Companies experiment with podcasts to share agronomic information

“It’s part of an ongoing commitment to bringing solutions to wheat growers,” said Cynthia Tipton, Monsanto’s wheat marketing manager. “We have been doing agronomic sharing tactics like interviews with technical product managers for the new format that will feature multiple speakers from WestBred and industry experts.”

Agri-giant Monsanto Co. bought Montana wheat seed developer WestBred for $45 million in 2009. Although Monsanto scrapped its biotech wheat program in 2004 when European and Asian-Pacific markets signaled they wouldn’t buy modified U.S. grain, the company’s experimental genetically engineered wheat has been found growing in fields in Oregon and Montana.

Tipton said the new series is not related to the company’s biotech aspirations or designed to repair rifts with wheat growers.

Wheat Speak will be recorded quarterly and will be available in audio and print on the WestBred website and will be distributed by the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. Recordings will also be available on the company’s social channels, external radio websites and email communications.

Questions are sourced through emails and social media from growers, seed suppliers and interested media. Already, the company has received inquiries on variety selection, optimal seeding rates for planting and in-season management decisions to push yields, Tipton said.

One in four Americans has listened to at least one podcast in the past month, according to 2017 research from Edison Research and Triton Digital. That’s up from 21 percent in 2016 and just 9 percent a decade ago.

“People like to be able to hear and digest information that way,” Tipton said. “It’s a new platform and opportunity to bring in multiple speakers to provide multiple perspectives.”

Those listeners are gold. The monthly podcast audience is both wealthier and younger than the general population, according to the Edison poll. Given those statistics, it’s not surprising that more than two-thirds of monthly listeners say they listen to podcasts on a mobile device like a smartphone – precisely one of the modalities WestBred hopes to capitalize on.

“Especially with all the technology in cabs of tractors or even in farm trucks, growers have more access to things to listen to while doing other things,” Tipton said. “We want to make sure tap into that captive audience with something to listen to and learn from.”

Questions for Wheat Speak can be submitted here: https://www.westbred.com/wheatspeak