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  • A Farm Foundation conference on Dec. 4, part of the Food and Agriculture Policy Summit in D.C., will examine the challenges agriculture and the food system face in providing food, fiber and fuel to a growing world over the next 30 years. Highlighting the conference will be release of a new Farm Foundation report, Agriculture’s Strategic Role: Feeding and Fueling a Growing World.
  • The Hondo Group, a Fort Worth-based marketing communications company, recently announced the introduction of green marketing services. The company has developed one of the first quantitative assessment tools for evaluating environmentally sound business practices.
  • Makhteshim Agan of North America, Inc. (MANA), announces the hiring of Duane A. Martin, Ph.D., as the company’s new business and product development manager. Martin joins the MANA senior management team to lead all of the company’s new product and inter-business development projects.
  • The members of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting have elected Lindsay Hill of the Agri Broadcast Network (ABN) of Ohio to serve as Vice President of the organization at their annual convention in Kansas City this week. Hill, owner and Chief Operating Officer of AdVance Broadcast & Communication is a 10- year veteran of agricultural media and rural news radio.
Zimfo Bytes

NAMA Professional Development Award Winners

Chuck Zimmerman

At the NAMA Trends in Agriculture conference several professional agrimarketers were honored and once again this year, Paulsen AgriBranding captured comments from the honorees.

NAMA honored three members for professional development during its Wednesday luncheon. Honored in marketing communications was Paul Redhage, FMC Communications Manager; in Public Relations, Beth Anderson, Charleston Orwig; and in sales, Vernon Benes of Beck Ag. Below are video highlights of acceptance comments of those present.

NAMA, Video

NAFB Auction Supports Foundation

Cindy Zimmerman

NAFB auctionThe NAFB Foundation auction to support scholarships has been an annual event since back in the days when I was on the Foundation board – long time ago!

NAFB auctionLast night’s auction included the usual top shelf items, such as a NASCAR Kansas City race package donated by Pioneer, the New Holland Boomer Pink Pedal tractor, NAFB collectible tractors, and several framed prints, including a limited edition Terry Redlin donated by Ron Claussen that was the evening’s top selling item.

Looks like there will be another Michael Peterson party at Lake Ozark at the Wyant-Johnson retreat next summer. Sara Wyant and Alan Johnson once again bought the Peterson performance package donated by New Holland. You need me there to take photos again next summer, right guys?

NAMA/NAFB Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the NAMA Trends in Agriculture/NAFB Convention is being sponsored by:

DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

Uncategorized

Lindsay Hill Elected NAFB VP

Cindy Zimmerman

Lindsay and AndyWe are very pleased to report that our good friend Lindsay Hill of AdVance, ABN and Buckeye Ag Radio Network has been elected as vice president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. She is pictured here with her very proud husband and partner Andy Vance shortly after the election took place.

Lindsay is a 10-year veteran of agricultural media and rural news radio and you can read more about her on the BARN/ABN website. We feel a special connection to this farm broadcast couple team who have been so successful in building their own business and we are really impressed with Lindsay. She has great leadership skills and is talented in so many ways. We look forward to her eventually taking the reins of president of NAFB in a few years. She has real vision for the industry.

There were three very impressive candidates for NAFB vice president this year – all relatively young in the industry (compared to us old-timers!) We do expect to see Tricia Braid Terry of RFD Illinois Radio Network (another very dear friend) and Tom Cassidy of Ag Radio Network back in the running next year.

Listen to my interview with Lindsay here: nafb-08-lindsay.mp3

NAMA/NAFB Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the NAMA Trends in Agriculture/NAFB Convention is being sponsored by:

DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

Audio, NAFB

NAFB Trade Talk Hectic As Usual

Chuck Zimmerman

Chuck LeavellI think we need a couple days to get all of the Trade Talking done that we’d like to do! Cindy and I did a lot of interviews today and we’ll be using them in the coming weeks.

I got to meet with one of my musical heroes this morning during the NAFB Trade Talk session. He was hanging out with Gene Hemphill and Holly Fritz in the New Holland booth.

Chuck Leavell, keyboardist for the Rolling Stones, is a big proponent of renewable energy, biodiesel and ethanol. He’s also kicking off a new organization in January called the Mother Nature Network. We also spoke about his music career and what he’s doing lately. He does stay busy.

