Leadership Georgia visits University of Georgia Tifton campus

TIFTON — Georgia’s future leaders visited the University of Georgia Tifton Campus last week as part of a Leadership Georgia tour of the state.

One of the premiere leadership training programs in the state, Leadership Georgia comprises a diverse group of people from across the state. The program’s objective is to forge participating individuals into a network of emerging leaders.

“These are people from all walks of life in Georgia,” said Joe West, assistant dean of the UGA Tifton Campus. “They’re people who have been nominated and selected for the program, and they are potential movers and shakers in our state for the future. They’ll meet at other times during the year at other locations, so over the period of the year, they get to know each other, build a network for their future and get to learn a lot more about our state.”

The group conducts five tours a year. The Tifton-based tour, held Thursday-Saturday, focused on agriculture and was called “Cultivate.” At the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences campus, the group learned more about energy-efficient homes at the Future Farmstead; became familiar with the college’s globally successful turfgrass program, which is responsible for grass cultivars used in sporting venues worldwide; and toured the National Environmentally Sound Production Agriculture Laboratory (NESPAL), where Professor Peggy Ozias-Akins conducts cutting-edge molecular genetic research on peanuts.

While in Tifton, Leadership Georgia participants visited Lewis Taylor Farms, a vegetable and produce operation, as well as Tifton Quality Peanuts and Docia Farms, where they saw row crop farming practices already underway.

“Agriculture in Tifton, Georgia, is highly regarded, whether it’s here at UGA Tifton or with our fantastic farmers in the Tift County area. Leadership Georgia visited here at a time when agricultural operations are in full swing, so they have a great opportunity to see and understand what agriculture means in Georgia and across the world,” West said.

West said the program is a benefit to its participants and the citizens of Georgia because it crafts leaders.

“It’s a great opportunity for them to come together and learn more about the state, to network with each other and to help build the network, so they’ll be even more effective as they go through their careers,” he said.

This year, the group has already visited Augusta and Jekyll Island. After Tifton, they will visit Newnan.

Kyle Dawson is an intern at the University of Georgia Tifton Campus.