Photos by Kate Jackson, Story by Braden Burns

Last week, the Oklahoma Pork team was visited by an excellent group of young agriculturalists with Oklahoma Farm Bureau’s Oklahoma Youth Leading Agriculture (OYLA). The OYLA experience took place on June 13th through 16th providing opportunities for students to visit agricultural institutions throughout the state. The program is designed for high schoolers who have found a spark in the industry we love. These young people get to experience a fun few days traveling the state learning from leaders in Oklahoma agriculture.

The Oklahoma Pork summer interns Kate Jackson and Braden Burns co-led the group’s time spent focused on the pork industry by composing an engaging workshop. The workshop included a presentation and fun activity where the students learned about our board members, organizational structure, industry highlights, and Foreign Animal Disease (FAD) preparedness. Since many of the students are involved in youth livestock programming, the team constructed a fun activity called “pop stomp” with balloons that outlined the nature of disease spread in a swine operation. After really getting the students’ thinking gears turning, we brought in our dream team member Matti Carlile to bring it home by talking more about FAD preparedness and the biosecurity measures we can each take to help prevent the spread of any potential biological threats.

Each year, we are honored to be part of these talented high school students' week submersed in Oklahoma agriculture! Click here to learn more about Oklahoma Farm Bureau’s youth leadership programs, in case you have an interested student in your family or community.