My bags are unpacked, yet my desk is still a mess. Last week, I along with colleague Jess Held attended the Ag Media Summit held in Ft. Worth, Texas. Two of our clients represented their companies in the InfoExpo portion of the event.
The Ag Media Summit is an annual event for pretty much everyone in the agricultural marketing world. This event was chock full of speakers, continuing education and most importantly networking. The event not only invites ag professionals, but college students that are members of the Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow club. As a result there were some top notch students looking for jobs and really doing some networking at luncheons. If you were looking to hire in the next year, this is one place to do some valuable recruiting. I took part in the photography workshop that allowed us to wander the Ft. Worth Stockyards to capture the flavor of old Texas. See pictures shot by our group here.
This year the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists held their Congress in Ft. Worth as well. Many of their activities were held in advance of the American’s summit and some in tandem. While I personally did not have a lot of interaction with folks from across the globe, the few that I spoke with expressed some of the same challenges American agriculturalists see. For example, in England their trade shows are dwindling due to hoof and mouth and BSE pressures. The manufacturers don’t want to attend the shows because the livestock exhibitors cannot show their livestock. The Non-GMO debate is very prevalent and like many Americans, the English are growing their own produce in their back yards.
While at the kickoff party, I chatted with two women from Slovania. They were sheep producers and publishers of a sheep magazine. Like us Americans, they see families wanting food fast and cheap. While they live thousands of miles away, their social economics mirror ours in many ways. In the end, it was good to meet and greet many of the names and faces I see in print each month. After all these are the people that shape the ag media and its our job to fuel their fire by giving them good, credible story leads and content. From what I heard, you’ll be reading a lot about profitability in the months ahead. How to maintain it, how to get there and what tools you’ll need to sustain profitable. So if you have any story leads, let us know. We’ve got the 411 with the ag media.
Author: Bellana Putz
www.lessingflynn.com
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