MEDIA CONTACT:

Heidi H. Nelson, Harvest PR

503-880-6313 / heidi@harvest-pr.com

MINNEAPOLIS—Four new members have joined the AgChat Foundation board of directors, adding different types of experience in social media and agriculture to the nonprofit, announces President Darin Grimm. Last month, organic dairy farmer Emily Zweber, Elko, Minn., was named the organization’s first executive director.

“All four of our new board members have been actively engaged in the AgChat community for some time and have enthusiastically embraced the Foundation’s mission,” says Grimm. “A diverse board helps ensure the Foundation serves the needs of all agricultural segments and effectively empowers farmers and ranchers to tell their stories using social media.”

John Blue, Indiana

John Blue has been on the Foundation’s advisory board for two years and has been an important contributor to many of AgChat’s successes. As chief of community creation for Truffle Media Networks, Blue helps engage agriculturally focused audiences through marketing, technology and in-person interactions.

“Social and new media tools allow people to easily share their story with audience groups, large and small,” Blue says. “For those in agriculture, having easy access to social and new media tools is an important step toward having meaningful conversations with others.”

Marie Bowers, Oregon

Marie Bowers is a fifth-generation grass seed farmer in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, managing land that has been in her family for more than a century. She graduated from Washington State University with degrees in agriculture and agriculture economics and management, then spent three years in the Farm Credit System.

“When I discovered #agchat on Twitter, it opened many doors and connections,” Bowers says. “It fueled my passion for telling our farm’s story via social media and encouraging others to do the same.”

Jan Hoadley, Alabama

Jan Hoadley grew up on a family farm in Illinois with Charolais cattle. Today she raises poultry and rabbits at Slow Money Farm, tapping technology and tradition to keep the operation viable. Hoadley has a long-standing interest in heritage and rare breeds of livestock and heirloom plants. She currently raises Giant Chinchilla rabbits and several breeds of heritage chickens. Hoadley says social media has been a means of survival and an important promotional tool for building customer connections and direct selling.

“Social media allows people outside our area to view our life on the farm, learn about what we do and why we do it, and communicate their wants and needs with us,” Hoadley says. “Even if some consumers don’t agree with our methods, understanding is a win for everyone.”

Jeff VanderWerff, Michigan

After nearly 10 years on the road in agribusiness, Jeff VanderWerff is back home on his family’s farm near Sparta, Mich., and doing what he loves most: raising corn, wheat, soybeans, apples and peaches with his wife, Alyssa, and brother, father and uncle. Always on the cutting edge of farm technology, VanderWerff first started telling his farm’s story in a 2009 Farm & Ranch Living feature.

“In some cases, I think other farmers are in greater need of information about what we do than the public is,” he says. “Social media helps us connect with other farmers.”

According to Grimm, the background and experiences of the new board members will help AgChat Foundation programming evolve and engage producers across the nation.

Blue, Bowers, Hoadley and VanderWerff, along with the rest of the AgChat Board and the training committee, are planning the nonprofit’s third annual social media and thought-leadership conference. “We will be announcing the city and date shortly,” Grimm says. “Our group is working hard to ensure that the conference content is keeping pace with the rapidly changing social media landscape.”

The AgChat Foundation’s social media conference includes large and small group learning to help establish the confidence individuals need to support agriculture with social media. Past seminar content has included Twitter community building, creating high-impact video, blog basics and more. For more information, visit www.agchat.org.

About the AgChat Foundation

Created in 2009, the AgChat Foundation is a nonprofit organization that aims to empower farmers and ranchers to “agvocate” via social media platforms. The Foundation educates and equips farmers and ranchers with the skill set needed to effectively engage on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media services.

By: Brian Scott, aka @TheFarmersLife

I’m still pretty new to this agvocate blogging thing.  I’ve had The Farmer’s Life up and running for just under a year now.  So I’m not an expert by any means, but what I have done is this.  I’ve spent a good deal of time learning not just how to tell the story of my farm and agriculture in general, but searching for ways to get my posts to reach out beyond the choir as we like to say.

