Starting now I'll be doing a series of podcasts with the communications directors of farm organizations. I thought it would be interesting and hopefully entertaining to talk with the people who are helping communicate their organization's message to various audiences, which includes their own members. I hope they will share some of the methods they are employing to get the job done too.

So, I'm going to start with Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Media for the National Grain and Feed Association. Here is who they are.

The National Grain and Feed Association, founded in 1896, is a broad-based, non-profit trade association that represents and provides services for grain, feed and related commercial businesses.Its activities focus on enhancing the growth and economic performance of U.S. agriculture.

Sarah and I talked about how important digital and social media has become and how she sees NGFA using these tools more frequently to accomplish part of the organization's new strategic plan.

I hope you enjoy the program and thank you for listening!

In this week's program, Chuck talks with Chip Whalen, Commodity & Ingredient Hedging (CIH). The topic is uncertainty requiring flexibility. Think about how commodity prices are affected by weather, trade, exchange rates and more competition. There are more factors too.

So, how do farmers manage risk with the uncertainty we're seeing in the trade today? That's where Chip's expertise in the education and research area for CIH comes in handy. Farmers are becoming more and more sophisticated when it comes to working with new solutions to protect their prices and margins. So we talk about tools like using options instead of the cash market. With a volatile market is it possible to actually take advantage of it? Yes, it is possible and Chip will explain.

We hope you enjoy the program and thank you for listening!

Dr. Jay H. Lehr is senior fellow and science director of The Heartland Institute and Chuck's guest in this week's program.  They discuss the decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement and just how much science there is on climate change and its causes, especially as it relates to agriculture.