Another popular event has moved to a virtual format in 2020. Indiana Farm Bureau’s annual state convention will be held online on Friday, Dec. 11 and Saturday, Dec. 12. It will be free of charge for all attendees.
INFB President Randy Kron told Hoosier Ag Today, “Farm Bureau is in-person organization and our clout comes from our members and our grassroots, but what it came down to is you have to think about the safety and wellbeing of our members. We don’t want to put anybody at risk, so we did decide to go virtual. Now, that wasn’t an easy decision, but we know that’s the right decision.”
Kron says you’ll still see a lot of familiar events that you would have seen at an in-person convention including the President’s Address, award presentations like the Hovde Award and Farm Family of the Year, the INFB Delegate Session that will include the election of the 2nd vice president, and the final four of the INFB Discussion Meet will compete live.
INFB Operations and Event Manager Chris Fenner says that while planning an online convention presents some challenges, it also presents some opportunities. For example, American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall will join the convention this year.
“We always have a standing invite for Zippy to join our event. There are several other state Farm Bureaus that have annual meetings the same time we do, and we just haven’t been able to hook up on his schedule. This virtual event really allows him to be part of our event.”
Rural broadband is INFB’s top policy priority this year. If you are one of the many Hoosier farmers that struggles with internet connection, Fenner says they did their best to address that issue.
“We’ve really looked at systems that run on less bandwidth. We have tried to make some concessions…there are hundreds of platforms out there that we could have chosen, but really we chose a platform that tried to use less bandwidth so that we could get more participation and participants still having a positive experience and getting a lot of value out of our program.”
American Farm Bureau announced this past week that their annual convention in January will also be virtual.
You can register for the convention by clicking here.