In Knox County to increase Ag Council participation, we developed new ideas for programs and to accomodate producers and clientele who can't participate at evening meetings. The first Monday of each month continues to be set aside for a morning meeting called News and Views. Producers are invited to come to the office at 7:00 am for coffee, juice and refreshments and have an impromptu discussion pertaining to the topic that they have an interest and allows for the agent to remind them of the seasonal concerns. May, 2017 was the first meeting but in only three meetings, participation had almost doubled and participants had acknowledged how much they enjoyed the meetings being informative and they liked discussing several topics at once. 

At the June meeting 20 participants were orally evaluated and all 20 agreed that they had learned educational practices that had made them more successful and profitable with their diverse home and farm enterprises and 7 of them expressed how they appreciated the morning meetings because they could not attend evening meetings.