Listen to my interview with Chuck here: nafb-08-leavell.mp3

NAMA/NAFB Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the NAMA Trends in Agriculture/NAFB Convention is being sponsored by:

DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

Audio, NAFB, New Holland

Honoring Jim Evans

Chuck Zimmerman

Jim Evans and the Cindy'sThis evening we honored a real friend and mentor of many of us in agricultural communications, Jim Evans. He’s seen here with the Cindy’s (l-r Cindy Zimmerman, Cyndi Young, Jim, Cindy Cunningham).

A reception was held in Jim’s honor and to bring to our awareness a new “Campaign for the James F. Evans Endowed Chair in Agricultural Communications” at the University of Illinois. You are highly encouraged to make a contribution to the fund. I spoke with Jim to see what he thought of all this and in his normal, humble way, he thinks they should do this for “someone more fitting.” Right, Jim. Forget that. You are worthy.

Listen to my interview with Jim here: nafb-08-evans.mp3

NAMA/NAFB Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the NAMA Trends in Agriculture/NAFB Convention is being sponsored by:

DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

Audio, Education, NAFB, University

NAFB Convention Opening Panel

Chuck Zimmerman

NAFB PanelWith the NAMA Trends in Agriculture conference over I’ve made the permanent move to the Westin for the NAFB meeting. After a joint meeting with NAMA, the first session for NAFB was titled, “Staking Value, Lifting Tides.” Mike Adams, AgriTalk presided over the session which featured some of our good friends.

You can see Bill Farmakis, J. L. Farmakis, Pat Morrow, BASF, Pat Rosner, Osborn & Barr and Barry Nelson, John Deere. Mike posed questions to them to get things started. The first one was “When you get a proposal, what form do you want it in and what are the criteria you use to decide which broadcast outlet gets a buy?”

Listen to the panelists answer that question here (after a brief introduction): nafb-08-value.mp3

Don’t forget to check out the photo album as it continues to grow:

NAMA/NAFB Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the NAMA Trends in Agriculture/NAFB Convention is being sponsored by:

DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

Audio, NAFB

New Media Impact on Rural Lifestyle People

Chuck Zimmerman

You can learn more about the rural lifestyle survey that Susan Spaulding conducted courtesy of Paulsen AgriBranding.

Day two of NAMA’s Trends in Agriculture: Rural Lifestyle Marketing kicked off with a discussion of the impact of new media on rural lifestylers. Susan Spalding of Market Directions and Courtney Yuskis of the Country Living Association looked at the products and services that are gaining the interest of Rural Lifestylers.

NAMA, Video

Survey of Rural Lifestylers’

Chuck Zimmerman

Courtney YuskisThe first session today at Trends in Agriculture was all about a national survey of rural lifestyle people conducted by Susan Spaulding, Market Directions. She worked with the Country Living Association on the survey and the presentation was made jointly by Susan and CLA Director, Courtney Yuskis (pictured).

One of the interesting things I heard was the high level of importance that rural lifestylers’ place on new media. Very interesting. I asked Courtney to tell us some of the things they found out besides this. She says that this group is being hit with a lot of messages from lots of different types of companies and that suggests to me that there may be some real opportunities for companies to do some co-promotions.

You can hear more about the survey in my interview with Courtney here: trends-08-yuskis.mp3

If you’d like to purchase the full survey, contact Susan at Market Directions.

NAMA/NAFB Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the NAMA Trends in Agriculture/NAFB Convention is being sponsored by:

DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

Audio, NAMA

Marketing To Idyllic Lifestyle Seekers

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast-195 - Idyllic Lifestyle SeekersSomehow this post got deleted so I’m not sure what I originally posted but let me get it fixed.

At the NAMA Trends In Agriculture conference I learned about “Idyllic Lifestyle Seekers” from Dan Duffy, CEO, United Country Real Estate. He was on the program to talk about how they’re marketing to those you like to live a rural lifestyle. I’ve never heard them referred to as that but it works for me.

Dan DuffyDan says the term they use to describe this market came from research they conducted after he started working with the company.

He says that their job at United Country Real Estate is to help people make the transition to the rural lifestyle.

You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: Listen To ZimmCastZimmCast 195 (8 min MP3)

Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:Interview with Dan Duffy - ZimmCast 195

NAMA/NAFB Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the NAMA Trends in Agriculture/NAFB Convention is being sponsored by:

DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

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

Audio, NAMA, ZimmCast