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@JackPayneIFAS

It’s often better to retain customers than to find new ones. It’s easier, and it gives you time to better understand what your customers need.

Florida agriculture doesn’t have a bigger international customer than Canada. It buys more from Florida farms than does any other nation by far.

The University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences advancement team recognized this relationship in proposing that the annual UF/IFAS-Farm Bureau reception in Washington, D.C., be held at the Embassy of Canada. Florida Farm Bureau leaders recognized it, too, and quickly agreed on the venue.

So many people registered for last month’s Global Partners Reception that we had to work with event planners to move to a bigger function room. The beautiful view and the proximity to the Capitol made it a great location.

U.S. Reps. Ted Yoho and Greg Steube made appearances at the reception. Canada’s ambassador to the United States, David MacNaughton, addressed the group. The Canadian consul general in Miami, Susan Harper, joined us as well, and we hope to have her up to campus in Gainesville soon.

We talk a lot about the breadth of the commodities in Florida agriculture, with somewhere around 300 different crops produced by Farm Bureau members. What we don’t as often highlight is the breadth of the geography of the markets for Florida produce. This reception celebrated the reach of Florida agriculture.

With all the challenges facing Florida farmers, from hurricanes to HLB, the reception was an occasion to celebrate an export market as strong as that to our north. UF/IFAS science helps Florida farmers overcome those challenges, and there’s strong demand for their products in places like Ottawa.

Florida and Canada differ on a few details of what fair trade looks like, but we agree on the big picture of how mutually beneficial trade is. Canada imports $747 million worth of Florida farm products annually, while the most recent yearly statistics indicate Florida imported $663 million in goods from Canadian farms.

Ambassador MacNaughton mentioned another important role Canada plays in Florida agriculture. Canada’s cooler, dryer summers make it a great place to start strawberry plants. Of the approximately 180 million strawberry transplants sent to Florida each year, roughly a third come from Canada.

UF/IFAS creates the varieties, and Florida farmers grow them, but our northern neighbor is essential to filling the orders for Florida farmers to fill their fields each year.

The ambassador’s bigger message was an appreciation for our strong trade relationship. Diplomats and trade officials will work out the complex rules of that trade relationship.

UF/IFAS and the Farm Bureau will work on the benefits of that trade relationship – safe, nutritious, abundant food that retains customers in Canada and Florida.

Jack Payne is the University of Florida’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources and leader of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

It was one of those Publisher’s Clearing House winner’s moments. When Libbie Johnson got a visit from Florida Farm Bureau President John Hoblick to inform her she was a winner, she shouted, “Shut up!” in disbelief.

John knew in advance that the force of Libbie’s personality is stronger than her will to contain it. So there was no telling what she might do when he told the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences ag agent that she is the Florida Farm Bureau Extension Professional of the Year.

Escambia County Farm Bureau President Jimmy Cunningham nominated Libbie and cited her personality when asked what sets her apart from other agents. She uses direct language and colorful descriptions (she once said of another agent, “She could’ve tamed the West on her own and looked good doing it!”). She addresses people as “Brother” and “Friend.”

Of course, she does more than talk. Jimmy’s nomination has a long list of Farm Bureau activities that were made possible or better because of Libbie’s participation.

Libbie doesn’t have clients, she has friends. Early this year, she wrecked Sassy, her 14-year-old Toyota Tacoma that had logged plenty of its 330,000 miles visiting farms. Her first call was to Jimmy to come to get her. Then she called Farm Bureau Insurance, and they helped put her in another Tacoma.

For years, Libbie and Jimmy have been taking the story of local farmers to the community. Their Peanut Butter Challenge to collect jars for food pantries is a story about local peanut producers. Local Farm Bureau members supply Libbie with the five melons she signs with a Sharpie and presents annually to each county commissioner to tell the story of ag constituents.

Libbie doesn’t just want people to know about farms. She wants people to love them.

For Libbie and Jimmy, it’s important to have a young audience. Libbie wants kids to grow up to be leaders – leaders who appreciate what their constituents do to put food on tables. She’s not particular about the path the kids take to become leaders. She works just as hard to help with the Farm Bureau’s FFA events as she does to support Extension 4-H programs.

