The Center for Food Integrity (CFI) has just released insight into what influences the segment of society most capable of changing consumer attitude toward today’s food system. The report, “Messages that Matter” is based on CFI’s Consumer Trust in the Food System research that has taken place over the past four years. The most recent study specifically focused on “early adopters” because of their ability to drive social change and found that using a platform of shared values is critical for building trust in today’s food system.
“If we are going to be successful in changing attitudes we must not only increase consumer knowledge but also change what they currently believe,” said Terry Fleck, CFI’s executive director. “This document is a key component in our mission to increase consumer trust and confidence in today’s food system.”
Key areas of focus included nutrition, food safety, humane treatment of farm animals, and responsible use of technology in food production. Specific attitudes and beliefs of consumers were tested and the results were used to determine what the most effective messages and programming elements would have the most positive impact on changing attitudes.
The research determined that “early adopters,” which represent about 13 percent of the population, are opinion leaders who can influence other people. While they have a higher level of concern about food safety, animal welfare and other food system issues they are also information seekers who are willing to consider credible sources.
“We encourage organizations to use this information to help shape their approach to communicating the benefits of today’s food system to consumers,” said Fleck. “We think organizations will find it very helpful in developing programming and messages.”
The chairman of the management committee for AG CONNECT Expo is Martin Richenhagen, AGCO President/CEO. I spoke with him about this year’s show which is now winding down to its last hour.
Martin said that one of the differences for this show from last year was having a lot more visitors and he credits having other organizations holding their meetings at the same time with helping. He says the location was very desirable for exhibitors. They use the show to hold their own meetings with dealers and customers. He says they want the show to attract big growers who are looking to invest. He also makes a point about how the show is put on by a non-profit organization, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. Martin also talks about the relationship with AgriTechnica, the largest European show, and says they have even invested in AG CONNECT Expo. Beginning now the two shows will run in off set years.
I have several more interviews to post from AG CONNECT Expo but am transitioning over to the AFBF Annual Meeting so I’ll see you from there. Our show photo album is now complete. I hope you enjoy them.
The 2011 AG CONNECT Expo is winding down but that doesn’t mean our coverage has ended. I’ve just updated our photo album with today’s photos.
Cindy and I have more stories that we’ll be posting over the next several days. I’m heading over to the American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Meeting. They’ve got another general session starting real soon. See you from there.
Neither freezing rain, nor snow, nor sleet has stopped the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting from going on today in Atlanta. The shuttle buses have stopped running, the media reception is canceled, but there are still plenty of people here attending sessions and finishing interviews and presentations for YF&R awards. Conferences this morning included animal welfare and crops outlook, this afternoon we’ll hear about the livestock outlook and how farmers can tell their story with social media.
State Farm Bureaus were recognized for excellence yesterday during the opening general session. For outstanding program achievement and membership growth, the Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas and Michigan Farm Bureaus received Pinnacle Awards and numerous states received Awards for Excellence and President’s Awards.
What do consumers think about food? Betsy Freese, Living The Country Life, told AG CONNECT Expo attendees about the results of recent survey results from the Better Homes & Gardens magazine editors. They mainly focused on women readers and their food habits in the last two year.
Betsy says that between 2008 to 2010 they found that the economy had an impact but that they’re still interested in organic and locally grown food although their use of those foods hadn’t really increased during this time. The economy is probably the reason as they are making fewer trips to the grocery store. They also looked at what types of meat they were consuming and found that beef and pork were stable while chicken had declined very slightly. Fresh fruit and vegetable use went down also probably due to the economy. There was a whole part of the study on food safety. In the past two years food safety confidence was steady although it had declined in the time period before this survey. She says the local food movement seems to have hit a plateau in the last couple years. She says that there is a lot that farmers can take away from the study. She thinks it is very important that farmers don’t try so hard to segment what kind of farmer they are, as in organic vs. non-organic and try to work together more.
One very well attended education session at AG CONNECT Expo was on “Smartphone Technology: Unleashing Agriculture.” The presenter was Neil Mylet, Loadout Technologies. He started his company right after graduating Purdue to develop intelligent smartphone technologies to allow phones to command and control and be part of industrial processes such as grain handling.
Neil was encouraged by the turnout at his session and he hopes they left better able to assess how they can better integrate mobile smartphone technology into their operation. He thinks mobile technology is still in a growth mode but will change how we communicate and work within the industry. The ag industry is no different than others that are being transformed by new technology. He says wifi is also essential on farms to take full advantage of these technologies. He also believes farmer adoption of smartphones is just a matter of time.
