“Using Popular Media to Tell Dairy Farming’s Story” was the topic of a Tuesday morning seminar at World Dairy Expo conducted by Jolene Griffin of Dairy Management Inc. (pictured on the left) and Polly Ligon O’Grady of Weber Shandwick (right).
Who would have imagined even just a few years ago that things with funny names like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube would allow individual agricultural producers to communicate with people all over the world? And, as Jolene told the group on hand, it has never been more important for them to do so. “Other people are actually out there telling our story and they’re telling the wrong story,” Jolene said. “There’s so much misinformation about the dairy industry out there that we need to mobilize dairy producers and the dairy industry to counter that misinformation and to give consumers the correct information about dairy farming and the dairy products that they enjoy.”
Jolene says they launched the MyDairy program earlier this year to help producers learn more about using the various social media platforms and providing key messages to help them communicate effectively. “Since that time we have had over 600 dairy producers sign on for the MyDairy program and they’ve really embraced social media to tell their story,” Jolene said. Producers can sign up for the program by emailing mydairy@rosedmi.com.
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We met several farm families at work in the fields. One man told us he has a 3.7 acre allotment and rents an additional 21 acres. He does not like to use machines for planting or harvesting because labor is less expensive and more efficient – for instance in collecting corn stalks that may have fallen over. Twelve acres of the rented land is controlled by the local government, so it is not counted on the records and he receives no government subsidy. He said it takes 10 laborer-days to harvest 2.5 acres of corn. That means a husband-wife team can harvest their 3.7 acres in about eight days.
It looks like the battle is on in Ohio and hopefully we won’t see another fiasco like Prop 2 in California.
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Now here’s a winning recipe for you meat lovers. Sonoma Steaks with Vegetables Bocconcini. Mmm. Mmm. That’s the winning recipe in this year’s 
It may be dairy week for ZimmComm but that doesn’t mean it’s the only segment of the industry we’re working on. I’ll be introducing you to a new client later this week for example that is also new to agribusiness. In the meantime, this week’s program is about an old client. And I don’t mean old as in “they’re old.” I mean one of our long time clients, the 
As I posted earlier, RFA has a new logo. That prompted me to call on CEO Bob Dinneen, the Reverend of Renewable Fuels, to find out what the new look signifies for the organization. To start with, Bob says that RFA has doubled in staff size in the last 18 months with new staff in the area of communications, research and lobbying. He sees a bright future for ethanol and RFA even in spite of continuing challenges like the proposed RFS2 that EPA is working on.
Coming from Texas A&M University, this article from the Veterinary Department, “