She’s been instrumental in establishing and maintaining the EscaRosa Young Farmers and Ranchers. That’s the under-35 set, and we all know it’s a crucial demographic to replenish a sector where the average age is in the upper 50s.

There’s another group of young people to whom Libbie tells the story of agriculture – young Extension agents. She wants to see more of them last the 15 years in a community that she has accrued in Escambia. Lesson one for rookie agents, she says, is to connect with your Farm Bureau board.

Farm Bureau leaders took her under their wing when she was new. They did it with grants for her programming. More importantly, they did it by including her in Farm Bureau events and projects. That helped form a bond that has attuned her to the needs of growers.

Libbie’s advice to young agents is sage. I hope our early career Extension faculty will take her up on it. In fact, Extension Dean Nick Place and I would like nothing better than to keep more of our agents, especially if they earn the Farm Bureau support that she has.

We recommend agents do as Libbie says – within reason. You probably should be sure as Libbie was that the answer will be yes if you’re calling a Farm Bureau leader for a ride if you wreck. And you better make sure it’s a sarcastic “Shut up!” if you’re talking to the state Farm Bureau president.

Jack Payne is the University of Florida’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources and leader of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

[email protected]
@JackPayneIFAS

Twenty years ago, the Florida Automated Weather Network launched on the premise that weather information from the airport isn’t enough for those in distant rural areas whose livelihoods depend on dew points and wind speed.

University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension has long recognized that perhaps no one relies on this information more than farmers do. So UF/IFAS Extension brought weather stations closer to the farm.

Today, Extension has 42 weather stations on public lands in rural areas to take the temperature of your region.

Then, Extension brought the weather stations right onto your farms. In the past five years, Extension has installed 200 weather stations on private farms, ranches and groves. That means we can give you readings on rainfall in your neighborhood.

For example, there’s one on the Florida Strawberry Growers Association farm in Dover, which serves as a research and demonstration farm for UF/IFAS strawberry scientists.

We don’t do this alone. In addition to station hosts such as the FSGA, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the state’s water management districts partner with us.

The Farm Bureau has been a valued past financial supporter and continues to testify to FAWN’s importance when it’s time to renew state funding. And Farm Bureau members and leaders such as Kenneth Parker graciously make space available on their land to host stations.

We’re looking ahead to the prospect of delivering data so local that you can consider your farm its own microclimate. UF/IFAS forecasts that someday your smartphone will essentially give you a weather map of the row you’re working.

The technological challenge is how to harness the growing mountain of data. FAWN measures dozens of weather indicators every 15 minutes 24/7. We’ll need to combine the right pieces of that data with information from other sources such as the National Weather Service to make FAWN even more useful.

Fortunately, that’s just what UF/IFAS research and Extension do. We deliver discovery to you in usable form. Kati Migliaccio, the new chair of the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, uses FAWN data to drive the phone apps she developed to help producers of avocados, citrus, cotton, strawberries and turf decide when and how much to irrigate.

Before a forecasted freeze, citrus agent Chris Oswalt makes the rounds collecting leaves from groves and feeding the information into FAWN to help growers make freeze protection decisions. Natalia Peres and Clyde Fraisse use FAWN temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, wind speed, and solar radiation data to estimate the risk of strawberry disease and to inform growers on the need to spray fungicide for protecting their crops.

The information can be just as valuable after the fact. We had a spike in FAWN use after Hurricane Irma as producers sought to document for relief agencies just what had hit their crops those fateful few days last September.

We’re in hurricane season again, when everyone, not just farmers, pays a little more attention to the weather. FAWN pays attention all year. Individual agents occasionally go on vacation, but Extension never does.

The future of FAWN includes other parts of UF, not just IFAS, gleaning useful grower data. For example, faculty with the UF College of Law is talking with FAWN director Rick Lusher about how you can use FAWN data to determine how to limit your employees’ vulnerability to heat stress.

Extension brings UF to you. Usually, it ’s IFAS that has your solutions, but Extension finds what you need among UF’s 16 colleges and thousands of faculty members.

The spread of UF/IFAS FAWN stations means you can

carry us around with you in your hip pocket. Extension meets you where you are. If you’re like most people, that’s increasingly in your smartphone. It’s part of our 24/7 commitment to production agriculture.

Jack Payne is the University of Florida’s senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources and leader of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.