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And the Grand Prize winner is...
Robert Bedford appeared stunned as he made his way through
the crowd to the podium after hearing his name over the
public address system. He knew his entry was worthy; it
had already won an earlier award in the contest. But this
was the big one — the Grand Prize, a year’s free
use of a New Holland TG tractor — and he needed time
to let it all soak in.
The “Farmer Idea Exchange” contest, initiated
in 1988, is sponsored by the American Farm Bureau Federation
(AFBF) in cooperation with New Holland. It is designed to
encourage resourceful farmers to share their ideas with
others across the nation. Each year the Grand Prize winner
is announced at the AFBF annual meeting in January. This
year it was in Tampa, Florida and Bedford was happy he made
the trip.
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As the first place winner in the 2002 “Farmer
Idea Exchange” contest, Betty and Robert Bedford
are entitled to a year’s use of New Holland’s
latest high-horsepower row crop tractor, the TG
Series. They are flanked by New Holland representatives
John Hundley and Gene Hemphill.
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“Winning the Grand Prize really caught me by surprise,”
confessed the inventive farmer from Cynthiana in Harrison County,
Kentucky. “What can I say – it’s such an honor.”
Bedford’s winning marketing concept addressed a problem
faced by a number of farmers: While the farmers’ market has
long been a popular sales outlet for producers who want to sell
their products directly to consumers hungry for local, fresh-off-the-farm
produce, if you’re a producer who grows a commodity that
can’t be displayed at a traditional farmers’ market,
how do you sell it directly to consumers?
His entry, “Taking the Farmers’ Market to the Farm”,
is a marketing concept designed to encourage higher-profit direct
sales by letting consumers know where they can purchase all sorts
of farm commodities directly from producers.
“A farmers’ market is great for those producing vegetables
and other traditional consumer goods, but the farmer who needs
to market commodities that can’t be displayed in a farmers’
market needed an inexpensive tool to market those commodities,”
Bedford explained. To solve this dilemma, he put on his marketing
hat and found a way to effectively reach consumers.
Bedford assembled an eye-catching, information-packed pamphlet
about the farmers in Harrison County who sell commodities from
the farm gate. His brochure includes a register of producers of
a wide range of commodities — everything from shelled corn,
hay, and breeding stock to earthworms, bees, landscaping trees
and show birds. The pamphlet includes the commodities available,
a listing of farms and their products, and a map of the county
showing exactly where each farm is located.
The free pamphlet is made available to the public at the local
Farm Bureau, Cooperative Extension Service, Licking River Valley
RC&D, Chamber of Commerce, public library and distributed
by farm dealers around the county. Funding for this unique project
came from a state grant as well as from nominal fees paid by the
farmer participants.
“There were a lot of great entries in the ‘Farmer Idea
Exchange’ contest,” Bedford said. “That’s
what makes winning such an honor.”
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