By DEBORAH BEHRENDS
Illinois Correspondent DENVER, Colo. — Ray Brownfield, AFM, ARA, ALC, a broker with John Greene Land Co. and president/farm manager of Land Pro LLC, of Oswego, Ill., recently completed a successful year as president of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers (ASFMRA).
Brownfield’s term was completed at the ASFMRA annual meeting conducted in San Diego in late February.
Brownfield called the opportunity to serve as president of the organization “a tremendous honor and a feeling of great responsibility to all the members. I wanted to really make sure all members felt they were being well represented by my leadership as well as from the other officers.”
With the massive changes in the entire agricultural industry, Brownfield directed the first strategic plan for the ASFMRA in many years. He said it could be better named a business plan which looks out three to five years. “It’s really hard to look any farther into the future with dynamic changes taking place in agriculture that will affect our members on a more frequent basis,” Brownfield said.
With pressure on the home mortgage industry as well as other lenders, he moved ASFMRA to double its efforts to provide the best in professional practice standards and education to those involved in management, consulting and valuation of rural property.
“It is our goal,” Brownfield said, “to provide the best education and tools to help our members be the most ethical and the absolute leaders in the industry.”
Under Brownfield’s leadership, ASFMRA completed the revisions of many of the valuation courses and set a new direction for farm management and consulting education.
“All farm management and consulting courses are being rewritten and repackaged for electronic and classroom delivery to meet the needs of our members,” Brownfield noted.
He also said the leadership “focused on upgrading the organization’s method of delivering communication to its membership, and to the public a better definition of what services our members offer, along with a membership directory including member agricultural specialties all through an entirely newly designed website.”
Brownfield is a graduate of Illinois State University and has been a member of ASFMRA since 1966.
ASFMRA congratulated Brownfield on his successful year as president of the Society.
ASFMRA represents more than 2,100 agribusiness professionals across the United States, Canada and Mexico, who provide farm or ranch management or rural appraisal services. Professional managers represent owners of more than 25 million acres of U.S. farmland and provide the direct management of these operations.
Professional rural appraisers provide valuation estimates on more than 50 million acres of farm, ranch and natural resource lands each year.
Since 1929, the focus of the ASFMRA has been to create and maintain a professionally trained group of AFMs (Accredited Farm Managers), ARAs (Accredited Rural Appraisers), RPRAs (Real Property Review Appraisers) and AACs (Accredited Agricultural Consultants) who are qualified to provide expert guidance and assistance to owners and/or operators of agricultural lands and rural resource properties.
For more information on The American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, visit www.asfmra.org
This farm news was published in the April 2, 2008 issue of the Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
