This past week, I had the
opportunity to travel down to Kansas City, Missouri, to compete in my first NAMA
competition. NAMA stands for the National Agri-Marketing Association and our
team competed against 30 other collegiate teams.This competition consists of finding a new agricultural product that
just hit the market or is about to and developing a marketing plan for that
product. You are scored on how well you execute your plan, the strategies used
to promote your plan, and how effective your plan would be with the intended
target market.
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| Iowa State Cyclone Marketing Team |
This year the Cyclone Marketing Team brought the product BackGROUND Check to the competition. BackGROUND Check
is a map-based valuation tool. This mobile-friendly
website service draws on public data
and allows the farmer to customize the report by adding in specific crop
production budgets to estimate farmland values and cash flow projections
on a field-by-field basis. Basically, this tool is helping farmers look at a
specific piece of land to see if they are getting a positive ROI.
Trends of the Future
There were many new products at this
competition and definitely some unique ones, but they were all based on
something buzzing in the agriculture sector. These different trends grabbed my
attention, not only by seeing how these new products are affected by the trends,
but also how they affect the future of agriculture.
Key topics included:
Healthy Food Market
included topics from organic growth to sustainable shopping to overcoming
healthy eating barriers. Consumers are looking for a healthy option that is relatively
affordable, convenient to make, locally grown, and environmentally minded. A
unique example came from a group that featured crickets as a protein source in
a brownie mix.
Water is
vital and its availability can’t keep up with the demands of the world
population. Products designed to increase clean water sources will be on the
rise for years to come.
Farmers are well aware of the
steady decrease in commodity prices. This trend has a huge impact on the
food we grow and eat—especially here in the heartland. With the competition
increasing, farmers are looking for new ways to reevaluate farming
operations—to make sure they can cut out the unnecessary cost to insure a
positive income.
And lastly, a big trend
focuses on ways to use surplus commodities to reduce waste. No one likes
to let a resource go unused. Finding innovative ways to turn surplus into valuable
products is a hot trend for the agriculture industry and investment prospects. For
example, a North Dakota team promoted Manic Energy, a runner’s energy-boosting
product made from surplus maple syrup.
The agriculture industry is always
affected by new trends and constantly changing to diversify the market. I
learned a lesson last week that really made me stop and think for a second. It
was when one of the chairmen of the NAMA competition gave a speech at
orientation. He was talking to us about when he was in our shoes and competing
in this same event. He said that the product he presented back in the 80s was
ethanol. He mentioned that he never would
have thought ethanol would be where it is today.
This is where I had my moment
of realization. The work that we as young adults put in today has an impact on
the way we will view the world tomorrow. Our thoughts today lead to the
innovations of tomorrow, but it is the generation of today that will lead us to
the future of agriculture. And in the end that is the most important trend of
all.
by Hannah Pagel
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