You should know by now that the AgChat Foundation has turned one year old this week and the weekly AgChat Twitter conversation is two years old. I’ll bet even Michele Payn-Knoper (founder) would not have predicted that! So the baby is growing up and there’s lots of interesting things going on as this farmer led organization continues to plough new ground in agricultural communications.

I spoke today with Jeff Fowle, President, AgChat Foundation and California farmer (that’s him under the hat probably tweeting away) to get an update on where we’re at and where we’re going. I also serve on the board of the Foundation and we had a very well attended and exciting board meeting by conference call last night.

Americans may have noticed a new social media trend this past year: more Facebook posts from the farm, more tweets from the tractor and more blogs from the back forty.

The timing of this social media “stampede” couldn’t be better, says Jeff Fowle, president of the AgChat Foundation. Celebrating its one-year anniversary this week, the AgChat Foundation is a 100-percent volunteer organization formed to empower farmers and ranchers to effectively tell their stories using social media. He says in one 2010 study conducted by the Hartman Group, 59 percent of consumers purchasing local said they wanted a “connection to the farmer.”

Bring yourself up to date on what’s going on with the AgChat Foundation by listening to this week’s program: ZimmCast 298 - AgChat Foundation Turns One

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsor, Growmark, locally owned, globally strong, for their support.

The program ends this week with a song from Music Alley called “Chatshow Queen” by Stuart Willmott.

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our Subscribe page