The U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance has named five new Faces of Farming and Ranching. The five hail from throughout the United States and offer insight into a diverse range of production agriculture.

Faces of Farming and Ranching are farmers and ranchers age 18 or older involved in production agriculture. They devote a year to participating in a number of activities to reach out to consumers, including national media interviews, public appearances, blog posts for www.fooddialogues.com and active involvement in U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance social media channels. They receive a $15,000 stipend to cover their time and efforts away from the farm.

The 2016 Faces of Farming and Ranching, from left, Katie Roth, Wisconsin; Lauren Arbogast, Virginia; Jeremy Brown, Texas; Emily Buck, Ohio; and Lauren Schwab, Ohio.

Meet this year's Faces of Farming and Ranching

-Emily Buck and her husband, John, run about 1,000 acres north of Columbus, Ohio, where they raise corn, soybeans and wheat and a flock of Southdown sheep.

They use no tillage and have utilized cover crops as part of their crop production system. The sheep manure is utilized as a crop nutrient. Buck said they are careful how they do things on their farm fields as they know what they do will effect water quality. They have farmland in the Lake Erie and Mississippi River watersheds.

They have done some water quality monitoring and have looked at what technology is available to help keep nitrates from leaving their fields.

"We definitely have a vested interest in that land and what comes off that land," said Buck, who is also an assistant professor of agricultural communications at Ohio State University.

She interacts with consumers daily and said it's important for farmers to explain what they do on the farm. Farmers need to explain why they use antibiotics and why they use genetically modified seeds. They need to talk about not only why they use fertilizers and pesticides, but how they use them. In her case, she also explains why she shears her sheep.

Farmers and ranchers need to understand what consumers are worried about and address those concerns in a way they can understand, Buck said.

-Jeremy Brown describes himself as a cotton farmer. He and his wife, Sarah, raise conventional and organic cotton in the South Plains of West Texas. They also grow peanuts, rye, sesame and grain sorghum, but cotton is their predominant crop, Brown said.

Just as consumers are increasingly interested in how their food is grown, they are increasingly interested in how the cotton they wear is grown, he said.

"My business is driven by fashion," Brown said. "My biggest competitor is polyester."

He is an ambassador for cotton, talking about the uses of cotton and its products beyond clothing: It's used in American money, fed to dairy cows and crushed to make cooking oil.

"I'm proud of what we do and the crop that we grow," Brown said.

He started growing organic cotton to fill a market niche and to diversify his operation. He has to meet strict organic guidelines for the cotton and found some of the practices used in the production of organic cotton work well in his conventional cotton as well.

Brown was away from the farm for 10 years and said that absence gave him a greater love, passion and appreciation for the farm. He's willing to try new things like no-till, compost and cover crops, which he's been experimenting with for five years.

Being a Face of Farming and Ranching is a great opportunity for him to show American consumers that farmers and ranchers are doing what they can to be sustainable and to take care of the air, water and soil. Being a farmer isn't an easy life, but a great one.

"I love what I do," Brown said.

-Lauren Schwab, 27, works on her family's breed-to-wean hog operation near Somerville, Ohio. Her father, Jeff, started the hog operation that now numbers 1,200 sows and she and her brother, Ryan, 25, work full time on the farm. Schwab works in the farrowing barn, while her brother works in the gestation barn.

The Schwabs purchase all their feed and have agreements to spread manure on land owned by others.

Schwab started speaking about agriculture while in high school when she was involved with an FFA agriculture communications team. She continued speaking for and promoting agriculture as Ohio's Pork Queen in 2008. She pursued a degree in journalism at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and uses her degree to connect with consumers through her blog, farmgirlwithcurls.com. She is also active on Facebook, snapchat and twitter. Her twitter handle is @farmgirlwcurls. She has done several virtual field trips to her family's farm through the Ohio Pork Council using google hang outs.

While in college, Schwab interacted with many people who had no or little knowledge of agriculture. Being a Face of Farming and Ranching gives her a greater opportunity to connect with people she wouldn't otherwise meet. She sees it as an opportunity to show them a different face of farming.

Her emphasis is animal care and how it impacts the nutritional value of pork. She'll talk about the technology in the barns, including automatic feeders and waterers.

A lot of people don't understand how farms have changed, Schwab said.

-Lauren Arbogast, 34, said her family is proactive about water quality. Located in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, the family's land is in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

All the ponds on the farm are fenced to keep the cattle out as are the streams that flow through the farm. There are buffers on all the streams.

She and her husband, Brian, own 600 acres and rent an additional 1,200. Most of the 1,800 acres they manage are pastured for their 450-cow commercial herd. Most of the cows are Angus and Angus cross and they breed with Angus and Charolais bulls. Calves are born from mid-March to mid-April and are weaned at about 500 pounds in the fall. They background the cattle to 800 pounds before selling them at auction.

In addition, the family has five chicken houses, each holding 30,000 birds. The chicks arrive at the farm when they are hours old and are raised to market weight of four pounds in 32 to 37 days. Once the barns are emptied, they are cleaned and readied for the next flock in a two-week period.

On the roughly 300 acres that are cropland, the family grows corn in the spring and rye or barley over the winter. This is fed to the cattle.

Arbogast was encouraged to apply to be a Face of Farming and Ranching by the Virginia Farm Bureau and Farm Credit of Virginia. She was reluctant to apply because she didn't grow up in agriculture, rather she has learned it over the past 11 years since marrying her husband.

She's excited to have the opportunity to continue reaching out to consumers as she does through social media. She blogs and is on twitter, instagram, facebook and snapchat as paintthetownag.

-Katie Roth, 34, farms with her husband, TJ, and their unrelated farm partners, John and Luann Shea, near Platteville, Wis. They milk 260 Holsteins with plans to expand to 450 through internal growth. They grow feed for the herd, including corn, soybeans, alfalfa and wheat, on 700 acres.

The dairy expansion is a sign of success, Roth said, showing they do a great job of caring for their animals.

"We take care of our cows and they take care of us," she said. "They are the top priority on our farm. All our management decisions have their best interest in mind."

They use sustainable production practices at their Banner Ridge Farm, Roth said. They are a big believer in soil health and have planted wheat and rye as cover crops. Manure is applied to their fields and they work with an agronomist to apply fertilizer using variable rate technology to apply only what's needed. They use the water used to cool the milk to mist the cows on hot summer days.

Applying to be a Face of Farming and Ranching was a natural progression for her.

"I didn't even have to think about whether to do it, I just knew," Roth said. "I follow my heart."

In addition to her work on the farm, Roth is a program technician for the Farm Service Agency. She works in the farm loan area.

Selecting five Faces

Several dozen farmers and ranchers applied and eight finalists were chosen. A combination of public votes and U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance judges' scores determined the five winners. The women who are Faces of Farming and Ranching are more likely to connect with the USFRA target audience of consumer food connectors, which consists primarily of millennials and parents, and represent 15%-20% of the population. These consumer food connectors are shaping food conversations, especially on digital and social media channels.