At the youth workshop presented by myself, Celeste Laurent and Teresa Crook during the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI last week, we discussed several topic areas. First, Crook presented a demonstration on whey protein and which products have whey in them. Following her yummy speech, Laurent and I discussed the challenges young people face in being different from their peers and continuing to be proud of who they are and where they come from.
One of my favorite attendees was Keagan Long (pictured between myself and Laurent). As you can see, Long rocked a Farmers Feed Cities t-shirt. Have you heard of Farmers Feed Cities before? It’s a really cool website put together by farmers in Ontario. Here is what the website is all about:
Farmers Feed Cities! is an agriculture awareness campaign working with farmers across Ontario. Farm families have been growing food for generations, and we’re proud of our tradition of providing, safe, reliable food that tastes great! Now that you’re here, why not take a moment to look around and learn more about us? Meet farm families, take our trivia challenge, and learn more about why a long-term investment in agriculture is a smart investment in a healthier, stronger Ontario.
In an effort to promote myself as an agriculture speaker available for keynotes and workshops, I have launched a new blog spot I hope you will all check out. It’s called Agriculture in Action, and it features the ins and outs of my life as a cattle rancher, as well as my travels across the country promoting the beef industry. It’s brand spanking new, and it needs a little love from all of you. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Here is a description of what my blog is all about: I’m a farm girl at heart, and I feel pretty lucky to have made my passion and hobby into a career that I love. I enjoy a medium rare ribeye steak and a glass of Merlot, with the company of friends or family.
If you’re like me, then you have been watching closely the progress of the Estate Tax Relief Bill. As the average age of the American farmer or rancher nears 60, agriculture businesses will start switching hands, and unfortunately, poor succession planning can result in the end of a long-standing family tradition. Here is a release that was published in Hoosier Ag Today about this estate tax relief bill…
H.R. 4154, the Permanent Estate Tax Relief for Families, Farmers, and Small Businesses Act of 2009, passed in the House of Representatives Thursday by a vote of 225 – 200. Introduced by North Dakota Representative Earl Pomeroy, the bill would permanently extend the death tax. It would exclude amounts up to 3.5-million single and 7-million married, and permanently set the death tax rate at 45 percent. Under current law the death tax would expire in 2010. According to Palmeroy, “This bill will provide full and permanent estate tax relief for 99.75 percent of families, farmers, and small businesses in this country, who would not have to pay any estate tax.” Pomeroy adds, this bill will, “Provide the stability families need to make long-term decisions and avoid the estate planning roller coaster that will result from current law.”
Today, I thought I would share some reflections from my role as a cattle producer, instead of an agriculture writer. Thanks for letting me stand on this soapbox so often…
Nowadays, it seems the worries of a farmer and rancher are monumental. High input costs, ballot initiatives, strict regulations, bad media coverage, consumer misconceptions, animal rights activists’ agendas and low prices seem to plague the agriculture industry. Most depressing, it’s been said that for every consumer dollar spent in the grocery store, the farmer and rancher only receives 18 cents. Yet, true agriculturalists don’t let these negative things get to them. Nope, they endeavor to persevere.
Despite the challenges and obstacles, we have a lot to be thankful for in the agriculture industry. There is nothing better than having a career that provides nourishment for the world. For me, I live to watch my calves grow up, and it’s always a good feeling when we can fit the needs of our customers with our seedstock offerings. It’s amazing that the calves in my own pasture will someday move down the beef industry chain to backgrounders, feeders, processors, the grocery store and finally, to a dinner table around the world. The best part is knowing that the folks involved in every stop along the chain are great people that are dedicated to the same things as I am.
I’m thankful to be able to work alongside my family in a career that I love. I’m thankful to be able to work with my hands to help create something bigger than myself. I’m so blessed to be capable of the well being of so many animals, and I feel fortunate to live in America where food is abundant, healthy and safe. Today, set your worries aside and think about the things you are thankful for. You will quickly find that the list is much longer than your stresses and fears. God Bless the American farmer and rancher!
4-H had a big role in shaping my life. I still remember my first purple ribbon, my first speech, my first batch of 4-H cookies, my first show steer and my first trophy. I can remember how much those “firsts” meant to me because I had spent years as a Clover Bud, waiting my turn to FINALLY be in 4-H. Without a doubt, 4-H helps fine tune kids’ talents and passions. It helps young people explore new possibilities, and it strengthens a child’s ties to agriculture. So, when I heard that 4-H was going to space in a monumental trip, I was excited to see this youth agriculture program still going strong. As reported by AgWeb Blogs, 4-H was destined for outer space.
