Ep. 49 - Chelcie Cargill; Advocate, Communicate, Educate
Living in the cowboy country of eastern Oregon by way of Montana, we are excited to showcase Celcie Cargill of the Montana Farm Bureau to chat about how we can use the COVID-19 lockdown to become stronger ambassadors for the western lifestyle. From advocating to communications, Chelcie has been involved in policy work as the Director of State Affairs for the Montana Farm Bureau. She’s also founded the year-long ACE program that stands for advocate, communicate and educate that is in its third-rotation. Learn how to have empathetic conversations that are applicable in all aspects of life in this episode with co-hosts Katie Schrock and Rachel Owens-Sarno.
Montana Farm Bureau
“I first got involved with the Montana Farm Bureau as a college student,” says Chelcie who had been extremely active in FFA in Montana. She even served her freshman year of college in the state parliamentary group.
“There I was, this bright-eyed bushy-tailed, college freshman in this room of approximately 200 farmers across the state of Montana, was given a gavel and told I was in charge!” A great learning experience, it was also a bit intimidating at first. “Getting to observe the grass roots policy development that an organization takes with really important parts of agriculture - it really comes from the members, the farmers and the ranchers living it on the ground.”
From there, Chelcie got involved with the college farm bureau group and took advantage of travel opportunities with them. That led to an internship her senior year and she never left; it turned into a full time job.
When she officially left the Montana Farm Bureau, she had been able to hold a variety of jobs throughout the Farm Bureau family. “That whole organization, that group of people will always hold a special place for me,” says Chelcie.
Perks of Farm Bureaus
A great opportunity to get all regions of a state together to discuss issues is an amazing portion of farm bureau both at the state and national level. There are a lot of resources and peer opinions that you can rely on for the success of your business and advocacy. The organization has a powerful presence in the world of policy and communications because you can rely on that network of unique experiences within agriculture.
Director of Montana State Affairs
“When I was working as the farm bureau’s director of state affairs, my priority was to manage all governmental relations and policy work at the state level,” says Chelcie who had a counterpart colleague that handled the federal issues. Her main focus was on taking the policy that the Montana Farm Bureau creates every year at their annual convention and making sure that those positions and beliefs are represented in the state government from lobbying to a variety of working group opportunities.
Most of Chelcie’s time was spent to-and-from the state capitol for legislation. With a bi-annual legislative session, she would live fulltime in Helena, Montana, and lobby every day for the 90 days. During the interim, she would work closely with the government officials on the implementation of policies passed.
The second hat was an element of education and grass roots movement of sharing back to the members what is happening in the capitol.
“The best way I got to explain that, is as a lobbyist, is that my main goal was to be the main conduit between our farmers and ranchers in Montana and the legislators in the state capitol.”
Unique Policy Issues in Montana
Anything related to water policy, especially as it relates to agricultural use, is often something that is met with a lot of controversy. Montana is no different and had a variety of issues that they had to work through from urban to rural, farming to economy, and then the conservation of our wildlife. A lot of the lobbying that Chelcie had to do while she was there revolved around water; specifically water compacts.
One of the main reasons that it got so tough, is that as an agricultural group there was severe division in how that should be handled. Vocal minorities made a lot of productive conversation difficult.
“I was still feeling relative new in that position, I was young,” says Chelcie with a laugh as she was in her mid-twenties. “I didn’t feel like I knew enough but, by the end, I had learned enough to have those conversations.”
Another struggle is wildlife management and, in the southwestern portion of the state, is Yellowstone National Park. Conversations on the elk and bison that migrated out of the park and onto Montana State and private lands in the winter, many of which don’t go back to the park, is a huge impact on those landowners who have these herds camped out on their property during these times.
Questions on population control, hunting access, disease control of diseases that can be passed to domestic livestock and specifically cattle, is imperative. It’s a tough issue because Chelcie doesn’t see a solution on the horizon, but sees it as something that will continue to be navigated as there is a lot of high-stakes emotion involved.
“What would you do if someone broke into your hay shed and stole a couple hundred thousands dollars of hay every night?” An analogy that co-host Katie Schrock brings up about issues in Oregon that are similar to when you have large game animals that are eating up forage for the ranchers.
