy for a living. I know what it is to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week almost. It seemed like it was that way sometimes; you’d be walking around almost sleeping. And I’ve carried that into my business life as Farm Bureau president in Georgia and I will carry that into my life as American Farm Bureau president.”
He replaces Bob Stallman, who announced in July he would be stepping aside after 16 years as president.
Duvall says he will spend the first few months on the job building relationships.
“Reaching across the street to all the policy makers, but I won’t stop there. Agriculture has very few people involved in it, and we’re going to reach our arms out to other commodity groups to start working together. And we’re going to work with agribusiness people to bring agriculture to one voice.”
Farm Bureau does not traditionally publicize the vote count and it took three votes to congregate a majority for Duvall, who defeated Indiana’s Don Villwock, Barry Bushue of Oregon and Kevin Rogers of Arizona.
Scott VanderWal of South Dakota was elected vice president and says Farm Bureau’s Young Farmer & Rancher program paved the way for this opportunity.
“Zippy and I are both products of our Young Farmers & Ranchers Leadership Training Program (and) some of the other candidates for office also were. I think this is a great testament to the leadership training we do and the programs we have to train people to speak out on behalf of agriculture.”
The 97th American Farm Bureau annual meeting concluded Tuesday in Orlando as Duvall and VanderWal begin a two-year term.
Source: www.brownfieldagnews.com