International Agri-Center posts over 70 seminars from the World Ag Expo, expands access to wide variety of presentations
TULARE – For those who weren’t able to attend as many seminars as they wanted at the World Ag Expo this year, they are in luck. All seminar sessions will all be posted online for viewing.
By the end of March, more than 70 educational seminars from the 2023 World Ag Expo will be available online. There are currently over nineteen seminars already posted with more being uploaded each day. In addition to the seminars from the show, there will be an updated Water Bootcamp happening live in May. According to International Agri-Center marketing manager Jennifer Fawkes, posting the seminars online allowed for further interaction with those who are interested.
“We are just trying to make as many things available to people as possible,” Fawkes said. “[And for people traveling] we do want to make it available later. Then we had requests from people who sat in this one seminar, but there was another one going at the same time that they wanted to go to.”
The year was the 56th annual World Ag Expo. It marked a 10-year high in show attendance with 108,233 people on the grounds over the three-day run. It is a large difference in comparison to the 2021 show that was put on virtually. Fawkes said they learned a lot from putting on an entirely virtual show, and posting the seminars online was one of the most successful components. She said they wanted to continue to make the information available, so this is the first year they recorded the seminars to make them available after the fact.
“This is one of the things that we found successful in the digital show,” Fawkes said. “We looked at how we could repeat it and make sure [that] as long as it’s valuable and it’s something that we can sustain, how can we make that possible?”
This year, sessions on dairy and livestock, international trade, ag tech and more will be available for free at https://bit.ly/WAE23VideosOnDemand. In order to access the agriculture content, viewers will need to log in or create a free My Show Planner account. To create a free account, individuals can visit https://bit.ly/WAE23Planner and click on the “Create Your My Show Account” button. The free account also gives users access to expanded content on Exhibitor pages.
Videos can be watched on desktops or mobile phones. In addition to the video of the speakers, Fawkes said she is working on getting all the presentation decks for each seminar and making them available for download as well. Currently there are already some presentations available for download, just not quite all of them yet.
“[Having access], they can open it up and follow along on the presentation, or at least have more information from the person presenting,” Fawkes said.
There will also be the two special events from the show available online. The U.S. House Committee on Agriculture 2023 Farm Bill Listening Session is currently available at https://bit.ly/WAE23FarmBillRecording and the Prayer Breakfast, with keynote speaker Sheriff Mike Boudreaux is available at https://bit.ly/WAE23PrayerBreakfast.
As this was their first year recording all seminars, Fawkes said there could be a few of the seminars that did not make it because the quality was not good enough. So even though some video quality might not be perfect, all the information is there.
“As we try new things, we have to train people on what to do,” Fawkes said. “I’ve had one seminar so far that the speaker unfortunately walked away from the microphone and didn’t take it with them.”
In May, there will be New Water Bootcamp content posted as well. Seminars will be presented live by the California Water Institute at Fresno State on nine trending water topics. The presentation will be presented in English and Spanish. To learn more visit at http://www.californiawater.org/calendar/.
The 2024 World Ag Expo® is scheduled for February 13-15 at the International Agri-Center® in Tulare, CA. For more information, visit www.worldagexpo.org.