The Space Shuttle Endeavour headed into space last week as part of the STS-127 mission. On board was the National 4-H flag. The Endeavour is delivering the final components of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory to the International Space Station. The 16-day mission included five spacewalks and the installation of two new space station components and equipment.
Azeem Ahmed, 17, who is an avid space enthusiast and 4-H member from Alabama and President of the Alabama 4-H Council, made the original request to NASA to have the flag flown with a future space shuttle mission.
“4-H is more than green and white – it is a collage,” Ahmed said in a news release. “It is agriculture and it’s also healthy living, leadership and citizenship and science, engineering and technology. Science, engineering and technology is one of the missions of 4-H, and by flying a 4-H flag into space, I hope we shine a new light on 4-H.”
Remember this video? With 1.5 million views and counting, this popular video on YouTube has received comments both hilarious and depressing about the nation’s views on agriculture. Is it funny that people think that wool comes from cows, or is it just sad? How do we reach out to the folks in big cities who have never been exposed to agriculture issues? Let me take that back. They HAVE been exposed to farm animals in Disney movies, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?
Anyway, regardless of the very sad and disturbing truth that there are many people out there that have absolutely no clue where their food comes from, I hope this video gives you a laugh this afternoon!
I need your help. The Humane Society of the United States is working to vote Carrie Underwood in as ACMA Entertainer of the Year to launch her as a better spokesperson for their agenda to abolish animal agriculture. I’m challenging everyone to head over to the ACMA website and vote. Read the following excerpt, and tell me you don’t want to stand up for agriculture today! It only takes a minute to register, and I voted for George Strait because he is a great singer, a PRCA member, a team roper and a true friend to agriculture! You should too! Word-of-mouth is definitely agriculture’s best marketing tool, no? Make a difference and cast your vote today!
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the most radical animal “rights” and anti-hunting organization in the country, has been quietly trying to get Carrie Underwood voted Entertainer of the Year via the Academy of Country Music. The problem is, a large percentage of country music fans are also gun owners and hunters who do not like Carrie Underwood’s active support for HSUS. And HSUS knows it.
Underwood and American Idol have already listed HSUS as a beneficiary of the proceeds of one of her songs and now HSUS is enlisting their radical animal rights supporters to vote for her in the Entertainer of the Year contest. But they are trying to keep it quiet. In an e-mail sent out to supporters by Kathy Bauch, the HSUS Senior Director for Corporate Relations & Promotions, she asked people to vote for Underwood, but added, “Feel free to distribute this to friends and family, but please don’t post to lists, twitter, etc.–anything that would identify that HSUS is urging people to vote for her, or it could just breathe life into the opposition.”
Oops, too late! Perhaps someone should tell the folks at HSUS that e-mails are not exactly the most secure way of communicating their “secret” agendas. Country music fans who do not appreciate Underwood’s support for HSUS should go and vote for an entertainer who shares their values and supports America’s hunting heritage. Please share this with every meat-eating, freedom loving American you know and then VOTE!!!
The Country Living Association is now sending out a “Tip of the Week.” The latest one features these little guys and talks about pet care in warm weather. Members also get a free sample of a product to help with the problem of “hot spots.”
It’s just part of how they’re “Making the good life better.”
Say Happy Birthday to the Country Living Association.
The Country Living Association is celebrating its one-year anniversary, according to Courtney Yuskis, director of Country Living Association. “Country Living Association had a great first year. The organization continues to expand and deliver additional value to our members and our sponsors,” Yuskis said. “It’s an exciting time to be involved in the rural lifestyle market and 2008 promises to be a great year for all involved with the association.”
People are passionate about the lifestyle they have chosen. Country Living Association has learned from members that while people are moving to the country for several reasons – their love of pets, space to raise horses, a safe environment to raise children, enjoyment of the great outdoors, etc. – the prevailing reason is that the quality of life they find in the country cannot be matched in a city. The NAFB Rural Lifestyle Report estimates that there are over 69 million people (27 million households) living in the country with the numbers increasing daily.
One of the sources of a lot of information for anyone needing to research the rural lifestyle market is the USDA Census of Agriculture. You might think it’s just about corn, soybeans, hogs and cattle but you’d be wrong.
According to Gene Danekas, Director of Ag Statistics, USDA-Missouri, (pictured on the left in his booth at the Country Living Olympics) there’s valuable information in there. He says you’ll find information right down to the county and zip code level on all sizes of operations. He says the rural lifestyle farms contribute significantly to the overall U. S. economy as well as local economies. All the data is publicly available via their website.