Finding Legislative Facts in Your State
“The best place to start is to utilize your resources if you are a member of an organization you are a member of such as chamber of commerce, small business administration, etc.” says Chelcie. Utilizing those resources is efficient because they have done the research and the dissection for you to see what the impacts of those policies are going to do.
“Secondly, if you are not currently a member of an association, find one that fits your mold and join them because that will really magnify your voice as a member and your ability to create change if it’s an issue that you are especially passionate about.”
When you are picking an organization to be a part of to represent your passions in government, make sure that that organization has a working policy group or an active lobbyist on staff. If it’s farming and ranching and you want to know what’s going on, you need to go to the farm bureau’s, the cattlemen’s association’s, the wheat grower’s associations, etc. There is a cornucopia of specialty associations out there - find one and join!
Standing Up For Your Beliefs
“We sometimes try to make the topic of advocacy as an over-simplified process… which it is not,” says Chelcie who encourages you to not be intimidated. The scene when you testify is a large microphone, a podium, a crowd behind you that may not agree with you, and a bunch of business officials behind big wooden desks.
“What I would always tell the people I was working with is to remember is that your elected officials are people too and they want to hear what you have to say. If you have taken time out of your day and your business to travel to the capitol for a 3:00 pm working meeting, they know that you care about this and that what you have to say is valuable… Your input is important to them!”
True across most states, agricultural knowledge within our legislative bodies is severely lacking so anytime that you as a rodeo athlete, as a farmer, as a rancher, can take the time to go to that committee meeting and share your expertise and knowledge - they can benefit immensely from that.
Other Advocacy Options
Heading to the capitol can be a huge chunk of your time away from your business and may not always be viable. There are options to reach out to officials or send in written testimony on a bill or a piece of legislation.
You can find your way through your state legislation site to find specific legislators on that committee or to the entire committee at once. The biggest takeaways, says Chelcie, is that short and sweet written communication is your best bet. It’s always quality over quantity! When you get to the “sausage making” part, it will always be taken more seriously when you have a thought out email versus a bulk chain email.
“I do love letters to the editor in your local paper as well,” says Chelcie, “but I will caution folks that sometimes the letters to the editor can be a bit negative [or even get gossip-rag like]. Always be positive, offering solution, dialogue and be open to feedback and you’re not just there to complain or criticize folks for not doing things the way you do.”
ACE: Advocate, Communicate and Educate
Essentially the idea for this program took place around 2014 when Chelcie was relatively new in her position as Director of State Affairs, lobbying full time, and trying to figure out how to do justice to the educational portion for the members. In agriculture, we always hear the resounding message of “share your story” and “educate the public.”
“I just really saw a need for a more intensive approach, but not intimidating approach, to advocacy training,” says Chelcie who saw that they were telling their members to talk to their elected officials, have media interviews, and have conversations at your kids’ soccer game about GMO’s.
She felt that the message stopped there and that there weren't further resources to help lead you to the productive dialogue that needs to take place. Chelcie began to put the components together with colleagues during her few moments of free time.
The third revolution of the program started in January where she takes up to ten Farm Bureau members every year where they start a year long program that has seminars multiple times a year. Instead of just talking about using Facebook or conversation with elected officials, they do leadership assessments and break it down from there.
“We have to take a really hard look internally, ourselves, as communicators, and our own style of leadership before we can figure out how to put all of those communication and leadership aspects together before we can go share our story … with people not involved in agriculture.”
A unique approach to advocacy, it’s not what most people would expect. Interviews are important skills to have, partnerships with elected officials is important, but, by and large, the fundamental portion of the program is to create stronger leaders in rural America in the western lifestyle.
When we have really strong leaders in our rural communities, really strong leaders in farming and ranching, with strong, vibrant, and thriving economies - we have people coming back to our rural communities. This is our chance to share our love for the western lifestyle, the natural resources that we get to take care of, and the baseline goal is to empower and encourage those folks to step out in their own communities and identify needs that require leadership.
It’s a pretty slow process and evolution, but it’s something Chelcie is really passionate about and, long term, it will build really empowered and confident leaders.
