The CAMP mentor/protégé 2025 series for Class 4 features two proteges from earlier in the year, NRCS team members Mynesha Holliday and Heather Spieth. 

The Conservation Agricultural Mentoring Program (CAMP) in Arizona, in partnership with the Arizona Farm Bureau, has now been at it for four years. This program, unique in its regard, has a double dose of uniqueness as the Arizona NRCS team approached the Farm Bureau to partner with them in the effort to help mentor NRCS employees for a boots-on-the-ground experience on Arizona agriculture. 

Class 4 mentors and proteges worked to understand Arizona agriculture and conservation opportunities, joining forces to provide firsthand experience of the conservation practices and agricultural happenings. 

Below are Class 4 protégés Holliday and Spieth’s thoughts on the program. Their mentor, Michala McGibbon, helped them understand production agriculture in Arizona, specifically ranching. 

Mynesha Holliday: Class 4 Protege

What’s been the biggest takeaway from your first gathering? My biggest takeaway was observing their operation. It was fascinating viewing their digital equipment for the cattle. Also, it was neat to see their watering system.

How do you see this helping a broader set of NRCE employees? What’s key for you? As an NRCS employee, this experience broadens my perspective of what farmers and ranchers need assistance with. It is an eye-opener to see firsthand the challenges they face. It is also beneficial and healthy to hear different perspectives as a farmer and rancher and myself as an employee. 

Why have you felt this program has been helpful? This program has been helpful because it broadens my experience and helps build my character and comminations skills with the producers. It helps me look at the bigger picture of farmers and ranchers besides basic food production. 

I was not raised on a ranch, but I grew up around small-scale farming. It is a humbling experience to see mass production farmers and ranchers. I love to see their faces as they discuss what’s passionate to them. It’s not just farming to them. It’s their life and hard work. Anything worth having requires sacrifice. 

What more do you hope to learn? I hope to learn more about ranching and their way of life. I want to learn ways that will make me a better employee to serve the producers. 

 

Heather Spieth: Class 4 Protege

What’s been the biggest takeaway from your first gathering? The biggest takeaway from our first meeting together was seeing some of the watering projects they have implemented and looking at how healthy their herd is. We also talked about their management practices and what NRCS can do to help build stronger relationships with other farmers and ranchers within the community. 

How do you see this helping a broader set of NRCS employees? What’s key for you? I see this program helping a broader set of NRCS employees by providing them with firsthand experiences to better understand the agriculture industry and what our farmers and ranchers go through on a day-to-day basis. This CAMP experience helps the NRCS employees better see how the resource concerns are potentially affecting their operations and how good conservation efforts can have a positive impact on their lands. Since I come from an agriculture background being raised and currently living on a ranch, this CAMP experience is key to me to learn about other ranches and farms in Arizona I am not familiar with and how they manage certain issues they may be facing and seeing how new advanced technological efforts are being made to happen with the virtual fencing, for example. 

Why have you felt this program has been helpful? I feel this program has been helpful as we have had good conversations regarding the challenges they have faced as ranchers and how they have overcome those challenges. It has been helpful seeing how involved they are in multiple conservation districts and programs, having a voice for the ranching community. This links the NRCS employees to those conservation meetings to listen to and connect with the ranching community to help make a larger impact on addressing their resource concerns they may be experiencing. Also, listening to their story and being paired up with a successful ranch mom, is motivational and leads to great conversation as my husband and I are working on a ranch and we just acquired our own lease and being a mother to two younger children, it is nice to sit down and see how they push through and do it all. 

What more do you hope to learn? I hope to learn more about their operation using the virtual fencing technology and the challenges they are facing with the program. Also, how the lawsuits on the Forest Service allotments in their area are impacting ranchers and the efforts that are being done to resolve the issue.