Laurie Johns, is the producer and host of the new Iowa Pork Producers podcast: ChopTalk-connecting consumers with today’s pig farmers. One year ago, she retired from Iowa Farm Bureau, where for 15 years she served as PR Manager. In that role, she media trained thousands of Iowa farmers to help them tell their story to consumers and media around the globe arranging interviews for farmers with every national media outlet, including Fox Network News, NBC network news, Wall Street Journal, CBS, ABC and CNN, and even international media outlets as far away as Japan and Australia. During her 15-year tenure as Public Relations Manager with IFBF, she was perhaps best known as the award-winning creator, producer and anchor of Iowa Minute, which aired in TV markets across the state. Iowa Minute's audience was consumers and key stakeholders, helping them understand the diversity and innovation of today’s agriculture. Prior to working for Iowa Farm Bureau, Laurie was a longtime Emmy-winning broadcast journalist who worked first in radio and then television and was an anchor/reporter at TV-13 in Des Moines for 15 years. She graduated from Iowa State University and grew up on a Century Farm, a grain and livestock farm in Wright County. Although her Iowa Minute, her communication training and editorial writing won national awards, Laurie's proudest achievement was encouraging farmers of all ages to engage beyond the fence row: a calling she continues today.