Gene wants rural lifestyle farm owners to know that they are a vital part of agriculture. He says they’ll be doing an update study at the end of this year when they send out 2 1/2 million questionnaires. The new report should then be available around February of 2009.
You can listen to my interview with Gene here:
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In just a few short weeks it’ll be time for the National Association of Farm Broadcasting Convention. I’ll be blogging the whole event so hopefully you’ll be looking forward to that. NAFB’s Executive Director, Bill O’Neill (pictured on the right) attended the Country Living Outlook Conference. I spoke to him about what he was getting out of it.
Bill says that all of the information he heard contributes to a growing body of knowledge about the rural lifestyle market. He’s one of the people who calls it a diversified market. That’s something I heard a lot. Bill says he’ll take back ideas for future research that NAFB will do to enhance their study from last year (pdf) for the benefit of its members.
We also talked about the upcoming convention. It’s the 63rd NAFB Convention and I’ve been to a lot of them but not that many. Bill says they’ll have a panel of marketers on the program talking about the rural lifestyle market.
You can listen to my interview with Bill here:
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If you’ve ever been down in a hollow on a mid summer day pounding posts then you might wonder why anyone would want to do this for fun. However, at the Country Living Olympics is was cool inside the American Royal building where the Steel Post Driving competition took place.
You can see that we were planting a post garden in the middle of the floor. That was some pretty hard packed dirt floor too.
You can watch the action on YouTube if you’d like:
You can subscribe to my YouTube videos so you’ll automatically know when I’ve added a new one by using this link.
Teresa Hinrichs is a country living cheerleader (pictured on the right). She even says so in an interview I did with her right before the Country Living Olympics.
Teresa works on a lot of projects related to agriculture one of which is the Country Living Association. She says that just about any group of people who have some kind of interest related to rural life or agriculture has an association but there wasn’t one for people that share a passion for country living. She says that besides members, sponsor companies were looking for this. There may be lots of places to advertise but the Association creates member engagement which really builds relationships and a sense of community.
She says that growth has been great here in the first year and they’re on track for where they want to be.
I think you’ll enjoy my interview with Teresa here:
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If you want to know what people who live the country life think then just ask them. That’s what we did at the Country Living Outlook Conference. I can assure you that these folks are passionate about where they live.
Take Alan Brend who was on the panel of rural lifestyle practitioners. He says that he does not view how he lives as a lifestyle but rather a way of life. Alan says that he will live no other way and the country way of life is good for kids. He says that having them raise animals and do chores teaches them self confidence and responsibility.
Alan says that when it comes to buying stuff he does all his research on the internet and then buys local. He thinks the Country Living Association has a great deal of potential, especially if it can provide him with resources on its website that would save him time. When I asked him if he thinks the marketers attending understood his needs he says that he could see the light in their eyes as they would nod like they finally understood.
I think you’ll enjoy my interview with Alan here:
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If you’ve ever had to move a pallet of feed then you have an idea of what it was like to compete in the Country Living Olympics Feed Bag Moving competition.
Imagine having to run with them for a short distance and stack them on another pallet. That’s why we had some worn out competitors. 10 bags and a short run. Whew!
You can see the winning style and form in this video:
At the Country Living Outlook Conference one of the speakers on our program was country lifestyler, Kelly Loganbill. Kelly works in town and makes an 80 plus mile round trip each day from her home.
She wants companies servicing the rural lifestyle market to know that they separate their work and personal lives and that they need information and supplies to complete their home projects. She says that the marketers in attendance at the conference asked a lot of questions about the kind of research they do, how/where/why they make purchases and how they use mail. She says that although she doesn’t have high speed internet access on at their home that she and her husband use it a lot where they can like at work.
Kelly says that she thinks there’s a real need for companies to train their employees to work with rural lifestyle people. She says that often they’ll be trained to work with large scale farmers but her needs are very different.
You can listen to my interview with Kelly here:
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Reaching people who live the country life has been the subject of several articles in Agrimarketing Magazine. That’s why Lynn Henderson, Publisher, was on hand at the Country Living Outlook Conference. Lynn says that the rural lifestyle market presents a significant opportunity for traditional agribusiness companies.
Besides talking about country living we also talked about Agrimarketing Magazine going digital. I read my digital edition of Agrimarketing as soon as I got it and it’s now my preferred way to receive the publication. Lynn says there are 4 main reasons why he chose to go to a digital edition.
He can get the magazine out 2 weeks before it shows up in the mail.
His audience is wired and on high speed internet access and ready for it.
His next generation of readers have grown up with the computer.
Now subscribers who travel can read the magazine while online.
