KARTA Meeting Review
Last week, as you know by now if you read this blog or follow me on Twitter, I attended the KARTA meeting. KARTA (Link Here) stands for Kansas Ag Research Technology Association.
KARTA (originally KARA) was organized in May 2000 by a group of innovative Kansas producers, university researchers, and industry members who shared a common desire to learn more about production agriculture and continue to be a part of the leading technological and informational changes taking place on today’s farms
This year was the fifteenth annual conference. It was an applied workshop consolidating information about new and old technologies with a focus on supporting scientifically valid on-farm research efforts and increasing overall farm business profitability.
Topics included precision ag, social media, economics of travel logistics between fields and farms, on farm research, and crop nutrition as well as various presentations by industries on their new, current or trending technologies.
The Thursday night after dinner topic covered land rents and land values. This particular discussion was led by Dr. Terry Kastens & Dr. Kevin Dhuyvetter. I would call it the “Bear Pit” of KARTA. It was a fantastic discussion involving any and all attendees of the meeting. The topic was batted back and forth and ripped apart…and that was just the three hours or so that I stayed for it! Very good discussion…….
While the evening session or Bear Pit was my favorite part of the meeting, I must say that I give the entire meeting a “10″ as far as meetings go. It was very well organized, very well attended by producers and industry. It was an open exchange of information. Information was CURRENT, RELEVANT, FORWARD LOOKING and it was HONEST. It was everything that an agriculture producer meeting should be.
I think so highly of the meeting that I believe we need something like it here in Southern Illinois!
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know how much I hate the usual “rubber chicken and roast beef” agriculture meeting circuit here in Illinois. Well, this wasn’t a rubber chicken meeting by a long shot………in my opinion it very closely resembled, for the production and precision side, what Farm Futures Management Summit is for the economic and business side.
I left there with that good feeling, that positive feeling of knowing that I had been rubbing shoulders with the progressive life long learners of agriculture. When that happens you know you have been to a good meeting……….yes their world is different than mine here in southern Illinois, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the mindset I look for. The mindset of being proactive vs reactive.
KARTA is a great proactive meeting………I highly suggest you attend the 16th meeting if at all possible.
Kelly, on behalf of KARTA, thanks for the kind words and overall kudo’s. It is the members and conference attendees that make this conference work year in and year out and the board largely just facilitates their desires. I want to express our sincere thanks and praise to you for two excellent presentations on “social media in ag” and on “conducting on-farm research”. I knew your on-farm research presentation would fly in this group but could not have predicted how influential your social media in ag presentation would turn out. We have farm business facebook accounts popping up and big numbers hopping on twitter for the first time. Even the KARTA board has taken your comments to heart and are working towards enhancing our social media presence as a means to target those folks whom ultimately will become the “next generation” for this group, as well as to do a more effective job of communicating information throughout the year. Transition planning is just as important for organizations as it is for farms and sometimes the path towards this goal isn’t clear. Your talk cleared a few trees for us and we greatly appreciate it.
The idea of applying science and technology to enhance ag profitability is a universal goal (KARTA just “happens” to be located in Kansas) and we always welcome like minded folks to come out to our events. Hopefully our utilization of modern communication mediums will allow more folks to be aware of our existence better understand what we are about. There are NO deities in our group as it is only through the “shaking of one’s faith” (regardless of the letters behind your name or the number of calendar years you’ve crossed off) that the best learning takes place. I’m happy to see a desire to establish a similar organization/event in your area and please don’t hesitate to call upon any of us if you think we can assist in any way.
I’m sure last week will be just the start of a long relationship with you Kelly and hope to see you continue to operate with fire and passion. Thanks again for helping our group taken yet another technological step towards the future and I look forward to interacting with you in the future.
Dietrich Kastens
KARTA member