One thing that has been working for me is StumbleUpon.  What is that you say?  It’s a social network all about sharing web pages that you like.  When you sign up for StumbleUpon you can choose topics that are of interest to you.  One of the topics I stumble most is Agriculture.  Surprise.  While signed in (or using a browser add on like I do) you can hit the Stumble button to be randomly taken to another site under the topic you are interested in.  The pages that come up are those that have been submitted by other Stumblers.  You too can add pages, but it seems it’s bad manners to add your own content.  While stumbling you can also thumb up or thumb down each page and leave a comment for other users to see.  You can also share your findings to other social media platforms.  So it’s basically a way to sit and browse the internet sort of randomly hoping something of interest comes up.  Now might be a good time for me to mention while browsing Agriculture on StumbleUpon I don’t come across a lot of sites about, for lack of a better word, mainstream agriculture.  Many of the sites I’ve seen are about urban ag, small farms, organic, and the like.  Don’t take that the wrong way.  I’m not putting those practices down.  These aren’t bad things, I’m just saying the type of farming I do doesn’t seem to be well represented.  Just an observation.

So those are the basics of stumbling, but that doesn’t really tell you anything about how it drives blog traffic.  Right at the end of 2011 I discovered StumbleUpon had its own URL shortening service su.pr.  You twitter users out there probably see shortened links all the time, and there are lots of shorteners out there.  I had been using bit.ly until recently.  When you login with su.pr you will see some interesting stats about each of your links.  It even suggests the time of day you might want to share your links to get the most visibility.

Now I shorten the links to my blog posts with su.pr and use those short links whenever I share my blog posts on twitter, Facebook and anywhere else I can.  So far they don’t really work on Google+.  They will link to the right place, but the preview you see in your status update won’t show a picture and maybe not even a text preview of the post.  Either way it’s not pretty.  So when on G+ I just use the full link.

When I share my links using the shortened su.pr version my blog traffic really takes off.  At first I had no idea why this was happening.  I wasn’t making the connection as to why one URL shortener would be better than another.  I’m a farmer, not a social media guru.  I wondered that aloud during a #Blogchat session and I got a reply from StumbleUpon.  Apparently when you shorten a link with them it is automatically added to their list of pages.  You just aren’t going through the process of thumbs up or down and adding tags, etc.

From what I’ve read, when another Stumbler adds your post to StumbleUpon that’s when things can really go viral.  Much like you would see with Facebook sharing.  It’s also a very powerful too. Some are saying it drives up to 50% of all referral traffic on top sites.  More traffic than Facebook.  That’s powerful stuff my friends.

Here’s the bottom line based on my experience.  I know sharing these shortened links via su.pr is driving more traffic to my posts.  My stats show that.  I used to put up a post and hope to get a comment or two, and many times I would get none.  Since I’ve been doing this I get multiple comments on each new post.  My post this past Thursday had 844 hits that day.  On Friday it had another 334!  And that’s just for that post and not anything else people are finding.  Granted that post was on a bit of hot topic, but it’s bringing traffic to posts specifically about my farm as well just because more people are on my blog looking around.

One thing I’m really happy about is that I’m being notified almost daily that I have a new email subscriber to my site that will get an email every time I have a new post.  I’ve added some other agvocates posts to StumbleUpon and contacted them about it and asked if they could let me know if it made a difference.  They said it was having a positive effect on their stats too.

Twitter was my number one driver of traffic for several months.  Now twitter is down the list under either Facebook or StumbleUpon at the top spot with search engine traffic coming in second.

My advice to all you blogging agvocates is to start sharing your links this way and see how it works for you.  It’s certainly working for me.  And don’t forget to make it easy for your readers who might be Stumblers to add your posts.  Put a StumbleUpon button on each of your posts.

Michele Payn-Knoper, ACF Board Member

Voices come and go in today’s social world, some without notice. You could never say that about Chris Raines, perhaps most well-known as @itweetmeat (a handle that’s been held up as an example for many). His personality lived large online; his wit brought many smiles and his candor entertained hundreds.  We didn’t know him as Dr. Raines, we simply knew him as THE source of information about meat and his unwavering belief in having a well-rounded discussion based on science. Not everyone agreed with him, but Chris managed his conversations in a way that built relationships. As news of his shocking death spread through social media yesterday, those relationships became apparent on his Facebook page and through the #itweetmeat feed on Twitter.

