Adventure Awaits Class XVI

By Bobby Soileau, Ph.D.
LSU AgCenter

Another adventure is about to begin for our Ag Leadership program when we leave for Japan and Thailand this weekend. Our program hasn’t been to Asia since Class X traveled to China twelve years ago. 

This trip will be very different from a production and cultural perspective. Japan and Thailand are important for many reasons, and trade is at the top of the list. Japan is one of our biggest trade partners and Thailand is another trade partner that is a big producer of sugar, rice and seafood. 

However, each country will be a unique cultural experience for our people. Japan will be the opposite in many ways to what our groups saw in China. The obvious difference is the cleanliness of the Japanese. In addition, they are a rare democracy that cannot feed themselves. This is something that many Americans never think about. When we are in Thailand, our people will see a large city like Bangkok, and labor-intensive agriculture in the rural areas. 

Like every trip, our group will discover that there are wonderful people all over this world. In many ways we are eliminating the stereotypical images in our mind. 

You will see several people contribute to this blog. We think it is important to give as many people on our trip an opportunity to share their perspective. 

I would like to add another word about the creator of this blog – Mike Danna. It is approaching five years since his death, but he was an amazing contributor to our program. His passion for telling the story of agriculture always amazed me. While some of us are good at telling that story, Mike had a gift. He always highlighted the people of agriculture. He treated everyone’s story in a special way. 

I still miss my dear friend, and it is important that we continue to carry on his tradition and do him proud.