Director of Agriculture
On February 1, 2014, Ken Rahjes launched agview.net as a way to have flexibility “to be there for his parents as they were going through some medical challenges,” but also to “take a leap” and focus on delivering agricultural and rural information to the "next" generation of production agriculture and those who have a real interest in rural issues. In October 2014, Ken launched AgView Radio and currently has an expanding network of affiliates in Nebraska and Kansas, which carry daily programming that consists of three 2-minute ag business updates and three 2-minute market updates. The updates “tell them what is going on, rather than quotes,” with the idea the affiliate station has an opportunity to give quotes relevant to their area. Ryan Martin from Allendale delivers the market reports. “One month ago, we started a nightly 90-second version of AgView on KOTA-TV (Rapid City, SD) Evening News. It airs during both newscasts, and it gives us an opportunity to help tell the story to a very broad audience.” He adds, “On top of that, we are working with companies to help them broaden their reach with a new generation of consumers.”
Ken still does emcee work and speaks about rural America and why it is important to be engaged every day. “We are always looking for an opportunity to help with the next generation of advocates for agriculture so we have just launched the ‘Ask an Aggie’ program for seniors in high school who will be studying agriculture after graduation.” Ken explains, “The idea is to go to the community in which they live and surface questions people have about food or agriculture production and get it on video using the student's smart phone. We will use social media to see which ones connect with people, and the winner will receive $500 from AgView. The idea came from our college intern who has done the work on the project. Ken concludes, “So much of the time, we talk and talk about making the connection with consumers in bigger cities, when in fact there is just as much misinformation in our small farming communities. Our goal is twofold: One, to raise awareness of how we need to connect to our neighbors, and second, how anyone can be an advocate for agriculture.”