Of course I had to ask if this means he’ll stop printing the magazine. Lynn says his advisory board asked him immediately, “You’re not going to do away with the magazine are you.” So although it would represent a huge cost savings he has no plans to quit printing the magazine.
One of the things the digital edition does according to Lynn is present some new advertising opportunities since it can contain audio and video and links to online content. He says the response has been tremendous so far and he’s noticed that it’s driving more traffic to the Agrimarketing website.
The program concludes this week with music from the Podsafe Music Network. This week’s song is “Coyotes Song – End of Hunting” by the No Plastic Inside. I’m going to be taking a few days off later this week and again in a few weeks to do some hunting so I thought it worked.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 142 (18 min MP3)
Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:
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The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes
Water Bucket Filling would not be my favorite chore out on the farm but it’s just one of those things you have to do. I prefer taking pictures of other people doing it for competition.
I can’t even remember the exact details of how this one worked but you had to run back and forth moving water from one tub to another and it was timed event.
You can watch this girl in action on YouTube if you’d like:
By the way, if you want to subscribe to my YouTube videos so you’ll automatically know when I’ve added a new one then use this link. I’ve got 92 videos in my account that have been collectively viewed about 100,000 times so far.
If you know Steve Drake then you know he likes to work in the background. In fact, after taking about 500 pictures at the Country Living Association activities last week none of them have Steve in it.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t get to talk to Steve though. His company, Drake & Company, is an accredited association management firm. Basically they are the staff and headquarters for several national organizations like the National Christmas Tree Association and Alpha Zeta. Of course the Country Living Association is one of those too.
Steve says that everyone is looking at this rural lifestyle market and trying to figure out how to reach it. He said that he saw a need for an organization to bring the community together. So how large is the market? Steve says he hears figures of from 2 to 20 million people. When I asked him how the CLA is marketing itself to reach this market he says that right now they’ve been working with their corporate partners and doing promotions and publicity.
As the CLA grows it’s obvious to me that the organization itself will become a viable way to reach out to the rural lifestyle market. That’s why if you’re not a sponsor now you might want to consider becoming one.
You can listen to my interview with Steve here:
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Commodity Classic took place in Anaheim, CA. You'll find all of Chuck, Cindy and Joanna's photos here.
Happy Ag Week
It's time to thank our farmers and ranchers for all their hard work to feed us.
In this week's program I interview Linda Tank, CHS, Inc., who is Chair of the Agriculture Council of America, the group coordinating National Ag Day. Learn more about their activities, especially this week in Washington, DC.
At the youth workshop presented by myself, Celeste Laurent and Teresa Crook during the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI last week, we discussed several topic areas. First, Crook presented a demonstration on whey protein and which products have whey in them. Following her yummy speech, Laurent and I discussed the challenges young people face in being different from their peers and continuing to be proud of who they are and where they come from. 
In an effort to promote myself as an agriculture speaker available for keynotes and workshops, I have launched a new blog spot I hope you will all check out. It’s called 
If you’re like me, then you have been watching closely the progress of the Estate Tax Relief Bill. As the average age of the American farmer or rancher nears 60, agriculture businesses will start switching hands, and unfortunately, poor succession planning can result in the end of a long-standing family tradition. Here is a release that was published in 
I need your help. The Humane Society of the United States is working to vote Carrie Underwood in as 
I’d like to congratulate 
The 
Say Happy Birthday to the 
One of the sources of a lot of information for anyone needing to research the rural lifestyle market is the 
In just a few short weeks it’ll be time for the 
If you’ve ever been down in a hollow on a mid summer day pounding posts then you might wonder why anyone would want to do this for fun. However, at the Country Living Olympics is was cool inside the American Royal building where the Steel Post Driving competition took place.
Teresa Hinrichs is a country living cheerleader (pictured on the right). She even says so in an interview I did with her right before the Country Living Olympics.
If you want to know what people who live the country life think then just ask them. That’s what we did at the Country Living Outlook Conference. I can assure you that these folks are passionate about where they live.
At the Country Living Outlook Conference one of the speakers on our program was country lifestyler, Kelly Loganbill. Kelly works in town and makes an 80 plus mile round trip each day from her home.
Reaching people who live the country life has been the subject of several articles in 
Besides talking about country living we also talked about Agrimarketing Magazine going digital. I read my 
Water Bucket Filling would not be my favorite chore out on the farm but it’s just one of those things you have to do. I prefer taking pictures of other people doing it for competition.
If you know Steve Drake then you know he likes to work in the background. In fact, after taking about 500 pictures at the Country Living Association activities last week none of them have Steve in it. 
It's time to thank our farmers and ranchers for all their hard work to feed us.
