During the 2019 Commodity Classic held this past week in Orlando, our own Carson Horn caught up with Pam Snelson, a soybean producer from Wann, Okla. and member of the American Soybean Association Board since 2015. Snelson shared her thoughts and perspectives on the current state of the soybean business as an industry leader experiencing the same hardships as other producers across the country faced with one of the toughest economic periods in the ag sector since the 1980s.

Like the average American farmer, one issue that is of particular concern to Snelson currently, is the prospect of putting ongoing trade tensions with prominent global trade partners to rest and alleviating the resulting pressure of retaliatory tariffs that have been intensely harmful to the US soy industry. While times are difficult, she says she is fully confident that President Trump and his administration is working in the best interest of America's greater economy and toward that goal of ending the trade war with China.

In the meantime, she says the ASA is working with legislators and governmental trade agencies to further advance the commercial interests of US soy producers. For instance, Snelson will be joining the Foreign Ag Service on a trade mission to Taiwan where she hopes to foster a trade relationship between Taiwan stakeholders and the US soy industry. Snelson says this represents just one of the many markets worldwide the ASA is working to break into for the US soy industry.

You can learn more about Snelson, her operation and her planned trip to Taiwan - plus hear her speak on the resiliency of US soy producers being demonstrated in these tough economic times, by clicking or tapping here.

Did you know that today, both the workforce and consumer marketplace consists of five different age demographics. And each one is quite a bit different, with its own set of values, preferences and motivations. As you can imagine, this makes marketing a product like bread and baked goods very difficult because when you think about it - to truly impact the purchasing decisions of the entire market you must customize your message to appeal to each individual generation that is looking for the same things in different ways. For many of us in the ag industry who are used to time-tested marketing methods delivered through traditional media, this notion may leave us scratching our heads about how to tackle such a task.

Emily Bowers, Senior Director of Education & Operations for BEMA, serves the baking industry as a subject matter expert on talent management and continuing professional education. She recently talked to wheat industry stakeholders at an event hosted by Oklahoma Genetics, Inc. and shared recent research that explains the challenges of today's multigenerational marketplace and the strategies the ag industry can employ to overcome them.

The takeaway of that discussion, according to her, is simply to keep an open mind and understand that to reach today's consumer you are going to have to get on their level and meet them where they are - social and new media. Younger consumers are no longer plugged into TV, magazines and newspapers. Instead they opt to get their news, information and entertainment from platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Hulu. This continues to be regarded as new territory for most of agriculture, but Bowers insists that it is increasingly imperative to utilize the same tactics that are being used against us by food activists who spread false information. That segment has been so successful in spreading their message because they adopted this technology and messaging method early on. Bowers says it is time the ag industry caught up.

You can hear Bowers and I speak more in depth about how to effectively reach today's younger consumers, by clicking over to our website.