We recently returned from 2 big events with our cattle, the Tulsa State Fair and the Ozarks Fall FarmFest which is held in Springfield, Mo. We took 3 of our show bulls and 2 heifers for my niece to the Tulsa State Fair and came home with some nice banners from the open show. A few days after we were home from Tulsa, we headed in to FarmFest, which for us, is just a place to showcase our herd. We really do not have anything we are trying to sell right now, but of course everything is for sale, at a price.
This issue focuses on Ag Marketing and for a lot of producers, the thought of marketing brings up images of big, full-page ads in different publications and having to put yourself out there in front of people. But marketing can be anything from those big ads all the way down to the simplest business card. My husband and I do not have a lot of numbers when it comes to cattle, but we know a lot of people that do have the numbers.
For us, marketing means making ourselves approachable and informative. We make sure when we have our cattle at a bigger event, that our stall is neat and orderly, our cattle are clean and have stall signs above them which provide their name and birthdates. We have a table out with information about our breed of cattle, business cards and of course some candy! In the fall I make sure we are taking pumpkins and mums along with us just to give an extra touch of decoration. We have a few other things we would like to get done to help bring exposure to our breed and cattle, but it is always a work in progress.
One of the biggest things we like to do is engage with the public. It is not always other cattle producers and people in Ag that we engage with, most times it is with people that have no knowledge of agriculture. There are a lot of folks out there that think agriculture is the enemy, whether it is bad for the environment or animal cruelty and it is our responsibility to educate the public on what we do and why. Not everyone is comfortable with this type of engagement, but for my husband and I, it is something we like to focus on.
We have a pretty good-sized bull that we are showing this year and he brings a lot of attention to our stall. When we set up at a show, we like to make sure he is on the end of our display and in a place that many people can see him. He is a big baby and loves all the attention, so he is the perfect one to help educate the public on animal agriculture. No matter if he is laying down or standing up, people will always stop to look at him. Of course, the question most frequently asked is “what does he weigh?” and we follow that up with his weight and then ask them if they would like to pet him. Very rarely do we get a ‘no’ answer to that question, and it is usually a shock that they are going to get the chance to pet this big guy.
This leads to more questions about his name, his breed, how old he is, does he bite, why does he have a nose ring, what does he eats, etc. For those of us in agriculture, these are very basic questions that we would never get a second thought to asking anyone with livestock, but to the uneducated public, they are very important questions.
Debbie Elder is a native of Ottawa County, Okla. and lives on her farm in Webster County, Mo. To contact Debbie, call 1-866-532-1960 or by email at [email protected].
