The Kansas State University National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) Chapter is an organization dedicated to the professional development of its members. The club meets twice per month to discuss marketing tactics as well as help members prepare for their future careers. There is also a team that develops a marketing plan for a new agricultural product selected in the fall. The marketing plan is presented in the Student Marketing Competition at the national NAMA conference in April.
K-State NAMA develops marketing plans to aid businesses in the 17 poorest Kansas counties.
The club received a portion of the USDA Rural Development Grant called “Project 17”. This semester they made the main focus of the club to reach out to the 17 poorest counties in Kansas by helping different small businesses make effective marketing plans for their products. The club joined forces in this endeavor with the Pi Sigma Epsilon Marketing Club from the College of Business. While this is a great opportunity for the companies, it is also provides real-world marketing experience for KSU NAMA. Past experiences preparing and exhibiting in the NAMA Marketing Competition gave them a “leg up” as they strived to design effective marking plans for these companies.
K-State NAMA’s competition team researches at practice to prepare the 2015 marketing plan for SafeNut peanut butter, which is free of allergens.
This year’s NAMA competition was held April 14-16, the team was very busy getting their marketing plan ready. This year’s team made it to semi-finals in competition. The department’s faculty and staff are very proud of their efforts.
Please follow the club on Twitter @KansasStateNAMA and “Like” them on Facebook at K-State NAMA to keep up with all that they are doing!
K-State NAMA’s competition team prepares its SafeNut marketing plan for the April 14-16 conference.
The Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Club’s current officers are Michael Porter, president; Nick Wineinger, vice president; Cody O’Brien, secretary; Shannon Maxwell, treasurer; Casey Thyer and Nathan Smart, membership co-chairs; Bryan Otott and Lucas Sudbeck, social co-chairs; and Ryan Goetzmann, Ag Council representative.
From April 30 – May 2, the club will take a spring trip to visit Gavilon and John Deere. These events encourage interaction with fellow students, department faculty and staff, and industry leaders.
Club officers socialize with faculty and staff at the April 1 bake sale.
Zamorano University, located just outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, is 2,500 miles from Kansas State University, equivalent to 47 hours by car or 11 hours by plane. For graduate interns Ricardo Auz, Ecuador; Lauren Benavidez, Nicaragua; and Paul Leiva, Honduras; the trip to Kansas has been well worth it.
Ricardo Auz, Lauren Benavidez and Paul Leiva (L to R) call Waters Hall home this semester during their graduate student internships, which is possible through a partnership between K-State and Zamorano University.
The students’ internships are part of a partnership between K-State and Zamorano. Many Zamorano alumni have spent time in K-State’s Department of Agricultural Economics. The interns enroll in classes and work with professors on research projects.
“I think this is a good experience for us and also it opens doors to future interns from Zamorano to have the same experience,” Benavidez said. “Also, working with grad students is good because they provide us with advice about how we can get a master’s degree or how we can be better in some areas.”
All three students share a course schedule that includes AGEC 599, Food and Agribusiness Management Strategy with Aleksan Shanoyan, assistant professor; and AGEC 712, Optimization Techniques in Agricultural Economics, with Jason Bergtold, associate professor. Shanoyan’s class is a requirement for the students, however Bergtold’s class was chosen based on interests and recommendations from former Zamorano interns.
Auz, whose interests are in stock markets, works with Christine Wilson, professor, to update research about the equity markets for some companies in the food industry.
Benavidez studies international trade with Tian Xia, associate professor, looking specifically at exports of hard red winter wheat to Asia and how the Asian culture uses the exported wheat.
Leiva, who is interested in studying production economics at K-State, researches geographic information systems to study the distance from farms to ethanol plants in Kansas with Mykel Taylor, assistant professor, and Allen Featherstone, department head and professor.
The school system at Zamorano is set on a strict schedule of five classes in the morning followed by a specific lunch hour and work experience in the afternoon, whether it be in the fields, beef unit or elsewhere. The school provides the students with food and uniforms with laundry services so that the university serves as its own community. The students agree that despite the tight schedule at Zamorano, studying is much more time consuming at K-State.
Auz says the classes here take more focus, especially with the language difference. The emphasis on graduate student research at K-State rather than the emphasis on work experience at Zamorano also makes a big difference for the students because it presents a different type of learning opportunity.
“In my case, I studied in my same country,” Leiva said. “I had been to the U.S. before but never for so long, so for me it’s like a new experience to be with other people, other cultures and live in another country in a really different way from how I would live in my country. It has been really helpful and I have learned lots of things.”
Both Auz and Benavidez said that responsibility is one of the biggest lessons they have gotten out of studying here at K-State. Auz said that in addition, timeliness had been a big adjustment for him because arriving early is not a custom in South America. Benavidez added that she has learned the importance of patience in reviewing long lists of data to compile her weekly reports.
