Agronomy Advisory Board Minutes

October 2012 Meeting

Marketing of businesses to sell products, integrity (crops)
Feed prices, how to reduce demand for corn, cannot separate corn from other feed products (dairy and other livestock producers)
Perception of public about production agriculture, misinformation publicized, need for ag literacy; romanticism
of farming and lack of sense of reality
Entry into business – financial capital, availability of land base
People jumping into industry without background/education – reduces opportunities for others
Environmental considerations; organic vs. other
How to produce more with fewer resources? Is there a point where this stops?
Resistance to herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc. – getting much worse.
Labor – lack of qualified workers; immigration laws
Overall financial situation (dairy, hog); refinancing needed
Ag subsidies – perceptions
Farm safety and health

Information on quality of protein and relationship to agricultural use of resources; categories of protein
Educating consumers, tied to urban areas; partnering with other groups
Alvaro’s work – classes for workers
Education on business plans for those that are looking to start or buy a farm; cooperate with SDDA on business plans; agriculture is a business
Research – address misconceptions, resistance and other; also facilitate education based on our own and other research
Re-emphasize land-grant roots of SDSU
Education on feed resources and options, marketing
Teaching how to use technology
Address perceptions – providing risk management tools to be able to feed people

Marketing and productions – exports, value-added, finding niches (processing, non-GMO, cuts, non-traditional commodities)
Smaller operations in beef industry (< 50 head)
Experimentation – seeds, soil, climate differences to figure own cost/unit and maximize yield
Labor – we have room for more people

Publicize that individual producers need to do their own part in talking to people about agriculture; producers in past have not been challenged by it and don’t want to draw attention to themselves – industry and individual leadership
Help people to recognize there is more to running a farm business than the physical work
How to work together with other starting or small producers – share equipment, land, other resources
On-farm research
Marketing crops, developing marketing plans
Knowing Break-evens
CRP and pasture being broken up – consequences
Stewardship – long term perspective on land, water, production; work cooperatively with other USDA programs and producers on education
Virtual farm visits

Youth education programs
Integrating on-line information, social media with more traditional forms
Communication (family) resources
Continue to provide factual, cutting-edge info
Partner with all commodity and lobbyist and other governmental (county, zoning) and business groups – for research, promotional, and education
Attach faces to production agriculture to promote

SDSU should be the face of agriculture – promoting and informing based on factual information and research to everyone – producers and consumers; through partnering with SDDA, commodity orgs and others. Need to be recognized for it.
- Animal welfare
- Define agriculture