March 28, 2024

Shift your focus outward to make an impact on others

‘Agriculture needs all of us’

GALESBURG, Ill. — The feeling of not belonging can make people question their own identity.

“To overcome the feeling of not belonging, we need to shift our focus from our internal feelings and insecurities to outward things like doing something we love,” said Miriam Hoffman, the keynote speaker at the Women Changing the Face of Agriculture event hosted by Illinois Agri-Women.

“We need to serve the people around us and as we do that, we stop focusing on the fact that we feel like we don’t belong and focus on what we can do to help others and that is when we will start to feel that deep sense of belonging,” said Hoffman, a student at Southern Illinois University.

“All of us are here because we have a passion for agriculture so that makes me feel like I belong in this room,” she said.

“You don’t have to feel like you belong in order to belong,” stressed Hoffman, who is a past National FFA eastern region vice president. “Feelings can lie to us and some days it feels as though our brains are trained in the art of gaslighting us into thinking we don’t belong when we certainly do.”

The feeling of belonging often takes longer to catch up with the truth that we belong, Hoffman told the several hundred young women at the WCFA event. “If we allow that feeling to take control and we leave somewhere, we will miss out on so many incredible opportunities,” she added.

“You don’t have to feel like you belong on the officer team to run for it or you don’t have to feel like you belong in a room to walk into it,” Hoffman said.

“One of the things I loved so much about that year (as FFA national officer) was getting to meet so many different people and all the different reasons students come to the FFA organization,” she noted.

However, just about every FFA member Hoffman encountered had one thing in common that they didn’t realize.

During a Zoom call with students in the Midwest, Hoffman talked with them about the idea of belonging. “As I heard their stories about how they came to love agriculture and their involvement in FFA, a universal thread emerged,” she recalled. “Each told me especially when they first joined FFA that they didn’t feel like they belonged there because they didn’t grow up on a farm.”

Traveling on a school bus in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Hoffman had a similar conversation with a group of FFA members who talked about the way agriculture has changed over the years. This group of students lived on farms and ranches and some of them planned to return to their family farm for a career.

“One student shared that when he first joined FFA he didn’t feel like he belonged because he heard that FFA was more than just for farmers,” Hoffman said. “And that there were other careers you could do in agriculture, not just farming so he questioned if FFA was for him.”

Hoffman questioned how these students could feel like they didn’t belong but for opposite reasons. “Often when we feel like we don’t belong somewhere, we are not alone in that feeling,” she said. “This idea of feeling like we belong and the challenge of wondering if we’re out of place is a universal human feeling especially as young people.”

Instead of isolating ourselves, Hoffman said, maybe it would be better to recognize this is a challenge that people can overcome together. “That’s why the FFA is so powerful, it can bring together all these people with different backgrounds to a place to belong,” Hoffman said.

For women who are pursuing careers in agriculture, Hoffman said, it is important to be careful to avoid creating additional barriers to connect with others who love agriculture in the attempt to remove barriers from the past. “That can lead to an us-versus-them mentality,” she added.

“Just as a room full of men is lacking some critical perspectives, a room full of women is also lacking some critical perspectives,” the speaker said. “Agriculture needs all of us.

“When I think about the most inspiring women who are leading in agriculture, they are so much more focused on serving the people around them than they are on the fact that they are women in agriculture,” Hoffman stated.

“They have an incredible impact because they have shifted their focus from inward to outward,” the speaker said. “You and I can do the same thing.”

For more information about Women Changing the Face of Agriculture, go to www.womenchangingthefaceofagriculture.com.

Martha Blum

Martha Blum

Field Editor