Article

Ohio Farm Bureau Young Agricultural Professionals recently hosted a series of webinars focused on risk, featuring experts from Nationwide.

Each session highlighted new and innovative solutions, research, and information on the latest technology and strategies to protect farms and rural communities.

“At Nationwide, innovation drives our mission to deliver advanced solutions that protect our customers,” said Nationwide’s Bethany Rowles, senior consultant, business program management and innovation director of the AgTech Innovation Hub. “We’ve seen farms evolve and as the No. 1 insurer of farms and ranches in the United States, it’s important for Nationwide to invest in ag innovation to help manage farm risks, protect agribusiness operations and assure the future of the industry is strong and secure.”

Rowles and Kimberly Winslow (pictured above), priority projects and corporate relations specialist for Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, discussed research being conducted through a unique partnership among Ohio Farm Bureau, Ohio State University and Nationwide called the AgTech Innovation Hub.

The partnership aims to encourage the development of new solutions that will help the agricultural ecosystem while better understanding, managing and mitigating climate risk.

“One project supported by the Hub looked at automated water drainage management and found that it eased drought impacts on crop health,” Winslow said. “Another project recognized the need to talk about climate risk in a helpful way; the researcher, (Cara Lawson, Ph.D., who started her communications career at Ohio Farm Bureau) used a national survey to identify different groups and how they perceive risk so we can know what messages they might trust or respond to.”

In addition to the research projects highlighted through the AgTech Innovation Hub, two of the webinars discussed innovations in ag risk prediction and prevention with Vicente Rico, senior consultant of product development with Nationwide Agribusiness.

He shared innovative ag tech solutions, which can assist farms and ag operations to stay a step ahead of losses and avoid downtime to keep operations running smoothly.
In the final webinar, Emily Atwood, senior consultant, risk management, Nationwide Agribusiness introduced the Let’s Champion Rider Safety campaign, intended to reduce the number of accidents on ATVs and UTVs.

Recordings of the four, one-hour webinars and the valuable information found in each are available. Registration is required to access the free webinars.

Photos by Laura Scholl