Chris served as a member of the founding Board of Directors for the AgChat Foundation as a representative of Extension.  He wrote our first successful grant; the one that turned into support from Harvest PR, which resulted in the Foundation’s training being featured in food publications and advocates being featured in USA Today.  Chris was also a part of the Training Committee and helped build the learning assessments for the first training conference in Chicago and then provide program insight for ACFC11 in Nashville.  We asked him to be a part of the board because of his early adoption of social media, unique perspective and modern representation of Extension. We found much more than that in his voice that still lives large online.

Chris at the 2010 AgChat Foundation Conference

Sometimes that voice drove me nuts, especially when I was trying to chair virtual committee meetings and Chris was on the train in New York, sharing his travel highlights in the midst of our work. And we had many behind-the-scenes heated debates about exactly how to best have the conversation about farming and food. But at the end of those debates, we both knew that we wanted to accomplish a better conversation around agriculture- and that’s what mattered more than our personal opinions.  We both enjoyed beautiful pictures on international travel and goading each other once in awhile. One week before his death, I had the rare chance to see Chris while I was at Penn State for a speaking engagement. He texted me a “Welcome to SCE” when he saw the tweet that I had landed. We had dinner later that evening with colleagues from PennAg and MidAtlantic Dairy. I gave him a big hug when we greeted and we spent a part of dinner talking up the value of social media to our colleagues. Chris made us all laugh with his @itweetmeat stories as an academic. I’m fairly certain I said “See ya later” as we parted. I really wish I would have told him what a great job he does, how I enjoy his questioning and that his challenges make people think. Let that be a lesson for us all.

It seems so trivial to memorialize someone in a blog post. Yet Chris’ legacy is readily apparent in our social world and amongst the community that knew him virtually.  Jan Hoadley, a small farmer in Alabama, said “Chris had a means of getting people to think no matter how much they thought they knew – and challenged the why of the view without being insulting about it. He was an effective agvocate even with te difficult critics.  If I had a question, he was always open to it. I don’t know how he had the time sometimes, but it was definitely a model to follow.”  Amanda  Sollman, an agvocate from Michigan and now in Minnesota, points to Chris’ teaching skills, though she never sat in a class with him.  Many have written about Dr. Chris Raines.

College Mourns the Loss of Meat Scientist Chris Raines-Penn State College of Agriculture Sciences

Missing the Enthusiasm of Chris Raines, aka @iTweetMeat-Janice Person

Missing a Friend and a Great Teacher-Amanda Sollmana

The Good Die Young-Andy Vance

Reflections about Dr. Chris Raines from a Friend, Colleague and Follower-Amy Ridenour

Carpe diem, Before It is Too Late-Jesse Bussard

We’ll Miss You Chris Raines-Jan Hoadley

Social Media: Awesome and Devastating-Ryan Goodman

On tragedy: There is a reason why we just need to figure it out ourselves- Susan Crowell

In Memory of Dr. Chris Raines- Ulla Kjarval

We’ll simply leave it at this.  Thank you for your service, Chris. You will be sorely missed. There’s a huge community of sending out prayers for you and your family. And we hope you figure out how to tweet from heaven.

The AgChat Foundation is working with interested parties to create a memorial that reflects Dr. Raines’ commitment to engaging diverse communities in social media around the topic of food production. For more information or how to become involved please emails us at info@agchat.org



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT:

Heidi H. Nelson, Harvest PR

503-880-6313 / heidi@harvest-pr.com

Zweber Becomes First AgChat Foundation Executive Director
Social media enthusiast and dairy farmer will lead management and fundraising efforts for the two-year-old nonprofit

December 14, 2011 – Emily Zweber will become the AgChat Foundation’s first executive director. The nonprofit AgChat Foundation (ACF) educates and equips farmers with the skills needed to effectively tell their story on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media services.

Zweber, an organic dairy farmer from Elko, Minn., known to many as @ezweber on Twitter, will focus on furthering ACF’s mission of connecting farmers to diverse audiences via social media platforms. She also will provide day-to-day management oversight and fundraising support.

