By ANN ALLEN
Indiana Correspondent

LEESBURG, Ind. — Michele Payn-Knoper stepped in as speaker in the absence of Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman when Tom Farms, a multi-generation, family-owned organization with 114 landlords in Indiana as well as others in Argentina, hosted an August 10 appreciation dinner.

“We have failed at speaking farm language,” Payn-Knoper said. “I challenge each of you to spend one hour a week boosting agriculture. Reach out. Speak out. Never forget – you are growing people.”

As the head of Cause Matters Corporation, Payn-Knoper’s goal in life is to connect the farm gate and consumer plate. “That means being able to bring some common sense to food and help farmers be able to communicate about what they do today,” she said.

“Because a farm today looks very different from what it did 20 years ago doesn’t mean the people are any different. It just means that everything has progressed in the agri-food business just as it has in medicine and technology.

“Farm families get social media like Facebook and Twitter. If you’re not already on it, sign up. You need to keep up with technology. It’s a big part of the farm whether it is a smart phone or biotechnology.”

Payn-Knoper’s appearance was partially funded by Monsanto, a St. Louis-based agri-business that considers Tom Farms one of the leading suppliers to its seed production supply chain. Other suppliers were on hand to greet guests; many provided door prizes.

Reinforcing Payn-Knoper’s talk were comments from a business manager helping Tom Farms with its succession planning. “Surround yourself with good people,” he challenged. “Constantly focus on leadership and on improving yourselves. The way to be successful is by making other people successful.”

Kip Tom, CEO and president of Tom Farms, described the meeting’s focus as Celebrate Agriculture.

That theme was repeated in tidbits of information scattered on the tables: A family of four could live for 10 years off the bread from one acre of wheat. Tom Farms is building a fertilizer talk that will hold one million gallons of fertilizer. On a peak harvest day, Tom Farms can harvest 70,000 bushels of grain. In 1960, an average U.S. farm fed 26 people; in 2010 it fed 155. Farmers will produce more food in the next 50 years than they produced in the previous 10,000 years combined.
“Agriculture is being asked to do more with less,” Tom said. As a member of Farmers Feeding the World, he recently traveled throughout parts of the world where a third of the population lives on less than $2 a day and where malnutrition claims as many as 22,000 per day.
“The need is real,” he said. ”Unless we keep up to date, the world will be an ugly place.”