The students found many differences in the communities as well. Coming from the closed Zamorano community to a community 50 times larger, the students have seen more opportunities for interaction, especially with the graduate students. They have spent time with the Graduate Students in Agricultural Economics for breakfast club meetings, bowling and brown bag lunch sessions. They also interacted with other Zamorano alumni on campus.
The students have had a great time at K-State so far. All echoed that the K-State community is definitely like a family, and that they would recommend the program to other Zamorano students.
“K-State should maintain this program because it is so helpful for us and it is a good opportunity for us,” Auz said. “The people here are so kind.”
One Kansas State University student brought home outstanding recognition from the 55th Midwest Model United Nations Conference. Halli Wigger, freshman in agricultural economics from Troy, Kansas, earned the delegate’s choice award at the conference, which is an all-collegiate event where students work with pressing international issues.
Other students at the conference selected Wigger for the award based on her representation of Cuba on the International Fund for Agricultural Development committee, which comprised student representatives of United Nations countries from around the world.
“I was very pleased to have won an award considering all the time and effort that I put into it,” Wigger said. “It was very rewarding to have that kind of payoff, especially at my first conference.”
Wigger brought the committee together and led the organization of ideas to compose policy based on two specific topics—hunger, food, and nutrition security in post-2015 development framework and the international year of family farming. The students chose to implement education and trade programs, improve technology at the production level and advocate rural farming to support the topics.
The group attended sessions up to 12 hours per day to discuss the topics and draft the policy, which Wigger typed and submitted it for her committee, then made the necessary corrections. The policy was then presented at a plenary session.
When Wigger told Taylor Bates, a student in political science, about her interest in international agriculture, Bates introduced her to MMUN. The conference provides a hands-on perspective of world politics to broaden student awareness. Because they represent a country’s delegation, the students experience the complexities of international relations.
Wigger went with 22 other K-State students to the conference, which was Feb. 18-22 in St. Louis. She was one of few agriculture students in attendance at the conference among political science and pre-law students from 37 colleges in the Midwest.
She recommends that anyone interested in international agriculture or business should register for the conference because it is a great way to get experience in these areas right away.
Wigger has already paved a path to success in her first year at K-State. She joined the College of Agriculture Ambassador team in February and is a member of K-State’s National Agri-Marketing Association team and National Society for Collegiate Scholars. She is also in Sigma Alpha, the professional agricultural sorority.
Wigger aspires to join the Peace Corps or work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture so she can reach out to developing countries and help improve rural agriculture strategies.
Written by: Amanda Sales, Department of Agricultural Economics Communications Assistant and sophomore in Agricultural Communications and Journalism
On February 24, 2015, 34 Kansas State University College of Agriculture students joined the ambassador team. Newly selected students from the Department of Agricultural Economics include, Nolan Allison, Eureka; Coleman Forst, Marysville; Abigail Horn, McCoy, Colorado; Anna Setter, Humboldt; Kristin Stiebe, Kinsley; Halli Wigger, Troy; and Youwei Yang, China; and Rachel Zimmerman, Ulysses.
The ambassador team aids in recruitment of prospective students and will represent the College of Agriculture at various events throughout the year. More than 800 prospective students are anticipated to visit the college this year to tour campus, sit in classes and hear personal K-State stories from the ambassadors.
Student ambassadors are key to attracting prospective students to the college because the ambassadors have relevant testimonials from the different classes and activities in any of the 16 College of Agriculture majors. The ambassadors also represent the college when speaking with alumni and other stakeholders.
“The ambassadors are the ones that are experiencing college,” said Cherie Hodgson, agricultural economics academic coordinator. “They are the ones that are in the clubs and organizations. They are in the classroom and they experience the environment, so they are our best representatives.”
A prerequisite to the application process involves passing the 8-week College of Agriculture Training program aimed at teaching the students about the college’s departments and programs. The application process included a written application and a simulation of a situation students would potentially face as ambassadors, followed by an interview.
Currently, the department is home to 26 of the 94 ambassadors. Hodgson attributes much of this participation to the personality of the students.
“Leadership is something that we promote in the department,” Hodgson said. “Think about it in the job market, they are going to be managers and presidents of organizations… They like the interaction with people, they see the value in leadership and they want to develop those leadership, management and communication skills because they’re going to need those in the workplace.”
Hodgson also sees a lot of value in the ambassador program because of how it benefits the students. She says they learn more about the college and have more opportunities connect and interact with students, faculty and staff on campus as well as alumni and industry professionals. They practice time management and communication skills while coordinating activities and events.
