My name’s Mariah Larson, and I am the 2017-2018 Minnesota Corn Growers Association student intern. I’m studying agricultural communication and marketing at the University of Minnesota, with a double minor in political science and international agriculture.

When I was applying for this internship back in 2016, what stood out to me was the leadership position that MCGA holds within Minnesota by supporting the agricultural community and our state’s commodities as a whole. Now that I am officially on board, I have quickly found out how much that entails.

Over the last two weeks I learned MCGA is involved with everything from public policy and government relations, to research in food, bioenergy and expanded uses. Not to mention their involvement and relationships with local county organizations, event planning, public relations and industry partners.

Growing up on a farm and being involved with youth leadership organizations, local commodity groups have always been a big supporter and constant presence in events I participated in. For that reason, a huge career interest of mine since coming to college has been commodity groups and their contributions to the agricultural community.

Moving forward with MCGA, I look forward to learning more about membership services and event management, as well as spending time with our teams working on public and government relations, growing the use of biofuels and working with industry partners.

Looking ahead to the summer, my schedule is pretty booked with events! Just to name a few I’ll be helping work on: Kernel Nation, FarmFest, Farm Camp Minnesota, A-Maize-ing Corn Day at the Minnesota State Fair and plenty of other opportunities for member engagement and public outreach.

While I could go on forever talking about each, I’ll just say the work I’ve been doing the last two weeks alone for these events has amped up my excitement for them all—there’s no way I could choose just one to talk about! I can’t wait to share my experiences from each after this summer.

I am soaking up as much information as I can to better assist with all the planning for these upcoming events, communication projects and social media outreach. I really want to engage with our members and the public to help identify and address local issues related to agriculture. My goal this year with MCGA is to learn as much as I can and put that knowledge to use with the team here to help strengthen the organization and add value to every bushel of corn grown in Minnesota.