“Emily uses social media every day on the family farming operation, so she’s a great choice for this position,” says Darin Grimm, ACF president. “What began as an all-volunteer outcropping of an agricultural social media movement is growing into a professionally managed organization. Having Emily on board is a real boost.”

Grimm added that ACF’s highly-successful summer thought-leadership and social media training conference is slated to provide more content than ever in its third year, and that additional training programs are planned.

Emily received her bachelor’s degree in agriculture economics and international studies from South Dakota State University and is a University of Minnesota Center for the Study of Policy and Governance Humphrey Policy Fellow. Previously, she has served as the Minnesota Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation’s executive director and the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation’s special programs coordinator. Emily and her husband, Tim, co-own and operate Zweber Farms with Tim’s parents.

Established in 1906, the Zweber farm is a certified organic dairy. The family also runs a successful natural meat business for which Emily coordinates all social media and marketing.

About AgChat Foundation, Inc.

A group of farmers created the AgChat Foundation after connecting through the now highly visible “#AgChat” community on Twitter, a weekly moderated chat where agriculturists discuss various issues, tell their farm stories and identify ways to connect with people outside of agriculture. The Foundation strives to educate and equip “agvocates” with the skill set needed to engage on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media services, giving them the knowledge to unlock new tools to effectively tell their story. For more information, visit www.agchat.org.

# # #

Interview by ZimmComm New Media

Autumn is my favorite time of year. From football games to piles of leaves, and all the jack-o-lanterns in between, the signs of the season are as far as the eye can see.  And as the cool crisp breeze begins to blow, the harvest moon is in full glow.

Like many of our neighboring states, the harvest here in south-central Kansas wasn’t quite as bountiful this year. Extreme drought, coupled with excessive heat for the greater part of the summer, took both an emotional and physical toll on farmers here in the heartland.

The sad truth is that, with the large disconnect between consumers and farms, most of these hardships go unnoticed by the general public. At work, many of the questions I’m confronted with are questions like, What can I eat to lower my cholesterol? How does processed food fit into a healthy diet? or My doctor says I should eat healthier – what does that mean? Very few have asked how our multi-generational family farm has survived the extreme drought, rising fuel costs or how increased energy costs have impacted the price we pay for feeding and caring for our animals, the environment and the people who work on our farms.

With that in mind, November is often known as the month of giving thanks. Family, friends, and food are often things that we are most thankful for. It’s important I do not forget, my family and I are consumers too. I purchase food from my local grocer to create balanced meals for my family. I know that behind every apple, pear, green bean, potato, pork chop or steak we eat – a farmer or rancher worked hard to produce it.

As I sit down to feast this Thanksgiving, I’ll be sure and give a special thanks to the farmers and ranchers who work endless hours to provide safe, wholesome and nutritious foods to nourish our bodies. I’m asking you to keep them in your thoughts and prayers as they travel down the tough road of recovery from the hardships endured this past year. Also, I’m asking you to share with me your #FoodThanks in the comments below, send out a tweet or take a second to share your #FoodThanks in a Facebook post. You just might be amazed by how many #FoodThanks you can come up with.

Consulting dietitian by day, dairy farmer’s wife and graduate student by night – Heidi Wells, RD, CSSD, LD incorporates her passion for agriculture, nutrition and fitness into everything she does. She currently represents the state as the president of the Kansas Dietetic Association, was the Recognized Young Dietitian of Kansas in 2008, and most recently the Distinguished Dietitian of Kansas in 2010.  Join her conversation on Twitter @HWellsRD.

From apps that make Thanksgiving meal planning a snap to social media campaigns to help Americans express #foodthanks, celebrating Thanksgiving has come a long way.

MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 17, 2011 — While celebrating the end of harvest season is a tradition that can be traced back for centuries, modern-day twists on the custom have evolved since the 1621 Plymouth Colony fall feast. Just as pilgrims rejoiced in their first good harvest, Americans today have found meaningful ways to honor the bounty, and express gratitude:

1. Give #foodthanks. Farmers long ago traded in their oxen for tractors and other technologies to raise nutritious, great-tasting food. This year, a group of farmers and ranchers is cultivating a social media campaign to initiate meaningful conversations about food with Americans on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and beyond, says Kansas farmer Darin Grimm of the AgChat Foundation. “For farmers on the go, social media is a great way to connect with consumers,” he says. “We’re hoping to see everyone from chefs to foodies to farmers using the #foodthanks hashtag.” Check out www.foodthanks.com, then tweet what you eat, using the #foodthanks hashtag, now through Thanksgiving.
2. Plan your meal with an app. New recipe and meal-planning applications are a bounty in their own right. Try the Thanksgiving Menu Maker from Fine Cooking, which allows you to “tap your way to a customized holiday menu,” offering more than 75 of the magazine’s all-time favorite Thanksgiving recipes, along with a shopping list and schedule.
3. Preserve the flavors of fall. Early American settlers would salivate over modern-day canning equipment. Once dismissed as a bygone art, canning has attracted a growing number of enthusiasts in recent years, according to the National Center for Home Food Preservation, which provides tips on canning, pickling, freezing and more. To really make a food statement, create your own labels at www.myownlabels.com.
4. Host your own tasting party. The holiday table inspires us to create treasured traditions at home, including exploring new foods in the company of friends and family. Home entertaining expert Domenica Marchetti suggests a trend-worthy twist on the wine and cheese tasting part. The author of Big Night In (Chronicle Books, 2008) says, “Embrace the season’s bounty and host an apple tasting party!”
5. Share in the bounty. Thanksgiving is a great time to talk with your family about helping others in need, whether it’s a family down the street or a hungry child on the other side of the world. Charitable organizations like Farmers Feeding the World and Heifer International believe that giving families a source of food, rather than short-term relief, is a more sustainable way to lift them out of poverty and hunger.

About AgChat Foundation, Inc. A group of farmers created the AgChat Foundation after connecting through the now highly visible “#AgChat” community on Twitter, a weekly moderated chat where agriculturists discuss various issues, tell their farm stories and identify ways to connect with people outside of agriculture. The Foundation strives to educate and equip “agvocates” with the skill set needed to engage on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media services, giving them the knowledge to unlock new tools to effectively tell their story. For more information, visit www.agchat.org.

Related Links:

http://foodthanks.com

Some of the posts already written

Several people have already been offering up their #foodthanks as we head to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US and a variety of holidays globally! In fact, as this post is written there have been 354 tweets of #foodthanks and we’ve seen them coming through Facebook, blogs, etc.

The perspectives on what you give #foodthanks for are as diverse as the people giving thanks and the people involved in producing, processing, distributing, preparing and other activities that help get foods from farm to fork. With that in mind, we are hosting a linkup and encourage you to visit all the links below as well as encourage you to enter links as you publish your own perspectives!

It’s no secret that farmers and others in agriculture are some of the biggest, most dedicated sports fans around. Whether it’s football, baseball or basketball, we like rooting for our teams whenever the opportunity presents itself!

It’s also no secret that farmers love sharing their own farm stories and showing how they’re doing their part to provide safe, wholesome food for all of us. Recently, Missouri hog farmer Chris Chinn had the opportunity to tell her story and draw on her family’s love of baseball at the same time. Read her story, in her own words.

***

Chris and her family with St. Louis Cardinals mascot Fred Bird.

Each year, Missouri Farmers Care chooses farm families to be featured in the Safe at the Plate campaign with Matt Holliday and the St. Louis Cardinals. Four families are chosen annually to be the Farm Family of the Year, and this year we were the pork family. In April, we were invited to spend a day at the ball stadium with Matt Holliday and the other farm families. We did a photo shoot, radio ads and stayed for the ball game later that night. I participated in two round table events in September that took place prior to Cardinal ball games with influencer groups (chefs, culinary school instructors, grocery retailers, bloggers). We visitied about our farms and explained how we raise our livestock and answered several great questions. It was very informal and a very comfortable atmosphere. After the round table event, which was held in the stadium, we went to a reserved room and watched the game with the participants. This allowed us to have more one-on-one time with each other and to build a relationship.