The staff at the Atlanta Convention Center was out shoveling snow early today. That’s something they don’t do very often but it was sure needed. The final day of the 2011 AG CONNECT Expo is here and the show will open for business at 9am. All educational sessions are taking place too. A lot of things got canceled in Atlanta but here, the show goes on. The roads are pretty well covered with snow and now freezing rain has moved in. It was crunchy walk over but not too bad.
The American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Meeting is also in full swing after this morning’s Foundation Flapjack Fundraiser. I did not get to that breakfast but enjoyed one in the AFBF Media Room area with several other reporters. I’m back to the AG CONNECT Expo media room now and getting ready to do some posts and more interviews on the floor. Cindy will be working over at AFBF until I transition over there later today.
The year was 1930 and my Grandmother was 5 years old. For historical preservation, the dog, Spot, was lovingly noted on the back of the photograph. A while back, I wrote about round bales versus smaller square bales. Today, the picture depicts a time before either of those existed and hay was moved in loose piles.
This photograph is my grandmother, her mother, and her younger brother, posed in front of a hay wagon, onto which the hay was loaded with pitchforks. The wagon was then taken to the barn where it was parked under the hay fork. The hay fork was a large hook, tied to a heavy rope, looped through a pulley at the end of the barn.
A team of horses was hitched to the end of the rope, and they would pull on the rope to raise the forkful of hay into the barn. Grandpa said on their farm, he was always in charge of the trip rope, which emptied the hay into position in the loft. And then the process would start all over again until the hay wagon was empty.
Today we have balers, and tractors with forks, and large trailers to stack bales on to transport them to a barn, or even another farm three states away for cattle feed. And with digital photos and frames, I doubt the dogs get their notoriety these days. Thanks to Grandma for finding this picture.
I’m telling you folks, grandparents are a goldmine. Take time to do some digging.
U.S. Wheat Associates (www.uswheat.org) welcomes Tyler Jameson as Assistant Director of Policy in its Arlington, Va., headquarters effective today.
A cooperative effort between Hoosier Ag Today and the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, all the photos featured on the Indiana Agriculture Calendar were taken by Indiana farmers and are of scenes from Indiana farms and rural communities.
Bayer CropScience announced the official launch of GlyTol glyphosate-tolerant technology, GlyTol + LibertyLink technology and six new cotton varieties for 2011.
The American Veterinary Medical Association has released a new video promoting its policy on how to reduce pain for cattle during a common surgical procedure — dehorning.
American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) president Bob Stallman fielded questions from the press for 40 minutes on Sunday afternoon at the annual meeting in Atlanta, covering a wide variety of topics.
Several questions centered on the legal action AFBF intends to take against EPA over the regulation of the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load (TMDL), a so-called “pollution diet” that he says threatens to starve agriculture out of the entire 64,000 square mile watershed spanning five states. Stallman says they are planning to file the challenge Monday in the federal district court for the middle district of Pennsylvania.
Stallman was also asked about what he expects will be the biggest issues for the delegate session, progress made by the new US Farm and Ranch Alliance, regulation of biotech crops, the proposed GIPSA rule, and more.
Out on the AG CONNECT Expo floor in the AFBF trade show pavilion you’ll find the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s Mobile Ag Ed Science Lab. This is one of a number of mobile classrooms to teach children where their food comes from. The Lab is a project of the PA Friends of Ag Foundation.
I visited with Tonya Wible, Program Director for the project. She says that when they asked children where their food came from it wasn’t just the inner city but also in suburban and even rural areas. So they created this program which now has six mobile labs place across the state. The trailer can accommodate a full size class. It’s a mobile agriculture education science lab, complete with all supplies and a certified teacher, that travels to a different elementary or middle school in Pennsylvania each week. The lab is designed to target grades K through 8.
Kenny Wallace, NASCAR driver, says, “Ethanol all the way in NASCAR!” That’s what he told me this afternoon in the American Farm Bureau Federation Pavilion on the floor of the AG CONNECT Expo. Thanks to Tricia Braid, Illinois Corn Growers, for setting up our interview and taking the photo. Kenny was signing autographs in the Nationwide Insurance exhibit.
You won’t find a bigger supporter of the American farmer and in particular that farm made fuel, ethanol. NASCAR is using E15 now and Kenny finds that exciting. Family farmers have supported Kenny recently and will be doing so in a bigger way in the future. He says that he wants farmers to know that he’s helping get their message out to the public. Kenny says he’s had a chance to run a combine and is amazed at the technology built into them! Here’s where you can follow Kenny on Twitter.
