Chuck Zimmerman is one of the most prolific and influential agriculture bloggers out there. He and his wife Cindy run several blogs and social media channels, including: World Dairy Diary, Agwired, Domestic Fuel and Precision Pays. They also produce the Zimmcast, a podcast about agricultural marketing. His presentation, entitled "Agricultural Communications in a New Media World" was designed to reassure farmers and producers that they can and should be involved in the online discussion.

Chuck started off by dispelling some common misconceptions about the internet and social media. For instance, the internet is not just for young people. The biggest increase in internet use since 2005 has been from people between 70 and 75 years of age. Furthermore, over 38% of rural Americans have broadband internet access and the majority of farms have at least one computer.

Chuck listed some useful online resources for ag industry folks that want to communicate online but aren't sure where to start.

• The Ag Chat Foundation at www.agchat.org has a lot of useful information for producers that want to connect online and become "Agvocates".
• Dairy Checkoff at www.dairycheckoff.com also has resources designed to help farmers connect with their community.

Chuck left the audience with a suggestion to just get started with one thing and not get overwhelmed. He recommended Twitter because it is so easy to get started. Just go to www.twitter.com.