Chrissy Weaver, a senior in agronomy and soils, won first place at the 2009 Agronomy Club Speech Contest.
Weaver was one of four competitors in the contest, held in Funchess Hall on Tuesday night. The winner was chosen by a panel of four judges.
In her speech, "The Other Side: A Rebuttal to the Time Magazine Article 'Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food,'" Weaver fired back at journalist Bryan Walsh's article criticizing American agriculture and the method used for food production in the U.S.
"He was skewing facts and using emotional arguments instead of straight facts," Weaver said. "Some of the information in the article was incorrect or exaggerated. I told the agriculture side of the facts that he didn't include."
Weaver pulled statements she disagreed with from Walsh's article and provided evidence to uphold her view from studies in the field of agriculture.
Weaver discussed Walsh's statements that direct readers to believe that the low cost and high availability of food has lead to the obesity epidemic sweeping the nation.
Weaver argues against this account by stating that obesity should not be blamed on the agriculture industry or its products, but cultural overindulgence. She points out overindulgence can be seen in areas other than food consumption such as the purchase of houses, cars and clothing.
The rules for the contest required that all speeches be between five and seven minutes long. A penalty was given to the speech contestants if they did not meet the established time requirements.
Contestants were given a list of nearly 100 topics to choose from that had been used in previous national agronomy speech competitions. Contestants could also choose an original topic.
"I found something I was interested in and ran with it," Weaver said about her choice of topic for her speech. "As I was doing the research for my speech, it helped me learn a lot more about my industry and not just the agronomy side. This article that I was critiquing had a lot of animal stuff in it that I did not know that much about."
On Nov. 1, Weaver will travel to Pittsburgh, Penn., to represent Auburn University in the 49th National Student Speech Contest at the 2009 ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meeting.
"It was a great experience to compete in this contest," Weaver said. "I am looking forward to going to Pittsburgh and representing Auburn at a national level."
Kim Pope, a senior in agronomy and soils, also competed in the speaking contest.
"The convention is a good place for students to go and network with agronomy professionals," Pope said. "It's not just a student conference."
Brandon Smith, a senior in agronomy and soils and animal science, finished second in the contest.
Smith spoke about using better management practices in fertilizer application to reduce the accumulation of phosphorus in the soil when applying manure as fertilizer in his speech, "Growing Feed that Reduces Manure Nutrient Levels."
"The use of tall fescue, sudan grass, alfalfa, rye grass, warm and cool season combinations were all shown to take off more phosphorus and potassium than what would accumulate normally in a regular crop system," Smith said. "These forage crops have a high need for the nutrients."
Patrick Schultz, a freshman in agronomy and soils, finished third in the competition.
"The club is an organization that promotes students in agronomy," club PresidentWeaver said. "It is open to everyone."
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