Wilson Judice, of St. Mary Parish, Wins YF&R Discussion Meet

By Chuck Cannon, Special to Farm Bureau News Staff Reports

NEW ORLEANS — Education, education, education.

That was the message espoused by Wilson Judice, winner of the Young Farmers and Ranchers Discussion Meet at the 89th Annual Meeting of the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation in New Orleans.

Judice, a sugarcane and soybean farmer from St. Mary Parish, bested five other contestants in the two-round event in which competitors discussed two questions:

• Are the current and proposed renewable energy polices beneficial to all segments of American agriculture?

• How can we convince the public that the animal agriculture industry balances production efficiencies with the public’s expectations of animal care?

Judice, Travis Medine, John Compton, Stephen Simoneaux, Matthew Gravois and Christopher Bertrand began the discussion meet by giving their views on the energy topic. After spending 25 minutes trading ideas, the field was narrowed to four — Judice, Medine, Compton and Bertrand.

The top four then squared off again in the final round over the animal care topic. In explaining the need for education, Judice said the average consumer does not know what farmers actually do unless they are educated.

“The key is education — children, parents, civic groups and the legislature,” he said. “Animal activists are not up at night pulling calves; they’ve got one job — animal rights.”

Judice said some ideas put forth by animal rights activists might seem like a good idea on the surface, but fall short of the mark when feeding Earth’s population.

“It’s expected there will be nine billion people on Earth by 2050,” Judice said. “Grass-fed cattle and free-range chickens are nice, but they won’t feed the masses.”

The burden falls on farmers to see that the general public is educated, Judice said.

“We need to use everything available to us, including social media like Facebook and Twitter,” he said. “We have to educate the public and that includes everyone.”

Judice said it was an honor to win the discussion meet. He competed in the meet at last year’s convention and said the experience paid off.

“The young lady who won last year really showed me that I needed to work a lot harder if I wanted to win,” he said. “I worked hard and put in a lot of long hours studying.”

Judice said the competition was strong among the final four.

“All of these guys in the final group were very smart and knew their subjects,” he said.

Judice said he would continue to study as he makes preparations to represent the LFBF at the national convention in Honolulu in January.

“I’ve really got to bear down,” he said. “The stakes are high.”