Women's Agricultural Network Blog

If you are at all like 98% of the farmers that I talk to, you are keenly interested in the subject of marketing! Meaning that you either love it or hate it but know that you want to learn more about it. But saying that you’d like to learn more about marketing is like saying that you’d like to learn a little about the economy (ok, enough on that topic!). Marketing is a huge subject area that covers everything you do from the time you harvest your product until the time your customer returns to you for a repeat order. Marketing covers topics like post-harvest care of your product; packaging and labeling, distribution, pricing, and post-sale customer care. Marketing is about your logo, your company image and your product line. So clearly there is a lot to learn about marketing…here are a few resources to get you going.
Agricultural Marketing Resource Center
Growing for Market

And if you’d like to check out a marketing blog maintained by Charlene Andersen, a marketing consultant from New Hampshire go to http://blog.kamigomarketing.com/

I don’t know what the weather is like where you are at this moment but where I am it is the perfect day to welcome the Autumn season — the sun is out, the sky is blue and the air is really clear, clean and cool. On these days I remember why Fall is one of my favorite seasons (I really like Spring too). Yesterday I found time to spend in the garden. Pulling out some of the plants that kept us fed all summer and tending those hardy plants that are still producing. I dug potatoes and the smell of turned earth is still hanging over the garden patch. I checked in on the winter squash and the chard and pulled a few carrots for lunches. Then a huge flock of geese flew over on their way to warmer places and, in the middle of all that peace and beauty, I felt a little sad. And that’s the bittersweetness of this season.

Beginning September 10, eXtension launches a new series of monthly webinars for small business owners, farmers, business coaches and mentors. Grab your calendar right now and mark off the 2nd Wednesday of every month from 2:00pm – 3:00pm Eastern Time.
Our topic for September 10, 2008 will be 10 Tools for Talking about Tough Issues in the Family Business. Conflict is a normal part of family business, especially with succession planning. A Virginia Tech study of 400 farms found that farm family businesses that could communicate effectively were 21% more profitable.
Elaine Froese, author of Planting the Seed of Hope, will lead this presentation designed for farmers, business owners, business coaches and mentors. She delivers tips that can be implemented immediately. She challenges family business owners to get “unstuck” and not accept the high anxiety and stress of poor decision making. Her tools are grounded in years of working with farm succession planning and coaching.
Froese and her husband farm in southwestern Manitoba and run a certified seed business. Elaine started encouraging farm families more than 20 years ago as a professional home economist. She has spent many hours with families at kitchen tables. Seeds of Encouragement is the name of her business as well as the name of her monthly column in Grainews, a Canadian farm publication that reaches 50,000 readers. As a columnist and speaker, Elaine’s practical and from-the-heart style have inspired many families to revitalize their relationships and farm businesses. Her Web site is http://www.elainefroese.com.
No pre-registration is required and there is no fee to participate. About 10 minutes prior to the start time simply go the Adobe Connect Pro meeting room at http://connect.extension.iastate.edu/ecop/. You will be presented with a login screen that has an “Enter as Guest” option. Enter your first name, last name and state, then click “Enter Room” to join the conference. To hear the audio of the workshop and participate in the Q&A portion of the workshop we will be using a built-in teleconferencing capability of Adobe’s Connect Pro conferencing software. Once you log into the meeting you will be presented with the option to enter your call-back number OR there will be a toll-free number for you to call. If you are calling from a telephone extension (i.e. a caller cannot dial your direct line) then you will need to call in. After entering your number you will be automatically called and joined into the audio portion of the Web conference on your phone.