By ALAN KNIGHT, aknight@nyfb.org

A recent survey says at least 25 percent of N.Y. Farm Bureau members join Farm Bureau mostly because they want to support Farm Bureau’s efforts to educate the public about agriculture.

If you are one of those frustrated farmers who thinks the public “just doesn’t get it” when it comes to understanding agriculture, take heart. There may be more going on than you realize.

Take a look at Schoharie County Farm Bureau. When is the last time you heard of a county Farm Bureau hiring an advertising consultant? That is exactly what Schoharie County Farm Bureau has been doing for about ten years, says Winnie Nelson, president of the county Farm Bureau. Kurt Pelton, who has also done award-winning advertising work for the Pride of New York promotional program, was hired in 1996 by the Schoharie Valley Association, a regional promotion organization, and then, later, by Schoharie County Farm Bureau to raise public awareness about Schoharie County agriculture.

One of Pelton’s first projects for agriculture was his “Public Citizen Number One” advertisements, says Richard Ball, a county Farm Bureau member and owner of The Carrot Barn, a popular retail farm store. “We got a tremendous amount of positive feedback from those advertisements,” he says.

Public Citizen Number One was just one of a set of advertisements that each showcased a segment of Schoharie County agriculture. “Our goal was to keep agriculture in the forefront of people’s thinking, whether they were just going about their daily lives or as a public official about to vote on an important matter affecting agriculture,” says Ball.

“The Schoharie County School of Country Wisdom” was another Schoharie County farm community creation, says Pelton, done on behalf of the local and very rural-thinking Chamber of Commerce. The school—promoted on the far-reaching Albany-based public radio station and through tourist-information racks—is a way for people to buy-into the rural lifestyle and rural values of Schoharie County. Pelton’s professional services were very cost effective, says Ball. “This kind of advertising and promotion of agriculture is an important thing,” we decided. This is what we should be doing with our county Farm Bureau treasury.”