It all started when Hailey Clark needed to fill a hole in her class schedule for the spring 2020 semester. She considered several options for an elective course and finally settled on something that would be completely new to her, taking her outside of her comfort zone: INAG131 Introduction to Agricultural Policy and Communication. Little did she know that, by the end of the semester, she would have won a $500 top prize from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) for a paper she wrote for this class.
Clark, a sophomore Ornamental Horticulture major, drew inspiration from her experience as a fourth-generation dairy farmer to come up with a policy topic for the competition. COG’s Chesapeake Bay and Water Resources Policy Committee (CBPC) launched its first annual paper competition this spring, “which invites area high school, college, and graduate students to provide their perspectives on real-world sustainability and water resources issues.” The competition was a perfect fit for the IAA this year, since the 2020 focus was on “food and agricultural issues related to sustainability and resiliency within the region,” according to the COG website.
Four students in the class formally submitted their final papers to the competition: Hailey Clark, Brooke Knauss, Chelsea Patterson, and Jack Williams. Overall, the students found this assignment rewarding. “This was my first time writing an in-depth policy idea, and I feel like I have grown a lot from this experience. It felt very gratifying to have the work I did for class being shared beyond the classroom. I think this paper competition makes a lot of sense for this course because it allowed me to apply the information I learned from lectures,” said Patterson. Williams added, “I felt sharing my policy idea with this group was a direct route for change.”
Clark’s winning paper, titled A New Approach to Preserving Land for Agriculture in the Washington Metro Region, proposed a set of regional policies that would allow for farmland enrolled in preservation programs to successfully transition to the next generation of farmers. On May 15, she presented her winning paper to 44 audience members, including many elected officials and their staff from Washington DC and surrounding counties in Maryland and Virginia, at a CBPC virtual meeting. Originally planned to be in-person, the meeting was moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the meeting, CBPC Vice-Chair Laurie-Anne Sayles – Councilmember of Gaithersburg – described Clark’s winning paper as full of “timely and innovative ideas,” especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The committee’s chair, Councilmember Jon Stehle of Fairfax, shared that CBPC’s intention with the competition was to “create a space for interaction with our region’s academic institutions and students. I see it as a win-win. It’s an opportunity for our members to hear about research around a topic of interest and ways to apply it. We specifically asked for students to detail how local governments could apply their science and policy approaches in the near term and over the next year. In exchange, students are given the opportunity to think about local government issues, and concisely present their ideas on paper and in person via an interactive session with members of the committee.”
Founded in 1957, COG is an independent, nonprofit association that brings area leaders together to address major regional issues. Membership is comprised of 300 elected officials from the District of Columbia, suburban Maryland, and Northern Virginia, as well as the Maryland and Virginia state legislatures, and U.S. Congress. The CBPC evaluates a variety of Chesapeake Bay and local water quality issues and takes water policy positions. The CBPC also supports COG’s Ag Task Force which is implementing recommendations of COG’s What Our Region Grows Report.
