Crop Insurance Today September 2017 - 7

invite farmers to participate.
The workshops teach through a mix of group
discussion, training, and homework.
The extensions agents follow up with farmers
to help them if needed and ensure the training is
being applied in the real world.
It's not only good education for farmers, but
also valuable for extension agents who often have
backgrounds in plant and animal science but not
risk management and market development.
In the past seven years, Crane has led trainings across most of the South, the Great Plains
and parts of the Northeast. He's trained about
1,000 farmers.
"What I enjoy about it, as much as anything,
is helping people," he says. "It is satisfying. I'm a
teacher at heart."

Making It Fun

Farmers start to trickle into the C&M Learning Center off Cherry Hill Road in the outskirts
of Orangeburg early on a Saturday morning.
Organizers worried the nice weather might
keep farmers in their fields instead of the classroom.
But seats fill up fast.
Dr. Laurence Crane, of NCIS, kicks off the
program with welcoming remarks and reviews
the homework assignment from the previous
workshop. After leading a discussion about what

was learned he introduces Dr. Albert Essel of
Lincoln University.
Dr. Essel is the one the farmers have come to
hear. His style is captivating. He is from Ghana.
His African accent combines with the timing and
delivery of a stand-up comedian for a true performance that blends learning with fun.
Essel sprinkles real-world anecdotes, typically
about terrible farming decisions, into his lecture
to keep the audience engaged.
On this day, he tells the story of a man who
planted acres and acres of seedless watermelon in
an effort to capitalize on the interest in that variety. But he failed to research the market or identify a buyer prior to planting the crop. When it
came time to harvest, he asked Essel who would
buy the watermelons. By then, the market was
saturated with seedless melons.
So, Essel explained to the class, the farmer fed
his crop to the hogs.
The story got a great laugh but the seriousness

"It teaches them business
can be fun. They can loosen up and learn and at the
same time have fun."
- Dr. Albert Essel

of the point was also driven home.
Farmers, Essel explained, never want to feed a
crop meant for buyers to the hogs. Farmers enjoy
raising a good crop and selling it to buyers who
value it.
That's the business of farming.
But to do it well, Essel says, farmers must research their market, understand what the buyer
wants, and grow crops to suit the needs of customers at a reasonable price.
Many of the farmers in the class are sole proprietors with small operations who sell directly
to customers.
Essel encourages them to listen and engage
with customers. He makes the case that good
customer service is just as important as growing
a successful crop.
It's a long day of sitting at a desk and taking
notes. The class is like a mini business school and
keeping the audience engaged with complex topics can be challenging.
But it ends with lots of laughter.
"Some of the presentations are pretty long and
we are talking about topics that are not quite easy
to absorb, and they are a little bit dry sometimes,
and so to keep people awake, and keep them
engaged, I make it entertaining," Essel says. "It
teaches them business can be fun. They can loosen up and learn and at the same time have fun."
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