Korea’s ambassador to the United States is optimistic that Congress will pass the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement when it is submitted by the president.
Han Duk-soo spoke at a town hall forum sponsored by American Farm Bureau during the Ag Connect Expo on Saturday and then held a press conference, accompanied by AFBF’s Congressional Relations Director Chris Garza. “The momentum is very high now, I would say there’s no objections from US industry,” Han said during the press conference. “President Obama is very strong on passing this agreement, so I think it will be submitted to congress by the administration soon and if it is submitted, I think Congress should act within 60 days.” His hope is that it will be finished by the end of June.
Han sees no downside to the agreement for U.S. agriculture. “The beneficial impacts on the part of US exporters of agricultural products into Korea is huge,” he said. “It’s 100 percent beneficial to the US agricultural sector.”
Listen to or download Han’s press conference comments here (questions are not all audible): Han Duk-soo
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) welcomed the huge American Farm Bureau crowd of farmers and ranchers from around the country to his “sunny, warm” home state. “Y’all from North Dakota and Montana brought your weather with you,” he joked, as a winter weather watch is in effect for the deep south with the potential for ice and snow over night.
Chambliss, who is ranking Republican on the Senate Ag Committee, told the AFBF annual meeting that he will be holding hearings around the country in the coming year as Congress begins to write the 2012 Farm Bill. “This is going to be the most difficult farm bill that we’ve ever had to write,” he said. “But the good news is that when look at American agriculture today, it’s as healthy as it’s ever been in my lifetime.”
To the tune of the “Rocky” theme song, American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman showed off a special membership jacket made just for him to celebrate 50 consecutive years of membership growth for the general farm organization at 92nd annual meeting opening general session on Sunday.
“American Farm Bureau membership stands at 6,279,813 member families,” Stallman said proudly during his opening address. “Today, thanks to you, we celebrate 50 consecutive years of growth.”
The theme of the annual meeting this year is “Producing Results” and Stallman says American agriculture continues to be the world’s biggest manufacturer. “America’s farm and ranch families are all about producing,” he said. “You produce and you deliver.”
Stallman used the annual address to announce that AFBF is taking new legal action against the Environmental Protection Agency. “It’s time to stop the EPA,” he said. “This suit will seek to rein in EPA’s latest and most aggressive effort to use the Clean Water Act to impose burdensome new regulations on agricultural production … the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load or TMDL.”
The AFBF president from Texas also talked about the estate tax reform victory and the challenges facing agriculture as Congress begins to consider a new farm bill.
If you need any photos from the AFBF opening general session, including most of the state presidents with Stallman, check out the photo album here – 2011 AFBF Annual Meeting Photo Album
This morning the media got an update on AG CONNECT Expo with some statistics you’ll find interesting. Pictured are (l-r), Dennis Slater, President, AEM, Martin Richenhagen, President/CEO, AGCO and Chairman of the show management committee, Charlie O-Brien, VP Ag Sector, AEM and Sara Truesdale Mooney, Show Director.
There are 12,000 AG CONNECT Expo and AFBF registrants with more than 60 countries represented outside the U.S. By comparison, the first Expo had 7,700 registrants. There are 382 exhibitors covering 174,500 square feet of space in the trade show that includes the AFBF Pavilion. There are pavilions in the show from Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Italy. The first show had 312 exhibitors. So the show is growing and will now move to a rotation of every other year. The next show will be held back in Orlando, FL, site of the first one.
The opening general session of the American Farm Bureau Federation is taking place right now. President Bob Stallman just gave his opening address and Cindy will be bringing it to you in audio and video very soon.
In the meantime I’ve updated our photo album with my photos from the session. Please feel free to enjoy. Cindy will be kind of AFBF focused while I’m still over at AG CONNECT Expo. We’ll be getting an update on the show there in just a little while.
While Cindy and I are covering the 2011 AG CONNECT Expo, we’re also covering the 2011 American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Meeting! In fact, not only are we going to be doing stories from the AFBF meeting but we’re also “guest bloggers” on the AFBF Annual Meeting Blog. Check it out.
There are quite a few guest bloggers and this might be the first time one of its kind. It will be interesting to see the different perspectives and stories being posted. You can see the list of guest bloggers here.
American agriculture has a great story to tell of increasing productivity while at the same time decreasing its environmental footprint.
