Marketing Ag

 If you want to grow a business, one of the first concerns you might have is marketing. You gotta’ let people know what you’re offering and let them know why they need to have it. Same thing with ag. I’m David Sparks and I’ll be back in a minute to explain. When you’re trying to sell a product or service, marketing and sales are two extremely important components. You try to establish with people a description of and the benefits obtained with your product.

 As a consumer of food, which we all are, it is probably in our interest to see to it that the food chain associated with modern day living is maintained. And maintaining that food chain requires farmers and ranchers who are disappearing at an alarming rate due to attrition…there are not many kids who want to take up agriculture. Shane Stephenson is an ag teacher in the Meridian School district: “Essentially, there’s more careers in ag than most people realize. What we need to look at to get the kids in those careers is marketing. Kids gotta know what it is. As society has changed, as people have become more inundated with technology, they’re removed from actual production, I don’t think our young people quite realize where they can fit into it.”

 Not surprisingly, the way to market…the way to point out where they can fit into it, is via the classroom.