Stay Informed

Listed below (in alphabetical order) are some of the activities, events and initiatives that INFB, its staff and its members worked on in 2019.

100^th anniversary

While INFB began its 100^th anniversary celebration at the 2018 state convention, 2019 was chock-full of events and activities to mark the occasion:

• All 92 county Farm Bureaus participated in 100 Pounds for 100 Years, INFB’s charitable giving campaign in which each county was challenged to collect at least 100 pounds of food (or the monetary equivalent) and donate it to a local charity prior to March 25, INFB’s founding date. Most far surpassed the 100 pound request. In total, approximately 50 tons of food was donated to more than 90 charities across the state.

• INFB commemorated its 100^th anniversary at the Indiana Statehouse on March 25 with a cake and coffee reception to honor the date of its founding. March 25 also was declared Indiana Farm Bureau Day at the Statehouse, with a proclamation from the governor and a joint resolution honoring INFB read on both the House and Senate floors. A celebration was held that same day at INFB’s headquarters.
• 100^th Harvest, INFB’s anniversary beer, debuted in August in the Beer Garden at the Indiana State Fair.
• The 2019 convention featured several activities to conclude the year-long celebration, including a display of members’ Farm Bureau memorabilia, a time capsule, a mosaic of members’ photos taken at the convention, a giant birthday cake and the auctioning of the final case of 100^th Harvest beer to benefit youth education in Indiana.

Advertising campaign

• INFB concentrated on digital advertising in 2019. One of the key performance indicators of the membership ad campaign is driving viewers to INFB’s website. Compared to 2018, there was a 10% increase in pages per session, a 17% increase in total sessions, and a 7% decrease in the bounce rate – that is, people who enter the website but then leave it without viewing other pages within the site. This suggests that users being directed to the website are taking more time to learn about INFB and is the result of effective campaign targeting.
• In addition, the 2019 campaign directly generated 429 memberships, compared to 303 in 2018, and generated 1,449 calls compared to 70 in 2018.

Advocacy

• 2019 was a long session for the Indiana General Assembly, and nearly every day the legislature was in session, INFB members were there lobbying for Farm Bureau’s priority issues: incentivize rural revitalization; expand broadband deployment; increase rural school funding; restore the Kankakee and Yellow rivers; reduce extraterritorial authority; and improve assessment uniformity. Bills addressing all of INFB’s policy positions were passed into law.

• INFB’s top priority for the 2020 legislative session is health care, and in 2019, members were asked to respond to a survey asking what members need, the best options to address those needs, and whether it’s feasible for INFB to offer any sort of healthcare program to its members. Nearly 2,000 people responded.

Convention and conferences

• INFB hosted three large gatherings in 2019: the Young Farmer Conference, held in Indianapolis in late January; the Spring Conference, held in Indianapolis in early March; and the state convention, held in December in French Lick.
• A special event in 2019 was the Gala, hosted by the Indiana Women’s Leadership Committee on March 8 in celebration of 100 years of INFB history. Proceeds from the event went to the Carolyn Hegel Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Education

• During 2019, a total of 100 Indiana volunteers participated in Agriculture in the Classroom, a national program run through the USDA but coordinated in this state by INFB. The volunteers promoted education on agriculture-related issues in grades pre-kindergarten through 12.
• INFB’s annual AITC workshop drew 130 volunteers and educators. Held June 7 in Indianapolis, it featured tours of Corteva Agriscience, the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, the Felege Hiywot Center and other ag-related organizations in the area.
• The 2019 Book of the Year was Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth, written by Mary McKenna Siddals and illustrated by Ashley Wolff.  The goal of the BOTY program is to provide county Farm Bureaus and AITC volunteers with an additional tool to promote agricultural literacy. More than 2,284 copies of the book were distributed to schools, teachers, libraries, doctor offices and before- and after-school programs by INFB and county Farm Bureaus in 2019.

Indiana Ag Law Foundation

The foundation raised nearly $161,000 in 2019, including donations from 58 county Farm Bureaus as well as individuals and corporations. INAgLaw is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization established in 2005 by INFB, and its mission is promoting a better understanding of legal issues facing Indiana agriculture through educational programming and support of precedent-setting litigation.

Indiana State Fair

• 2,500 pounds of popcorn (courtesy of Preferred Popcorn of Palmyra, Indiana) were popped and more than 35,000 bags of popcorn were distributed at the Farm Bureau building during the fair’s 17-day run.
• 5,276  people lined up for samples of Indiana food during the three days of Taste from Indiana Farms, sponsored by the INFB Women’s Leadership Committee.
• INFB sponsored two other programs at the 2019 fair: Animal Town, which is a display of the livestock species exhibited at the fair, and the Supreme Drive, which recognizes supreme and reserve champion 4-H breeding ewes, dairy females and gilts.
• INFB also passed out 2,600 feed buckets to the 4-Hers who showed swine, beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep and Boer goats at the fair, as well as membership material geared toward that age group.
• Also offered in the Farm Bureau building was a large-screen TV showing videos representing INFB’s diverse membership, including agribusiness professionals, livestock farmers and crop farmers.

Leadership development

• Leaders in Action, INFB’s leadership development program, provided training to 25 members and staff. The group met four times throughout the year to learn about engaging local government, self-leadership, communication and presentation and Farm Bureau history, and then put their new skills to use by traveling to Washington, D.C., to meet with elected officials.
• Seven women from around the state participated in Women’s Agriculture Communications Training, an intensive one-day workshop sponsored by the Women’s Leadership Committee and presented by the INFB marketing team focused on communication techniques for Farm Bureau women.

Media outreach/coverage

• INFB secured 431 news stories in 2019, which is more than 1.5 stories per work day in 2019. When compared to 2018, the ad-value circulation of those stories increased by $70,000 to $2.95 million. The topics most covered were: INFB’s 100^th anniversary, the legislative session, market basket surveys, trade, harvest and planting, and state convention.
• 91 stories featured INFB members representing 52 counties and every district.
• 231 pieces of coverage were with non-ag news outlets and 200 were with ag outlets.

Membership

INFB ended its membership year with 262,898 members, a gain of 413 members from the previous year. This is the fourth year in a row that INFB has surpassed the previous year’s total membership. For voting memberships, the final total was 70,007, a decline of 1,235 members from the previous year.

Political action committees

AgELECT, INFB’s newest PAC, was established in 2017 to help support state-level candidates in Indiana. Through a series of fundraisers, AgELECT raised a total of $63,640 in 2019.

Publications

• Redesigned versions of The Hoosier Farmer (INFB’s monthly newspaper) and the FB Feed (its monthly electronic newsletter) debuted in 2019. Both publications are distributed to all voting members.
• The Public Policy Dispatch is a legislative and regulatory update sent electronically to 1,830 people. It comes out weekly while the Indiana General Assembly is in session and biweekly the rest of the year.

Website, social media

• INFB’s website underwent a complete redesign three years ago, but the content continues to evolve. Among the innovations last year was a timeline created in honor of INFB’s 100^th anniversary.
• The organization is very active on social media, specifically Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. From January 2019 to January 2020, likes to INFB’s Facebook page increased by 18%; the number of Twitter followers grew by 5%; and the number of Instagram followers increased by 17%.

Young Farmers & Ag Professionals Beginning in late January, the Indiana Farm Bureau Young Farmers program became the Young Farmers & Ag Professionals. The name was changed to reflect the ever-growing number of ag-related careers around the state and their importance to Farm Bureau.