#AgChatNZ

At last, thanks to our wee team of four,

AgChatNZ will begin

tomorrow night,

Wednesday 12th March

at 8pm

on the Twitter

following #agchatnz

and discussing

Brand New Zealand

 

 

I know, finally!

 

This twitter bug will lead the way

 

Sophie's handle is @sestanley1

Follow her....

 

Sophie was a Nuffield Scholar last year

and like me believes twitter is a brilliant forum

for farmers to connect with each other.

AgriHQ posted this interview with Sophie here

 

And Colin the tweeting farmer

will be spreading the word and

adding in a few of his own.

Colin is @NZcows

 

Next in our quartet of tweeting agvocates

is Shona Glentworth or as we know her

@implementnz

Shona wrote our first blog post and AgChatNZ topic

on Brand New Zealand here

on our website www.agchatnz.org.nz

 

 Then there's me,

I've been dreaming and pottering along

working slowly towards getting AgChatNZ up and going.

Thanks so Sophie, Colin and Shona for giving it all a nudge.

 

Join us on Wednesday at 8pm to chat about ag stuff in NuZild.



#AgriChatWorld

Last Thursday the 17th October was World Food Day and

to recognise the farmers

the various AgChats around the world got together

at the prompting and organising of AgChatUK's Jez

to hold the first AgriChatWorld twitter forum.

 

And it was busy.

There were 632 contributors

from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Holland, Kenya, Portugal and NZ.

The reach was 890,282 so there were lots of lurkers watching and reading.

There were 3,664 tweets and

8.44 million timeline deliveries.

That's a lot of people communicating across the world.

Connecting and being part of a worldwide farming community.

It's big.

 

And who was the media face of it all?

Who?

This tweeting monkey otherwise known as @NZcows

author of NZ Cows blog

co-colluder of AgChatNZ.

 

 

There were six simple questions that had us all,

both declaring our pride in our farming systems and

the future as we saw it and

a fair bit of eye rolling as the different countries rolled in with their points of pride.

 

For a brief on the conversation go to AgChatUK

 

It was pretty awesome connecting with so many people about farming around the world.

It was crazy frantic to watch the contributions and conversations taking place

but it had a wonderful energy and feeling of acceptance from all,

even when the anti-Badger cull nutters got involved.

 

There will be another......

 



2013

It's a new year, another year.

I like this concept that we leave behind 

all that has gone on last year

and start a fresh,

keeping that which we want.

Renewal is important,

keeping us hopeful and replenished.

Everyone I know seems really hopeful for 2013.

I, for one already have a good idea of what 

the first few months of 2013 hold

and it's all good and 

it's going to be hard work,

and it's going to be good.

Actually it's going to be great.

In less than two weeks

 I start 

Kellogg Rural Leaders course.

Excited much?  

Hell yeah!

20 young leaders working and living in the rural sector

building on our leadership skills and experiences

in a year long professional course

held at my favourite university,

Lincoln University.

Yeah just down the road.

Summer on campus is blissfully tranquil.

Look for lots of peaceful, beautiful, idyllic photos coming up.

I already know a few people on the course.

My two favourite ANZ Young Farmer Contest winners,

plus a couple of people I have been long keen to work with.

We start on the 16th of January for a ten day

residential course focusing on learning more about our industry,

about the existing industry leaders and their styles and achievements,

plus we firm up, and in my case finialise our research topic.

Guess what mine is?

Anyone? Anyone?

Farmers and social media; 

Communication, Connection and Communities

I know,

 totally left field, right?

Thanks, with much thanks to OneFarm 

who are kindly funding my project

and hopefully thanks to some commercial sponsors too.

The plan is to educate NZ farmers on how to use twitter

and set up the AgChatNZ Foundation

and, and, and heaps of things.

I love working in the rural sector!

People are incredibly generous and helpful.

I am blessed.

Kellogg Rural Leaders 2013 meet again in November 

to wrap up the course with a few days at Lincoln Uni,

then on to Wellington the seat of NZ's political power

and with the exception of Fonterra,

the rural industry too.  

Except for those companies whose HQs are based in places

like Feilding, Christchurch, Dunedin and of course Methven,

not to mention all those farms around the place.

2013 is going to rock!