AFT’s New President: Jon Scholl

Posted on March 11, 2009 by goblazers

Title: American Farmland Trust’s New President Jon Scholl (July 31st, 2008)

Summary:

In July 2008 Youtube posted a video of life-long farmer and American Farmland Trust’s new president, Jon Scholl speaking about farmland conservation and his goals to improve U.S. agriculture productivity and profits, while maintaining sustainable practices.

Topic: Sustainable Agriculture

Category: Non-profit Institutional (Multi-Media)

What is it? This is a video posted on Youtube

Publication Information:

American Farmland Trust’s New President Jon Scholl (July 31st, 2008)

Posted July 31st 2008 on Youtube.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanFarmland

Author: American Farmland Trust

Location:

http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanFarmland

Accessed: March 11th 2009 4:10am

Support:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

American Farm Land Trust (AFT)

Jon Scholl

Jon Scholl mentions his employment at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) where he worked on agricultural policy and reforming exiting legislation. He also spoke on his new role as president of American Farm Land Trust (AFT) who created this video in order to further familiarize the public and its members with Jon Scholl. Finally, Jon Scholl reference his experience of growing up on a farm and knowledge gained from maintaing a career as a farmer for more than 25 years.

Audeince and Agenda:

This video was posted by Youtube, who is a video sharing website owned by Google inc. Google inc. is an advertising and e-mail providing service that is considered one of the best places to work in the world, with a reputation of integrity and honest business practices. They are a public corporation who brings in revenue from a variety of different industries and services, from social networking to online mapping. Together, Youtube and Google.com receive over 200 million online hits a month. The video was created by American Farm Land Trust who is a non-profit organization founded by ranchers and farmers, who serves the interests of agricultural producers and the continued conservation of America’s farmland. This video has been seen 752 times on Youtube since being posted in July 2008.American Farmland Trust’s website receives just under 11 thousand hits a month.

Usefulness:

This video was created with the intention to familiarize members, unaffiliated farmers, policy makers and the general public with, American Farmland Trust’s new president, Jon Scholl and organizational goals of profitable agriculture and farmland conservation. This source was made to benefit the agricultural community and supporting industries. Jon Scholl and the American Farmland Trust make the case that the farming industry can, and needs to be both profitable and environmentally sustainable. However, small-scale farming projects are left off Jon Scholl’s agenda as he neglects to mention the need for individual, non-commercial farms and inner-city crop producers. He also fails to mention his plans for cleaning up existing farms that are members of American Farmland Trust, but continue to pollute and damage local ecosystems. This source is extremely useful because Jon Scholl represents both a stake holder in the arena of agriculture and a policy maker as he has worked with some of the most influential environmental agencies. The fact that Jon Scholl is an actual farmer makes him a much more credible and dynamic source than if he was only a policy maker. American Farmland Trust’s mission statement, and Obama and the new administration’s agenda on rural America share several objectives which will likely improve the relationship between farmer’s interests and government policy.