This evening was the producer panel. Joining me as our farmer panel were Brian Bogue, Bogue Farms (right in picture), Holt, MO; Michael Amigoni, Amigoni Family Vineyards (left of podium), Centerview, MO; Larry Oltjen, cattleman, Robinson, KS (far left in picture). I had the pleasure to moderate this panel. What a great group of producers we had.

There was a lot of interesting Q & A. I thought it was interesting that 2 of our panelists were heavy internet users and 1 said that he left that to his wife and consultants but that they were also heavy users! Brian in particular has self-educated himself, invested in satellite internet access and installed a wireless system in his farm that reaches over a half a mile and services 3 houses and a pig barn. He even has all his pig data on his pda, which I think makes that a pig-d-a (pig digital assistant).

They mentioned high levels of radio listenership and seasonal focus on ag publications. However, I think it was obvious that they use all forms of media and are serious consumers of information from a variety of sources.

They don’t particularly like to be “surveyed” all the time and are unlikely to complete a survey without some sort of incentive. For example, Larry said that after investing a lot of money in a piece of farm equipment he had a vested interest in providing feedback to the company he purchased it from but was unlikely to do so for someone soliciting him for some type of general farm survey.

They like and value trade shows and their respective commodity organizations that they belong to. They support the checkoff activities of beef and pork in particular.

Michael is the grape grower, doing it part time but with the intent of making money. He is a heavy internet user to seek out information from websites all over the country and has his own to help him market his grapes.

That’s about all I can rememer right now. It’s getting late even for this blogger so I’ll close for now and bring you more tomorrow.

And let me thank Ken Dean, High Plains Journal, one more time for taking pictures! You saved me. I left my camera memory card at home. What a dumb thing to do, eh?