What is the Agriculture Institute of Florida ?

For nearly forty years, the Agriculture Institute of Florida has been dedicated to promoting the value of Florida agriculture and to helping the public and elected officials understand more about the state's rich agricultural history and its diverse agricultural industries.

The Ag Institute is a non-profit corporation guided by a Board of Directors made up of professional communicators from associations, businesses or institutions that are engaged in or support Florida's agricultural community.

The Ag Institute sponsors a Candidates Forum for Florida's top elected positions every four years to bring growers and those seeking to lead our state together to discuss issues critical to our state and our industry. 


Finally, the Ag Institute also provides networking and educational opportunities for professionals and for individual producers and association volunteers in the areas of public relations, communications and issues management.

 

How We Began

In 1970, executives and owners of long-time Florida companies such as Ben Hill Griffin, Inc. and A. Duda and Sons met to establish the Agribusiness Institute of Florida, a group reaching beyond commodity divisions and dedicated to increasing public awareness of the importance of agriculture in Florida.

As tourism grew in importance, the organization realized it would be critical to remind Floridians  - and Florida's elected officials - of the many contributions that citrus, row crops and other commodities provided to the state.  Among the first activities of the Institute was the development of a candidate's forum to be held every four years in conjunction with election years. The forum invites candidates for U.S. senator, governor, commissioner of agriculture and other cabinet posts to share their position on agricultural issues and provided a forum for growers to ask questions of and voice its opinions to these candidates. The forum is still viewed as one of the Ag Institute's most valuable contributions to Florida agriculture.

In 1989, Tom Morgan, a long-time Ag Institute member and former vice president of communications at A. Duda and Sons, Inc., suggested the organization change its membership from businessmen to communication specialists. As a communication specialist himself, Morgan recognized the plight of agriculture as a communication problem, which could thereby be solved best by people experienced with such problems.

Since then, the Ag Institute has focused on educating Floridians and changing their perceptions of Florida's agriculture.  AIF has sponsored a number of communications and outreach activities, including:

Producing curriculum materials for schools that strengthen basic skills while  increasing their knowledge of agriculture;

Participating in and sponsoring Farm-City Week tours, which bring residents from urban areas to the farm to show first-hand how crops are produced;

Sponsorsing the "Farmers' Care-A-Van", which distributed nearly 18 tons of food to needy Florida residents, courtesy of Florida's farmers;  

Offers media tours and attended editorial board meetings to help share the positive messages of Florida agriculture;

And participating in public education efforts, such as when Medfly infestations of citrus in 1997 and 1998 required the spraying of malathion near populated areas.  AIF distributed regular news releases and held free car washes for consumers in the affected areas.

Today, the Ag Institute continues to serve as a communications resource for and about the state's agriculture industry, gaining strength from the collaboration of knowledge from members involved in the many different sectors of Florida agriculture