AgWired

The Farm Futures Management Summit has concluded here in St. Louis. Actually the bonus, extra program is now in progress for farmers who wanted to learn more about farm management in multi-family operations.

One of the people who had a lot to do with making this a successful first time conference is Cindy Johnson, administrative assistant, Farm Progress Companies. At lunch she was publicly thanked by the company and received this nice bouquet of flowers.

One of the sponsors of the Summit is the United Soybean Board. They were represented here today by Hugh Whaley. Hugh says that this has been a good investment for the soybean checkoff organization and offered some observations on the Summit which you can download here: Hugh Whaley (1 min MP3)

Or you can listen here immediately: hugh-whaley.mp3

Since Farm Futures is going to do this Management Summit again next year you should really consider getting involved. I am not only impressed with the quality of the speakers gathered here but also the farmers in attendance. I’ve spoken with quite a few of them and these guys and gals are sharp. They want to figure out how to best manage their farm operation and are willing to spend the time it takes to attend conferences like this.

Speaking of speakers, look at this list: David Kohl (pictured leading an all-speaker session late yesterday), recently retired as professor of agricultural finance at Virginia Tech; Danny Klinefelter, professor and Extension economist at Texas A&M University; Mike Boehlje, professor of agricultural economics and an instructor in the Center for Agricultural Business programs at Purdue University; Jay Penick, president and CEO of Northwest Farm Credit Services; Dick Wittman, manages a 17,000-acre dryland crop, range cattle and timber operation in northern Idaho in partnership with three other family members; Bryce Knorr, senior editor of Farm Futures; Arlan Suderman, market analyst for Farm Futures; Kevin C. Dhuyvetter, professor and Extension agricultural economist in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Kansas State University. And of yeah there was Mike Adams, host of the nationally syndicated radio show “Agri-Talk.” How does he keep getting in posts on AgWired? Probably because we see each other all over the place.

What a group though. You may wonder why no interviews posted here. Well, these fine farmers paid a lot of money to attend this conference. If you want to know what the presenters had to say, then get yourself to the next one! How’s that for a pitch Willie?

The executive editor of Farm Futures magazine is Mike Wilson. He’s also the emcee for the Farm Futures Management Summit.

Here he is directing traffic at the podium.

I’ll be travelling with Mike next month to the International GreenWeek Show in Berlin, Germany. Mike’s on the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists. We’ll also be attending the IFAJ board meeting that takes place there every year.

Mike, it looks like you’ve put together a great conference here in St. Louis. Thanks for having me in.

As I said in a previous post, this is a full conference. The first ever Farm Futures Management Summit has brought in a great crowd.

An interesting note is how many young people are here, some with their parents. Transitional farm management has already been discussed and it’s obvious that some of these farmers are thinking ahead and looking at conferences like this one as a way to help train the next generation.

We’ll be breaking up into smaller breakout sessions here shortly so although there’s a lot of people here they’ll have plenty of opportunity to interact with the speakers.

Hello from the first ever Farm Futures Management Summit in St. Louis, MO. Boy do we have a crowd here. Over 170 farmers are attending this conference.

I’m helping out with some audio/visual stuff for publication owner, Farm Progress Companies. As you can see from the banner here, the Summit is sponsored by the United Soybean Board and AgriGold.

This event has a very intensive program and I’ll have some pictures and some interviews for you before it concludes tomorrow afternoon.