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Panel discussions and open question and answer segments provide policy information to attendees.

Shelley E. Huguley, Editor

June 16, 2021

26 Slides

Texas farmers and ranchers, along with agriculture industry professionals and commodity leaders recently joined state and national leaders to discuss legislative policy at the WTX Rural Summit in Lubbock, Texas.

About 270 guests filled the Museum of Texas Tech University, June 10, for the event. Hon. Jodey Arrington (TX-19) along with several Texas congressmen and other industry leaders participated in panel discussions throughout the day. Pennsylvania Congressman Glen Thompson, the ranking member of the House Committee on Agriculture, also addressed the crowd. 

"When it comes to agriculture, we know that every farm operation needs a strong farm team and that's my philosophy when it comes to the work we do together," Thompson said to the crowd. "My righteous cause is rural America and it's agriculture. It's restoring a robust rural economy, making it where we can repopulate rural America and discontinue our number one export in rural America, our young people, and create opportunity here. Without a robust rural economy, people in the cities are going to wake up to cold, dark and hungry because that's what we provide – food, fiber, building materials, energy resources."

The summit's panel discussions focused on legislative policy that impacts rural Texas, including, tax and trade, transportation and critical infrastructure, agriculture, healthcare, and energy policies. Following each panel discussion, the floor was opened up for a question-and-answer segment. 

Take a look at this photo gallery to see some of the people who attended the event. To learn more about policy issues concerning commodity leaders, see Death tax concerns producers, commodity leaders.

About the Author(s)

Shelley E. Huguley

Editor, Southwest Farm Press

Shelley Huguley has been involved in agriculture for the last 25 years. She began her career in agricultural communications at the Texas Forest Service West Texas Nursery in Lubbock, where she developed and produced the Windbreak Quarterly, a newspaper about windbreak trees and their benefit to wildlife, production agriculture and livestock operations. While with the Forest Service she also served as an information officer and team leader on fires during the 1998 fire season and later produced the Firebrands newsletter that was distributed quarterly throughout Texas to Volunteer Fire Departments. Her most personal involvement in agriculture also came in 1998, when she married the love of her life and cotton farmer Preston Huguley of Olton, Texas. As a farmwife, she knows first-hand the ups and downs of farming, the endless decisions made each season based on “if” it rains, “if” the drought continues, “if” the market holds. She is the bookkeeper for their family farming operation and cherishes moments on the farm such as taking harvest meals to the field or starting a sprinkler in the summer with the whole family lending a hand. Shelley has also freelanced for agricultural companies such as Olton CO-OP Gin, producing the newsletter Cotton Connections while also designing marketing materials to promote the gin. She has published articles in agricultural publications such as Southwest Farm Press while also volunteering her marketing and writing skills to non-profit organizations such as Refuge Services, an equine-assisted therapy group in Lubbock. She and her husband reside in Olton with their three children Breely, Brennon and HalleeKate.

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