In late May, Fred Bird, the Cardinal mascot, visited our farm and spent the day learning about what we do. We spent the first part of our day showing Fred Bird inside of our hog barns and we explained our biosecurity protocols, which means how clean we keep our farm. Once Fred Bird had on clean clothes and shoes, we started our tour of the barns. Fred Bird came on a weaning day so there was lots of activity. He watched the weaning process and then he jumped in and helped Kevin, Rachelle and Conner move weaned pigs from the barns onto a trailer. After the pigs

Chris's son, Conner, shows Fred Bird how to move sows.

were on the trailer, Fred Bird helped the kids move the sows from the farrowing house and into the breeding barn. Once we were done weaning, it was time to learn how to make feed. We went to our feed mill where Fred Bird learned all about what we feed the hogs and how we make the feed.

Having Fred Bird visit our farm was the highlight of our summer. As farmers, it’s hard to find time for family vacations and this year was no exception. We didn’t take a vacation, but our kids were not disappointed because having Fred Bird visit our farm was better than any vacation. Our kids loved showing Fred Bird where we live and work. And of course, Fred Bird is a very light-hearted and funny bird who loves to play jokes and make people laugh. I think it was one of the best days we have ever had on the farm and one everyone will remember. There were lots of laughs and smiles that day. He gave the kids autographed Fred Bird baseball cards and a Matt Holliday autographed bat when he left. Three weeks ago, we went to a Cardinals game and Fred Bird saw our kids and came running up to them and gave them hugs and, of course, he “beaked” them. He remembered his visit to our farm and he was thrilled to see the kids. Our family will cherish the memories we made that day with Fred Bird. We still laugh and talk about all of the funny tricks Fred Bird played on us that day.

***

You can see what Fred Bird learned at Chris’s farm by watching Safe at the Plate – Pork. Her storytelling doesn’t stop here, either. Chris is active with her blog and on Twitter. Every day is an opportunity to be an “agvocate” and she’s a great example of that.

What other great examples of advocacy have you seen? Are you connecting seemingly different worlds, like pig farming and baseball, to share your story?

Today (Sunday, October 16) is observed for a couple of reasons that both impact the farmers who are empowering themselves with social media. If you didn’t know, today is both World Food day and Blog Action Day on food. Rather than try to tell a single story, we’ve asked some of the people who talk about food and farming on their blogs to share some of their favorite posts with us. We hope others will add their blogs to the post too highlighting several perspectives.

• Volunteering to Help the Harry Chapin Food Bank in Feeding America (jplovescotton.com) — We frequently hear of someone gathering food for those in need. and most Americans have probably participated in a food drive at a local school, church or business by bringing canned goods and or dry foods like rice. Is there a way to make sure fresh fruits & vegetables are part of the effort? Do you know how agriculture works with food banks? Get answers to those questions and a tour of the Feeding America efforts in Southwest Florida.
• Making It Personal (wagfarms.com) — “Going local” is one of the newest buzz words for consumers. Yet, in many areas, the chance of actually getting local food is very low. What is the definition of local food? Within county? Within state? Within country? This post takes a look at various counties in North Dakota (a largely agriculture state, without an enormous population base) and discovers what local would need to mean in order to feed its population.
• Organic vs. Conventional Dairy (TheWifeOfADairyman.blogspot.com) As one of the few dairies remaining in the county in which we live, here in northern California, meeting new people in town almost always sparks conversation about our family farm.  The conversation seems to often gravitate towards the topic of organic and conventional milk and the differences between the two.  This has inspired me to write a blog post explaining the differences which I hope you will find both  interesting and informative.
• High Fructose Corn Syrup and Corn Planting Decisions (daringrimm.wordpress.com)  As a grain farmer, I walk step-by-step through the decision making process of what I consider when I decide what crops to plant, that ultimately become the food on a grocery store shelf.
• Is it ok that I don’t buy organic food? (www.beyerbeware.net) We aren’t organic farmers. I feel that our non-organic practices are producing safe products for animal and human consumption. The pork in my freezer comes from my neighbor who has a pig farm that most would consider a factory farm. And it tastes good! Plus my kids helped butcher the pig. How do you get anymore intimate with your food? But, yet other moms who are not engaged in agriculture in a way besides eating make me feel guilty for not paying the extra money for organic food.
• Video Blog: Let’s talk about food on Blog Action Day (www.causematters.com/blog) Food is fundamental. It should not elicit feelings of guilt or elitism. Food is sustenance. So why waste Food Day or Blog Action Day posturing about our opinions on organic or conventional, small or large, animal or grain? I put together a quick video with some thoughts on food insecurity, farm values and faces behind our food.
• This Is So Country (www.agricultureproud.com) Most of my life and work has taken place on the beginning end of beef production – raising cattle that will one day end as beef on my plate. During calving season earlier this year I helped save a young calf with its mother got sick. Taking care of these calves and making sure they have a healthy start to life is just another day in my life on the ranch.
• Organic Propaganda (oregongreen.wordpress.com) In today’s society consumers are bombarded with Organic Propaganda. The Organic Food Movement, who doesn’t really care what your family eats, has done a great job of marketing organic food, mostly with scare tactics. It often times aligns itself with campaigns that create the illusion that it is healthier or safer for you, which is simply false.
• Veterinarians and food safety (cowartandmore.blogspot.com)  While I normally blog about art, I wanted to join in the conversation about food, especially since we all eat.  In my role as a large animal veterinarian, food safety is a part of my focus in working with farms.  What does a large animal veterinarian do to help keep your food safe?

