Pork Leadership Applications due Nov. 30

Pork Leadership Applications due Nov. 30

Posted on by Tina Hinz
Earlier this month, members of the 2020–2021 Iowa Pork Leadership Academy learned about sweet potato, cotton, tobacco, and peanut production while touring farms in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Travel the country. Meet farmers from other states. Develop your leadership skills. If those sound like goals you want to accomplish in 2022, then the Iowa Pork Leadership Academy (IPLA) may be for you.

Members of the current Iowa Pork Leadership Academy visit an oyster farm in Charleston, S.C.

The Iowa Pork Producers Association is now accepting applications for its 2022 IPLA class. Applications are due Nov. 30, 2021.

IPLA was created to support Iowa’s pork producers who are committed to the pork industry. It provides them with the tools to succeed as leaders. These tools include:

  • a working knowledge of the Iowa Pork Producers Association and other key organizations that work with IPPA to broaden perspectives and build coalitions;
  • understanding and defining leadership styles and how they impact people working together in a group;
  • a deeper understanding of the pork industry and its economic contributions to Iowa, and how that impacts Iowa’s place in the world; and
  • sharpening written and verbal communications and messaging about pig farming and pork.
Members of the current Iowa Pork Leadership Academy stop at a Clemson University research facility while in North Carolina and South Carolina earlier this month. The trip highlighted the challenges and opportunities of agriculture in the region.

The academy will meet four times in 2022, starting with an introductory session in February 2022, which culminates with the group’s graduation at the January 2023 Iowa Pork Congress.

IPLA is for men and women who want to contribute to a better future for Iowa’s pig farmers by connecting with their communities, and supporting the long-term profitability of the pork industry in Iowa.

Online applications and details about the program can be found at http://www.iowapork.org/iowa-pork-leadership-academy/.

The current IPLA class will graduate at the 2022 IPPA annual meeting awards lunch on Jan. 25, 2022. Those members are: (listed alphabetically by county): Adams County – Amanda Winslow, Prescott; Allamakee County – Rose Onsgard, Dorchester; Calhoun County – Lance Heuser, Manson; Clayton County – Ben Wikner, Farmersburg; Delaware County – Ben McDonald, Hopkinton; Jackson County – Austin Lane, Prescott.

Kossuth County – Cory Thilges, Lone Rock; Linn County – Doug Rice, Mount Vernon; Lyon County – Janae Metzger, Larchwood; Polk County – Garrett Gourley, Des Moines; Story County – Jake Sterle, Ames; Washington County – Matt Romoser, Keota; and Winneshiek County, Jessica Lensing.

Sterle’s spot in the class is made possible by the Al Christian Fellowship for a student attending Iowa State University.