The first of the Town Hall Forums held Saturday at AG CONNECT Expo in the Successful Farming Innovations Theater was “The Shrinking Environmental Footprint of Agriculture” which was moderated by former National Resources Conservation Service chief Bruce Knight, a third-generation rancher, farmer and conservationist from South Dakota. He says he’s amazed by the progress in agriculture just in his lifetime is amazing. “I think about my own father coming home from World War II and still using horses to put up hay. I got started using 16 foot equipment. Now we’re using GPS guidance systems. It is an incredible adventure for all of us in agriculture.”
Two excellent presenters provided some good information for people in agriculture to know and share about how American farmers and ranchers continue to produce more food while using less natural resources. Karen Scanlon, executive director of the Conservation Technology Information Center, talked about advancements in row crop production. “It’s fortifying for farmers and those who support farmers to recognize that there have been impressive achievements in the last few decades and it’s also encouragement that we can continue to do more.”
Dr. Jude Capper of Washington State University, a livestock carbon footprint expert, talked about the importance of looking at the footprint in terms of the production, not the animal. “Compared to 1944, now we have bigger cows, they eat more feed, but they also give more milk, so milk yield per cow has increase four fold since 1944,” she explains. “We’ve cut cow numbers by 60 percent, but we also make 59 percent more milk, so that cut the total carbon footprint per gallon of milk, which is huge.”
I interviewed Bruce, Karen and Jude about conservation, carbon footprints and sustainability which you can listen to or download – or both!
Listen to my interview with Bruce here: Bruce Knight
Listen to my interview with Karen here: Karen Scanlon
The AgChat Foundation held an agvocate training session this afternoon. We’re building an army of agricultural advocates one crop at a time! I had the honor and pleasure to be a presenter and finally meet some of my fellow board members in person.
Here are (l-r), Ray Prock, Jeff Fowle and Nate Taylor. They each took turns talking about Twitter and then answered questions. Our session today covered the importance of social media, technology/tools, Twitter and Facebook after which participants broke up into groups. I hope we’ll see more of these at various events throughout the country during the year. I’m working on one to take place at the Western Farm Show in Kansas City, MO next month. More on that later.
Photos have been updated in our AG CONNECT Expo photo album and Cindy and I have a lot more stories to come as the show rolls on and we transition over to the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting which gets into full swing tomorrow morning with the opening general session.
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
David conducted a presentation on delivering expert opinion via social media to an audience at the start of International Poultry Expo week. He's got some great information about who consumers trust and how you can use today's consumer behavior to help communicate your message.
“If we are going to be successful in changing attitudes we must not only increase consumer knowledge but also change what they currently believe,” said Terry Fleck, CFI’s executive director. “This document is a key component in our mission to increase consumer trust and confidence in today’s food system.”
The chairman of the management committee for AG CONNECT Expo is Martin Richenhagen, AGCO President/CEO. I spoke with him about this year’s show which is now winding down to its last hour.
The 2011 
Neither freezing rain, nor snow, nor sleet has stopped the 
What do consumers think about food? Betsy Freese, 
One very well attended education session at 
The staff at the Atlanta Convention Center was out shoveling snow early today. That’s something they don’t do very often but it was sure needed. The final day of the 2011 AG CONNECT Expo is here and the show will open for business at 9am. All educational sessions are taking place too. A lot of things got canceled in Atlanta but here, the show goes on. The roads are pretty well covered with snow and now freezing rain has moved in. It was crunchy walk over but not too bad.
Out on the AG CONNECT Expo floor in the AFBF trade show pavilion you’ll find the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s 
Korea’s ambassador to the United States is optimistic that Congress will pass the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement when it is submitted by the president.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) welcomed the huge 
To the tune of the “Rocky” theme song, 
Stallman used the annual address to announce that AFBF is taking new legal action against the Environmental Protection Agency. “It’s time to stop the EPA,” he said. “This suit will seek to rein in EPA’s latest and most aggressive effort to use the Clean Water Act to impose burdensome new regulations on agricultural production … the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load or TMDL.”
This morning the media got an update on AG CONNECT Expo with some statistics you’ll find interesting. Pictured are (l-r), Dennis Slater, President, AEM, Martin Richenhagen, President/CEO, AGCO and Chairman of the show management committee, Charlie O-Brien, VP Ag Sector, AEM and Sara Truesdale Mooney, Show Director. 
American agriculture has a great story to tell of increasing productivity while at the same time decreasing its environmental footprint.
The 
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
