Blake Hurst was recently elected as the next president of the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation, the state’s largest farm organization.

He succeeds Charles Kruse. Hurst most recently served as the bureau’s vice president for seven years, and earlier was a Northwest Missouri board director for eight years.

Hurst and his wife, Julie, farm 4,500 acres of no-till row crops in a Westboro, Mo., family operation with his father, two brothers, nephew and son-in-law. The couple also operate Hurst Greenery — a wholesale greenhouse — with their daughter, selling bedding plants in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

A freelance writer, Mr. Hurst has had numerous agriculture-related articles published in The American Enterprise, Reader’s Digest, Wilson Quarterly and the Wall Street Journal. He has authored a collection of essays in the book “Real Life.”

Mr. Hurst is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia and has testified on state and federal farm legislation.