Quick question for the crowd: how many of you like to take photos? I can easily answer that question. Photography has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember and, as the photographer for Iowa Farm Bureau for the past 10 years, I’ve photographed farmers in fields, barns, farmsteads and along the dusty roads that make up rural Iowa.

If there is one thing that I learned over those years it is that farmers and agriculture professionals are some of the best people to photograph. The hard work ethic, richness of life and exuberance of families always shines through, regardless of the story. Here are some of my favorite photos from my travels.

I’m not the only one who has learned that secret. Paul Mobley, an award-winning photographer, traveled across our great country photographing farmers for a successful book called “American Farmer: Portraits of the Heartland.” I had the pleasure of working with him, identifying several farmers in Iowa who were included in his book. Now, he is offering the opportunity for farmers like yourselves and others to submit photos to a contest that celebrates your way of life.

The contest is called “Your American Farmer Photo Contest.” Mobley would like you to share your experiences with the country’s beautiful agriculture, farm, farmers’ market and garden world. Capturing your favorite fall harvest scene, summer fruit stand, farmer’s market or road-side stand, share your view of this country’s beautiful landscape, agriculture and harvest. The contest is open to both amateur and professional photographers from across the country.

So, my next question is just as straightforward as the first. Who do you think are the best people to tell your story? Obviously, with the success of and participation in #AgChat and other social media platforms, the answer is you. That’s right. Don’t look over your shoulder while you read this. I’m talking to you. It’s time for you to dust off your camera, dig through your photos and find an entry for this unique photo contest. You can share an intimate look at your life as a farming professional. I know you had to capture at least one early morning photo with the sun cresting the horizon while you did your chores. Or maybe there was the photo during harvest when the family met you in the field for a quick dinner. Any photo that is special to you has already won an award with your family, so now it is time to share it with the world and tell your story through pictures.

I am honored to be one of the judges for this photo contest and I look forward to seeing all the excellent entries that celebrate the fabric of America that is agriculture. So, with that, find your best photo or grab your camera and take your best photo today. Then submit your photo to this great contest. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to let me know either through Twitter, my Google+ profile or by email at jmurphix@gmail.com.

Can’t wait to see your photos!

Joe Murphy serves as a photographer and writer with the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation. In this position, he is responsible for the photography assignments of the weekly Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman, the monthly Family Living, marketing photos as well as the website iowafarmbureau.com. He also writes news and feature stories, provides creative input, and publication pagination. Additionally, his work has been featured in  National Geographic Television, Time, New York Times, Atlanta Journal Constitution, United Press International, Associated Press, Liaison and the Chronicle of Higher Education.