Future ACE Goals
“I would love for this program to grow beyond Montana’s borders!” Says Chelcie who would love to get more farmers and ranchers in other groups. If you are interested in who you can contact within your own state or if you have a program like this available or if you’d like to have it be a part of your group - contact Chelcie today!
Reach out to your farm bureau’s, stockgrowers, and cattlemen’s associations to see what opportunities exist. “I would love to talk to anybody in any state,” says Chelcie.
The State of Agriculture in COVID-19
From dumping milk, meat companies going out of business, and grocery store prices rising; the headlines are fraught with uncertainty in food security. Chelcie dives into this topic a little bit more with us on the podcast.
“As for the rest of the country, agriculture is feeling COVID-19 in a lot of different ways too, much like the rest of the country, it’s completely new territory for all of us in farming, ranching, and food production in general. We are navigating this in real-time with the rest of America and hoping that we do a good job.”
One of the challenges is that a lot of what is happening in the market is the initial fear and panic of what coronavirus could have done to our company, early on in the quarantine process. We are now weeks into it (at the time of recording) and a lot of systems that we are blessed enough to take for granted, have had to pivot HARD and make really quick changes to adapt. That has impacted agriculture in some negative ways.
If you want to better understand the dairy industry, the New Mexico Milk Maid on Instagram has a great social media newsfeed showcasing more education and dialogue. COVID-19 has had a massive impact on the dairy industry but most of the problems impacting the dairy farmers in the U.S. were well on their way long before the coronavirus had hit the country; in a way it has been salt in the wound for them.
There was some real panic setting in across the country on what would happen to the food supply. “I think, bottom line, what people need to understand that there is PLENTY of food in this country, PERIOD,” says Chelcie. “What we need to focus on, and what people are making a priority, is the essential workers in the production process so that food can get to where it needs to be.”
Grocery store shelves may not look “normal” for a long time but trust the process and stick with us. The food is there, it’s definitely getting to grocery stores in different avenues than what we are traditionally used too, but there are packing plants and processing plants that are taking extraordinary measures to not only keep working but to work 24/7. When you consider that and the measures that these businesses and companies had to put into place, literally overnight, Chelcie is really impressed that we don’t have more empty grocery stores. They have truly raised the challenge and, coming full circle, that farmers and ranchers that are at the very start of the food supply chain are still farming and ranching.
We are calving, we are lambing, and we have next year’s calf crop on the ground and growing. Food production is continuing in this country but it may just look a little bit different than normal.
Advocacy & Buzzwords
“We operate in a world that is just chalk full of jargon,” says Chelcie. “But, anytime that we are talking about any animal or type of livestock, anything that is second-nature to use like ‘heifer,’ ‘steer,’ ‘free-martin,’ ‘stud,’ ‘filly’ - that’s all jargon.”
When you are doing a media interview that people who don’t know what livestock is, that can all go over that audience’s head. It can be in your best interest to take a 10 second pause to explain what you mean and then move on with the conversation. That helps the listener stay engaged because, when people are confused, they’ll stop paying attention.
As advocates, we want to share our lifestyle with new and other people and the last thing that we want to do is have them lose interest. When we are talking about being farmers and ranchers, a lot of times we will say we are “agriculture producers,” but to most of the population the word “producer” equates to “music producer” or “television producer.” Another key word is “operation,” and you go to a SURGEON for an operation not the farm or ranch.
These seem really simple but using language like that and making those small changes can level the playing food and help the audience be that much more comfortable in listening to us. Then they feel more comfortable and confident to ask us more questions and that opens the door to more positive dialogue.
Handling Attacks From Mainstream Media
During January of 2020, the Miss Montana USA came out with strong comments regarding animal agriculture’s negative impact on the climate and utilized her pageantry platform to really vocalize her choice to be vegan and why she was a vegan due to animal ag’s role in climate change. There was immediate negative feedback, across the board, from the agricultural industry as a whole across the state of Montana. Agriculture is the number one industry in agriculture and it came from out of left field for most of the state.
