Many celebrations highlighting agriculture’s contributions are happening for National Ag Week. I’ll be first in line celebrating agriculture and  think National Ag Day is a great tribute.  Yet I have to wonder…does any of this really matter to those outside of our business?

There’s a lot of lip service paid to going beyond the choir, yet I see few individuals exerting the effort to make this a bigger conversation with diverse perspectives. Many times farmers and ranchers question me about whether we’re preaching to the converted.  I always ask them who they are preaching to, in an effort to illustrate personal responsibility. The only way “we” (big picture agriculture) will go beyond the choir is if “you” (the individual) take the risk in connecting with people different than you.

Is this uncomfortable? Probably, unless you’re not really stretching yourself. Is it annoying to have to take the time? Likely, but your future depends on it.  Can it be more difficult to work with people than tending to your land and animals? We all know that answer to that one! Do you question whether you can have an impact? Most do; be patient and know there is no one better to be talking about food, fiber, feed and fuel. And people are talking about what you do, whether your voice is in the conversation or not.

If you truly want to celebrate National Ag Week, find five people completely outside of agriculture. Ask what their interests are. Don’t launch an agricultural avalanche – listen to what they have to say.  Agriculture may be your lifeblood, but it’s not who you are. Authentic connections start on a human level – not on the farm. Many folks in my workshops struggle with the concept of connecting on common values, but it’s so critical if we want to reach people’s hearts. Rest assured, if we don’t reach people’s hearts – we will never earn the right to their ears.

Are you able to put yourself in different shoes?

For example: I’m a working mom doing the same juggling act as many women. That allows me immediately to relate to other women through one of the many “balls” we have up in the air (or which one we dropped).  We talk kids, cooking or shopping – not the intricacies of how their food is produced. While I love fitting dairy cattle, I talk hair and share pictures of hot shoes instead of my Holsteins.  Our barn is green and white as a tribute to Michigan State University, which means I talk sports (especially Spartan basketball) with guys – instead of what’s inside of our barn.

Image attributed to Through the Lens of a Farm Girl

Relate to people on their playing field – not your corn field. We’re all humans, we all have values. If you want to go beyond the choir, find people radically different than you and see if you can forge a connection. Ask some questions, listen to their responses and have a conversation around mutual interests – preferably without any mention of your vocation for the first few minutes.  Once you’ve established a connection on values, you might be surprised at people’s curiosity about your work.

I’m proud to work in agriculture; the passion to help our business connect drives me to expect more than a one week celebration. More from people like you. More reaching out. And certainly more heart connections.  How are you going to do that to make ag week more meaningful?

~ guest post by Jennifer Heim, Structural Engineer & Farm Wife

A couple of weeks ago I happened into an interesting twitter conversation with MPK regarding consumer trust in farming methods.  Recent studies have shown that consumers trust farmers, but not farming. The general agvocate crowd thought maybe lack of understanding meant mistrust, but as a structural engineer almost no one I know (including my farmer husband) actually understands what I do.  However, I also don’t know anyone who hesitates before walking into a building or driving over a bridge.

So the question is – why?  Why do people question the way that farmers grow their food but not the way the engineers design their buildings or other infrastructure? Read More »

Few are intuitive leaders, moving through life with the masses following them. Most of us have to learn leadership. It’s always an interesting journey in my work with agricultural advocates to watch them go from succeeding individually to learning to bring others along in the “agvocacy” journey. More than once I’ve had the conversation “This no longer about you, but the bigger picture. Your work is to now create more advocates like you.”

Only the best become true leaders. Many get distracted by ego, politics and the latest bright shiny object. When I see leaders rising through the ranks, I start watching to see if they’ll be able to make the jump from “me” to “we.” I have the great fortune as a professional speaker to witness many of these journeys; when people make the jump to the “we” of agriculture, it is my single greatest motivator.

Two ladies who farm in Oregon and North Dakota, respectively, are great examples of this. Both have reached well beyond the “me” sphere and shaped the work of others giving voice to agriculture. I’ve known both of them for a few years and have watched their journey; it’s inspiring.

Marie Bowers is a spark plug. The woman makes things happen and I’m fairly certain she won’t take no for an answer. She didn’t think Oregon had enough of agriculture & natural resources people as a part of social media, so she created a workshop that pulled together 20+ natural resource organizations to learn social media and corralled others to help her. I had the chance to work with the group and was very excited about the level of discussion we had; there is no doubt that Marie laid miles of road to bringing others into the agvocacy arena. She does a great job herself; check out her Oregon Green blog.

When I first met Marie at a American Agri-Women workshop hosted by Syngenta, I was pretty certain she thought I was a little over the top. Now I know her real story; it’s so fun to watch her journey. She’s a new board member of the AgChat Foundation, chairs the weekly AgChat/FoodChat committee and will be the President for Oregon Women for Agriculture next year.  Yet her titles have nothing to do with leadership; it’s all about her heart and ability to bring others to the cause.  I do have to warn you though, she knows how to shoot a gun and isn’t afraid to use it.

