Preserving America & Helping Youth

Preserving America & Helping Youth. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

One of our favorite weekend pastimes is the country drive. We pick a direction and just start driving. It is good to get away from the city and remind ourselves that this country was built, well, in the country! And when you think "Rural America." Do you see a red barn? The Campbell's Soup Company is taking that image of the red barn and using it to promote the National FFA Organization and give back to those that contribute to their communities. John Faulkner, Director of Brand Management for the Campbell's Soup Company explains.

FAULKNER: If you think back in 1897 about half the folks in the country lived on the farm or we’re literally one generation removed from the farm. Today that’s not the case. May 2% of the public lives on a farm and most of us, our families moved to the cities a long time ago and people have really gotten disconnected from where their food comes from.

Last year they launched a program to help restore dilapidated, iconic family barns around the U.S.

FAULKNER: Our second year of our “Help Grow Your Soup” program and our partnership with the National FFA organization we’re really thrilled to kickoff our initiative this year. We’re looking at 10 barns across the country that we are asking consumers to vote this year online for their favorite barn that we will refurbish and we’ll actually refurbish 5 of those barns. So I would urge everybody to check out “Help Grow Your Soup” – see the stories that are showcased there and vote.

Unfortunately for those of us in the Pacific Northwest, all of the barns this year are located east of the Mississippi. But Faulker says the bottom line is how America’s farmers provide good ingredients for Campbell’s products.

FAULKNER: We talked to our consumers about how they felt about Campbell’s condensed soup, they were very familiar with it but they really didn’t get passed the can and passed the label and passed convenience and value that’s there of course to the ingredients, and we really want to get them thinking differently about – and thinking about the ingredients that go into our products and in particular our condensed soup.

For every vote this year for a barn project, Campbell’s will donate $1 to their new partner, FFA.

FAULKNER: We work with farmers across the country to grow terrific, high quality vegetables, raise the beef, etcetera and that’s what’s going into our product and the way we kind of unlock the thinking was to partner with the FFA and really talk about, hey, we’re in this together. It’s about the future of American agriculture, it’s about the future of a safe food supply, it’s about the future of having great ingredients at a reasonable price for consumers across the country

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.