With her massive following, she was saying that the state she represents is bad for the climate and that really stung in a lot of ways. That wasn’t the end though, it got worst from there with early attempts from well-intentioned farmers and ranchers reached out via social media. They came from a good place to spread a positive message about agriculture and share with her more information that her statements were lacking in, as well as the lack of fair representation of what agriculture in Montana looks like.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of negative feedback on social media and the situation sprialed out of control. Social media can be a blessing and a curse, and it was kind of misused in this situation. A chance to open the door and have great conversation with someone that agriculture in Montana doesn’t have direct access to. The result was that Montana agriculture sported a big black eye to most of Miss Montana USA’s followers.
An opportunity that we need to learn so much from in how we approach these dialogues and our reaction when these inflammatory comments are being made. Being aggressive doesn’t have a positive response in most conversations, specifically when you are having a conversation with someone that doesn’t see eye-to-eye with you.
“One of the most unique parts about … those who grow up in rural lifestyles … is that it’s not just a job for us, it’s a part of our identity, it’s who we are, and it’s who our family have been for multiple generations,” says Chelcie. Comments aren’t always meant as inflammatory as we can take them when we take them personally. We try to make advocacy fit into this over-simplified model with a perfect sound bit or perfect Facebook post but, unfortunately, that is not the case.
In order to have really beneficial and productive conversation takes a lot of work and one of the first fundamentals that Chelcie teaches with her ACE program is that before you even open your mouth, you must listen. Listening is not something that we are often taught. Communications tell us how to speak, but we lack education on active listening. It’s also a fundamental that was glazed over when we promote agriculture advocacy.
When someone doesn’t feel heard, they don’t feel respected, and then they don’t feel safe, and if they don’t feel safe, they don’t want to talk to you. If you are in an intense moment that has you fired up, you may need to take a deep breath and count to ten but allow them to explain their opinion and why they think that. Ask them why that concerns them most and then respond empathetically.
Empathy is a huge friend of ours in the realm of advocacy and we don’t use it enough. Sometimes all we need to say is to open the door to the next dialogue, is that “we understand that this can be a concerning issue for you,” and then diffuse the situation to share more facts and your experiences. If you show that you aren’t there to fight with them, they can relax and have that productive dialogue with you.
Sometimes people are really just aggressive and are trying to make a scene for the video for Facebook. You need to know when to walk away because there are moments in time when the conversation has become unproductive and it is harmful to both parties to stay involved. Another piece to that puzzle and the most important thing that Chelcie shares with the ACE program and is in fact a house rule is that empathy and understanding does not equal agreement.
“You don’t have to agree with somebody’s opinion, you don’t have to compromise your own belief on … an issue, you don’t have to agree with that person to be kind enough to empathize with someone.”
“If you just start out by saying that you understand… it just puts you on a more even playing field…. People don’t want to feel attacked, that you’re attacking their pride or that they need to be defensive… You need to take that step back and down …. To get yourself on the same playing field,” says podcast co-host Rachel Owens-Sarno.
“True advocacy and truly successful advocacy is deeply rooted in your ability to build trusting relationships and that takes time,” says Chelcie.
Make sure to follow Chelcie on social media to stay up to date or ask her any questions about her ACE program or how to get involved in your state.
If you enjoyed Chelcie’s episode, you may also enjoy these other beef ambassadors from the May 2020 Beef Month!
Brandi Buzzard - The 2019 NCBA Advocate of the year, this Kansas cowgirl works on her and her husband’s own red angus seed stock ranch and is a wicked breakaway roper!
Sarah J. Bohnenkamp - A former US Cattlewomen’s Association Executive Director, this fun loving cowgirl from Idaho has been a mover and shaker in the beef industry for a long time! Now she’s a life coach who has even spoke at the 2017 Miss Rodeo America Clinic!
Courtenay DeHoff - Can you say spitfire and fun? This television host and radio personality grew up a cowgirl on her family’s cattle ranch in Kansas. Not afraid to embrace both her New York life and her ranching life, she’s been the power behind the tag line #FancyLadyCowgirl!
Markie Hageman - Despite not knowing what she wanted to do, this former fashion design student has become one of the strongest writers in the world of agriculture and is the author behind the fast growing blog, Girls Eat Beef Too. From starting her own ranch, breakaway roping, and working for the California Rangeland Trust, she’s always on the move as an advocate for the western lifestyle.