Sarah Bedgar Wilson always has a smile on her face and a funny story to tell. I first met her in the Young Dairy Leaders Institute, where her skills stood out and she always had a million questions about the advocacy assignment. She’s now on her own mission as a speaker, a mom of three children under the age of five, a farm partner and in charge of the North Dakota Farm Bureau Young Farmers & Ranchers program.  I don’t know how she does it all, but after being in North Dakota – I know she does – and with great accolades from others.

Sarah leads people with her heart for the good of agriculture.  She and her husband have had some amazing challenges on their farm, but she’s never let that diminish her concern for the bigger picture of getting the story out. She works constantly to reach out and develop human connections, whether through her blog, work, teaching children or just being Sarah. The smile is always there to brighten people’s day, which certainly helps humanize the world of farming.

The impact that both of these women are having on others as leaders makes it a privilege to work with them – and an honor to have them as friends. More importantly, Sarah and Marie are a case study of what happens when agriculturists move from “me” to “we.”  Are you taking steps in that direction to bring others to the cause?

Sidenote: More on leadership in agriculture and food is available here – you can subscribe for 2x monthly updates.

Apparently I’m supposed to write about customer service. The last month has involved hours of  conversations and a lot of headaches related to how businesses treat their customers. I was even frustrated enough at one point to inform our daughter that if she ever owned a business, she’d better deliver on what she promised. Funny enough, she knows what service is at a young age; she still talks about a restaurant that kept us waiting an hour for lunch a year ago. All of this makes me ask if  I serve my clients with class – and does agriculture think about our customers?

Before we go there, let my try to succinctly explain a few of the issues. The most fun one is the tractor I bought for my husband.  He had spent hundreds of hours researching what we needed, so I called the dealer and explained if they could find one to be delivered in two weeks that they’d have the sale. Kyle at Bane Farm Equipment was great; he responded immediately, treated me with respect and even translated some terms to my language (I had told him I was a farm girl but not mechanical, so we’d need to talk thing-a-boppers). The deal was finalized as I was driving to the airport, they delivered a nicely washed tractor to our neighbor and I drove it across our field as a huge Christmas surprise. We feel great every time we look at it in our barn.

Contrast that with our Direct TV experience. We only purchased satellite a few years ago, so we were excited to watch Spartan basketball. Our excitement diminished whenever we had to call them, but the final straw came when we returned home to a failed receiver after being gone a week. It deleted several recordings that we were looking forward to, such as Michigan State’s victory over IU. We don’t watch much TV, so it was very disappointing to have our favorites gone. Then they wanted $20 to ship their equipment and refused to guarantee delivery for a party we were having two days later. Their last chance came when I was trying to explain customer perspective to a manager and told him customers don’t really want to spend 30 minutes arguing with their satellite provider about failed equipment late at night after they’ve been in five airports in 36 hours. His response was “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  We’re no longer customers. If a business can’t understand how valuable their customer’s time is, they fail.

Another electronics saga was the TV system we bought before I was laid up with knee surgery in the fall. We’ve never had much of TV, but we invested in a HD system with a GoogleTV box, along with a sound bar. First aggravation was the cable  that the salesman told us was necessary. It didn’t attach at the right angle, so the the sound bar won’t sit on a shelf . But the kicker was the remotes. Our HH Gregg salesman told us they’d all program together. I spent hours (and a few choice words) trying to get the sound bar programmed with the TV remote. We finally called  HH Gregg tech support last Sunday and they weren’t too keen to help us over the phone, but said they’d program the remotes if we brought them in. When I took them to the store (45 minutes away), no one had a clue. After getting shuffled around, I found a service person who would look at them. He picked up the two remotes and said there was no option they’d work together because of incompatible systems.

You can imagine my frustration level at that point with over-promise and under-delivery! The tech service person suggested I go back to the store and talk to a manager.  I was expecting the worst, but was pleasantly surprised that the manager’s first response was  an authentic “I understand your frustration.” He made it apparent immediately that he was going to work to help us. And he tried hard to find a solution that was compatible with our needs and set-up. Unfortunately, the new speakers didn’t work, but at least we don’t have a bad feeling every time we look at the TV. He made sure he personally connected so we knew we have someone to turn to.  He listened. He responded. He cared enough to try to fix a problem.

Does agriculture do that when people ask questions? I’m not sure I can say we do enough. Most of society would say time is their most precious commodity. Are we doing enough to provide quick and easy info about food and farming so we’re respecting people’s time? I’d suggest we be more proactive than my experience with GE, where I had to tweet complaining about their lack of service to get customer service. Are you managing concerns of customers quickly and before they have a significant issue? By the way, if you farm, the people who are ultimately consuming products ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS.  Do they know they can turn to you for answers – even if you don’t have the perfect solution?

~guest post by MRS

One morning HandyMan called me from work and asked me how my day was going. In the middle of changing a diaper, I propped the phone between my ear and shoulder and told him that so far that morning I was 3 for 3. Confused he asked me what I meant and I replied that I had changed 3 diapers so far that morning and all of them had been poopy, thus 3 for 3. Such is the glamorous life of a stay at home mom. Read More »