A six-run homer, you argue, is impossible. Even in the national ag organization leadership game, it would be nearly impossible. Yet the stars aligned to make it happen this year. Six Mid-Atlantic farmer-leaders now serve as top executives of national ag organizations.

They are: Chip Bowling, National Corn Growers Association president; Chip Councell, chairman of the U.S. Grains Council; Betsy Huber, president of National Grange; Lee McDaniel, president of the National Association of Conservation Districts; Jason Scott, chairman of U.S. Wheat Associates; and Richard Wilkins, president of the American Soybean Association.

FOUR OF SIX HOME RUNS: Four of the six current national ag leaders from the Mid-Atlantic were grilled at this summer’s Maryland Commodity Classic. They are (from left) Delaware’s Richard Wilkins and Maryland’s Jason Scott, Lee McDaniel and Chip Councell.

All live within 110 miles of Washington, D.C., some within a half-hour drive. Close proximity plus skills honed via local and state leadership readied them for national roles in dealing with federal regulators and ag policy issues. Here’s a cameo-look at each:

Bowling leads National Corn Growers
Chip Bowling is a seventh-generation Southern Maryland farmer from Newberg. After growing tobacco since before the Civil War, his family took the 1999 tobacco buyout program.

Today, Bowling farms 1,600 acres in Charles County. He became a regional member of the Maryland Grain Producers Association and Utilization Boards in 2006 and served as president from 2009 to 2011. He’s now in his second year as president of National Corn Growers Association.

He represents NCGA on the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance board, serves as the association’s delegate to the U.S. Grains Council and sits on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Farm, Ranch and Rural Communities Committee. Bowling has also served as president of the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center.

Councell heads U.S. Grains Council
Phillip “Chip” Councell Jr. is a 10^th-generation farmer from Cordova, Md. He and his family grow 950 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat, plus fresh market vegetables, and manage 1,000 acres of timber on Eastern Shore’s Talbot and Queen Anne’s counties. They also run a retail farm market, creamery and agritourism operation just across the Chesapeake Bay from Annapolis.

Chip chairs the U.S. Grains Council, a nonprofit that develops export markets for U.S. barley, corn, grain sorghum and related products, including ethanol and distillers dried grain with solubles. He’s also a director for Maizall, an international maize alliance for communicating the benefits of modern ag technologies and addressing asynchronous regulatory approval of biotech products.

Councell has served on the Maryland Grain Producers Association Board and Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board. He’s a director of the Talbot County Farm Bureau and served for 10 years on the Talbot County Board of Appeals.

Huber a first for National Grange
Betsy Huber, of Lincoln University, Pa., is the first woman president in the 149-year history of National Grange. Born and raised on a Chester County dairy farm, she doesn’t claim her 7.5 acres, five chickens and three goats to be a farm.

Nonetheless, she’s a 53-year active member and current secretary of Goshen Grange No. 121, and a member of Chester-Delaware County Farm Bureau. She served as chairwoman of the National Grange’s board of directors from 2007 to 2914, as president of the Pennsylvania State Grange and as its legislative liaison.

Huber was elected to the Penn State University Board of Trustees in 2005 and currently chairs its Governance and Long Range Planning Committee. She is also executive secretary of Pennsylvania Young Farmers Association.

She has held leadership roles on the State Council of Farm Organizations, Governor’s Census 2010 Advisory Panel, Ag Department’s Fertilizer Advisory Committee, Department of Environmental Protection’s Ag Advisory Board and Pennsylvania Farm Link. 

McDaniel spearheads Conservation Districts
Lee McDaniel operates Indian Spring Farm, his family's 850-acre farm in Darlington, Md., raising corn, soybeans and alfalfa hay. As president of National Association of Conservation Districts, he practices what he preaches: cover crops, no-till, grassed waterways, diversions, spring developments, strip cropping, stream bank protection, grassed and wooded buffers, and stream crossings.

He has chaired the Harford (county) Soil Conservation District Board since 2005, and served two terms as president of the Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts. McDaniel has been involved on the national level ever since, serving on the national association’s board of directors and the executive board. He became NACD president in 2015 and is currently serving his two-year term.

Scott heads global wheat mission
Jason Scott is a sixth-generation farmer and the manager of Walnut Hill Farms at Hurlock in Dorchester County, Md., where his family grows corn, soybeans, wheat, barley and peas, and provides custom harvesting and spraying services. Scott is also an independent sales representative under his Scott’s Seed LLC business.

This farm, too, is a short drive across the Chesapeake from Washington, D.C., where he chairs U.S. Wheat Associates. USW oversees development of international wheat markets in more than 100 countries via producer checkoff dollars and has 17 offices around the world.

Scott is a founding member of the Dorchester County Young Farmers, past president of the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board and the Maryland Grain Producers Association, and past board member of LEAD Maryland.

Wilkins the soybean grower’s voice
Richard Wilkins farms with his family near Greenwood, Del. — a long day’s “crow flight” across the Chesapeake to the American Soybean Association office in Washington. The farm produces 400 acres of soybeans, 400 acres of corn, 250 acres of wheat, 100 acres of barley, 200 acres of vegetables and 250 acres of hay. They also raise 150 head of beef cattle and own B&W Farm Supply.

Wilkins became ASA’s president in 2015. He also serves as a member of American Farm Bureau Federation’s Soybean Advisory Committee. Wilkins has been a member of the Mid-Atlantic Soybean Association since 2002, and served his state association as president and membership chairman.