CCFB News» May 2025

In April, 2024, the Cook County Farm Bureau Board of Directors approved a leadership development and growth plan called Future Forward. The plan outlined an intentional strategy to recruit, train, engage, and develop a new crop of young agriculturalists and members with a focus on leadership and involvement through education, program participation, and training.

Attending the April 2025 board meeting, the next “crop” of Cook County Farm Bureau young leaders in the leadership pipeline attended the Board of Directors meeting to connect with board members and to report on educational training.

Agricultural Leaders of Tomorrow graduates

Kayla Biegel, British Griffis and Katrina Milton graduated from Illinois Farm Bureau’s Agricultural Leaders of Tomorrow (ALOT) program, a comprehensive leadership development course, on March 20.

The Cook County trio were a part of the 25-member graduating class in 2025. Now in its 46th year, ALOT has graduated more than 1,200 leaders since 1979. The seven-session course features experts in communication skills, political process, ag economics, and global issues. Through a broad range of process and content skills, graduates enrich leadership abilities and enhance agriculture’s voice in Illinois. Past graduates have included past and current Illinois state legislators and agricultural influencers across Illinois.

Kayla Biegel was born and raised in Chicago Heights on her family’s flower, herb, and vegetable farm. She began working in high school as a market staff in the Chicagoland area. After graduating from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, with a degree in business management and human resources and accounting, Biegel returned to Smits Farms to continue to grow the farm, specifically in markets and wholesale. She is passionate about food access, helping customers connect with the farmers that grow their food, and continuing her family’s farm.

British Griffis is a Chicago native with a wide range of skills and expertise within the sciences. She obtained her B.S. in agricultural biotechnology from the University of Kentucky. Upon graduating, she explored various career paths to further her interest in understanding the intersectionality between food systems and healthcare. Her career path has not been linear, as her expertise ranges from community outreach to pharmacy to scientific research and development. In 2019, after serving as a Peace Corps food security specialist, she became inspired to use her experience to create change within her former neighborhood by launching a community fridge and pantry in response to the pandemic. She furthered her engagement with urban agriculture and worked for a biotech startup as a research associate and spent three years working as a chemist. The culmination of these experiences has allowed her to view the food system through various lenses at different levels. She hopes to bridge the food access gap for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities in urban areas.

Katrina Milton serves as the Director of Ag Literacy for Cook County Farm Bureau. She is from Leland, a small village in rural LaSalle County that is known for its annual farm machinery auction and large co-op grain elevator. She earned degrees in English and classical civilization from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and she completed an internship with Catholic Charities. After working for years as a substitute teacher, she studied secondary education at the graduate level at the University of Southern California. Milton spent 10 years working as a reporter and photographer for Shaw Media publications, including The Daily Chronicle, The Valley Life, and The MidWeek newspapers, as well as The DeKalb County Ag Mag.

The 2025 ALOT graduating class heard from nearly 30 speakers, with topics ranging from ag economics to state and local government policy to communication and professionalism and more. Sessions are designed to give participants a head-start on tackling tomorrow’s leadership responsibilities.

The Cook County Farm Bureau Foundation and Farm Bureau provided financial support.

Illinois Agricultural Leadership Program graduates

The Illinois Agriculture Leadership Program is a 19-month premier program that takes a holistic and immersive approach to addressing the most critical and urgent food security and sustainability issues through a series of seminars featuring leading practitioners in business, education and government. Participants are selected through a comprehensive application and interview process and must commit to approximately 55 seminar days over the 19-month period.

Cook County Farm Bureau members Jessica Biernacki and Angelica Carmen recently graduated from the program as a part of the 2025 cohort. During the program, they developed essential tools to enhance leadership skills and strengths, strengthened communication skills, looked at and addressed complicated issues and challenges affecting Illinois and national agriculture, looked at different perspectives on issues and challenges, responded to challenges affecting organizations/businesses/communities, strengthened effectiveness in utilizing teams, and much more.

During the program, in addition to a variety of seminars, the group participated in a national study seminar in Washington DC as well as an international study seminar in Mumbai, India and Dubai.

Jessica Biernacki, Agriculture teacher – Rich Township District 227

Angelica Carmen, Agriculture Sustainability – Landscape design

2025 General Scholarship Recepients

In March, 2025, the Cook County Farm Bureau Foundation awarded 10 scholarships to area agriculturalists pursuing agriculturally related careers as a part of their higher education studies. During the April Cook County Farm Bureau board meeting, three general scholarship recipients attended the meeting virtually to communicate their backgrounds and future agricultural goals and respond to questions from the Board of Directors.

 Liliana Bernabei, Iowa State University, agricultural business

 Leah Sheehan, University of Minnesota, agricultural industrial systems engineering

Matthew Smits - Purdue University, horticulture