Communications, Marketing, and Public Relations
Certified Swine Sample Collector Training Article
Minnesota Pork Internship
This article described an important training that farmers can partake in to teach and certify them to take foreign animal disease (FAD) samples from their pigs if an FAD outbreak were to happen in the U.S. For this article, I spoke with Mike King, Director of Science Communications at the National Pork Board (NPB), and Dr. Pam Zaabel, DVM and Director of Swine Health at NPB. I also utilized informational tools that had been published by NPB and information from the training website. This article was published in the July/August 2022 edition of the MN Pork Checkoff Report which is a by-monthly newsletter that is sent to all MN Pork Producers.
This piece shows how I used my resources and connections at my summer internship to share useful information about a training that could be an important for pork producers when preparing for an FAD outbreak. Many agriculture organizations, including MN Pork, have been working with the USDA and other governmental groups to help create FAD preparedness tools for producers to use so that they aren’t completely blindsided if this disease comes to the U.S. and this program is one of them. This was an important project because it informed producers of the training, its importance, and described how they can complete the training if they so choose.
From this article, I learned that as a communicator it’s important to be ahead of the game. This training program is all about preparedness. If this article had been published in 6 months and an outbreak had already occurred, it would have been too late. The article would have had no use. Pieces like this article must be completed quick, but with a lot of thought. I also learned that you need to make sure you have all the facts correct and ensure that it’s laid out in a way that will be easily understood by readers with varying knowledge levels.
Agronomy Videos
CHS, Inc. Internship
During my summer internship with CHS, Inc., I worked with agronomists from CHS Herman and CHS Prairie Lakes to create informational videos about products, practices, and services that these business units provided and that were relevant to the time of year. This is one of the 30 videos I created that summer. The production of each video involved working with the agronomists to determine a topic, shooting the footage, editing and formatting the content using Adobe Premiere Pro, and post it to the respective business' website, YouTube, and Facebook. I would also include the videos in bi-weekly digital newsletters that were sent to employees, customers, and other business patrons.
These videos helped inform farmers about the products, practices, and services that would assist them in producing healthy and prosperous crops. I worked with the agronomists to make sure their topics were relevant and that the content they were including in their video was easy to understand.
I learned that it is important to be honest with your constituents and show them all the facts. Many of the videos displayed various options to solve a problem, like how to get rid of a pest, as there often isn’t one solution that is perfect for everyone. I also learned that it’s important to build trust with your constituents and the best way we found to do that was by showing real results of the product or service. We, the agronomist and I, would often show fields that had already utilized that product or service and we’d make sure that the result was easy to see or easy to understand why it worked. One of the biggest things I learned from this project was how to be a persistent communicator without being overbearing. Since I had many videos to produce, I had to keep to my schedule diligently which meant keeping the agronomists on track too. I had to send many emails to remind them about when they need to have their topic chosen and when I would be coming to record the video with them. Many of them tried to avoid the project as they were afraid of being in front of camera, so I had to help them be comfortable with the process by reminding them that they were very knowledgeable about their topic which helped their confidence grow.