Kent Yeager
Kent Yeager has been the director of Indiana Farm Bureau’s Public Policy Team since May 1996. In addition to serving as director of the division, he is responsible for IFB’s national government relations activities and the political action committee, Indiana Farm Bureau ELECT.
He joined the public policy team after serving for three years as state executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (formerly known as the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service). Prior to his 1993 appointment to the FSA position, Kent was a field representative and national affairs assistant for IFB.
For more than 20 years, Kent was an active farmer and volunteer. Kent has been an active volunteer in Farm Bureau and many other organizations including service on the board of directors of the Indiana Corn Growers Association, the Indiana Soybean Growers Association, the Southern Indiana Rural Development Project and Purdue CARET (Council for Agricultural Research, Extension and Teaching).
In 1983, Kent was named Indiana’s Conservation Farmer, and was chairman of the Indiana Farm Bureau Young Farmer Committee in 1984. He was named to the original Indiana Commission for Agriculture and Rural Development and was elected twice to the Harrison County Council. Kent was the first person to be named an honorary commissioner of agriculture in Indiana and received Indiana’s Sagamore of the Wabash in 1996.
Kent and his wife, Joy, live in the home where he was raised. The house, near Mauckport, Ind., is more than 130 years old, and the farm has been in the Yeager family since before the home was built. They are the parents of three children and are active members of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Corydon.
July 2012