Commodity group leaders always make time to visit with the media at Farm Progress Show. One of them I spoke with yesterday was Rob Joslin, President, American Soybean Association. Rob is a soybean grower from Ohio. In the photo he’s on the left and speaking with Stu Ellis. I asked him about the issues that ASA is working on and the biodiesel tax extension is number one since with Congress allowing it to expire last year it has “virtually idled the vast majority of the domestic biodiesel industry” which he finds very disappointing.
Anyone who thinks a PB&J is boring or just for kids should try it with Bananas Foster or Chocolate Panini, or maybe strawberries and basil.
That’s just a few of the ten winning recipes in the Southern Peanut Growers “PB&J My Way” contest. The contest kicked off during March Peanut Month, pledging to donate one jar of peanut butter to Feeding America for each recipe submitted. They are donating 3,000 jars to the charity – that amounts to a whole bunch of creative PB&J recipe ideas!
“Not only did this contest inspire imagination among peanut butter lovers,” said Leslie Wagner, executive director, Southern Peanut Growers, “it also gave participants a unique opportunity to make a difference by providing nutritious food to the people who need it most.”
SPG narrowed the recipe entries down to the top ten creative sandwiches. Rules were simple: include peanut butter, and offer a fresh perspective on the traditional treat. Below are SPG’s top three picks:
The Bangkok Peanut Butter Sandwich, submitted by Michael C. California, with ingredients including Serrano pepper, soy sauce, coconut and mint leaves. The spread is layered over sliced bread and topped with cucumber slices and a hint of orange marmalade.
Peanut Butter, Strawberries and Basil Sandwich, submitted by Merry G. California, simply peanut butter-covered baguette slices topped with freshly sliced strawberries and finished with a sprinkle of fresh, chopped basil.
Peanut Butter Ice Cream Sandwich, submitted by Dyan C. Virginia, which is two dark chocolate cookies, smothered with peanut butter and vanilla ice cream to resemble a moon pie.
One of the coolest examples of new technology on display at the Farm Progress Show is the New Holland NH2 hydrogen powered tractor. Paul Trella, New Holland, told me all about it on video this morning. He says the tractor is part of their effort to help create the energy independent farm. The tractor is not in commercial production but it has been demonstrated on a short course. Paul says they’re hoping to have it run through some actual production work soon and that a model will become available in the near future. Here’s some information about it. The basis:
A current T6000 tractor.
What is inside:
* A Hydrogen tank
* Fuel Cells System perfectly integrated into production tractor, with standard components
* Electric motor n° 1 – Power to traction
* Electric motor n° 2 – Power to PTO and auxiliaries
What is not:
* No diesel tank
* No combustion engine
* No exhaust pipe
* No gear box
“We need ethanol to be able to use up the excess corn,” began Iowa Ag Secretary Bill Northey during a press conference at the Farm Progress Show hosted by Growth Energy. “That’s what started ethanol in the 1980s. Farmers said we’re tired of $1.50, $1.30 corn prices and we’re going to build an industry to use of some of the surpluses.”
And build an industry they did.
Northey explained that the ethanol industry is vital to corn farmers who are producing more and more each year. He used Iowa as an example and said in 2001, when the state conducted an Ag Census, ag sales from all farms in Iowa were $12 billion, half in crops and half in livestock. In 2007, sales were $20 billion with the biggest change being the amount that went to ethanol.
It worked and now our country has a robust industry whose future is uncertain due to questions over major policies that support the growth of the ethanol industry. The ethanol tax credit is under fire and opponents to ethanol are also trying to eliminate the ethanol tariff. In addition, the industry needs more access to markets and passing the E15 waiver would help to increase market access.
“Certainly we need some of those incentives to continue. We need more than three months predictability with those incentives going off this December. We need a long-term vision of what can happen out there,” said Northey.
Growth Energy CEO, Tom Buis, seconded Northey’s call for more effective, long-term policy and said that Senator Reid (D-NV) has already called for a lame duck session on November 15th to address the future of energy policy in America.
On several occasions Northey stressed, “We need more access to markets. We also need predictability, and policies we understand around for several years.”
He concluded that farmers are doing the right thing, and the ethanol industry is doing the right thing, now we need the politicians to do the right thing.
I remember when the idea of a company blog was just so “silly.” But really, it is amazing how the self publishing platform has grown. The latest entry coming to my attention this morning is The Dirt On Seeds by Syngenta Seeds. Joanna has conducted a couple of interviews with Syngenta here at the Farm Progress Show btw. We’ll feature those soon.
Syngenta Seeds, Inc. has launched a new agronomy blog, TheDirtOnSeeds.com. This blog gives growers local insights from nine Syngenta agronomists representing nine regions across the country. Posts will cover a broad range of corn producing states, including Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
In addition, unlike many other existing grower blogs, TheDirtOnSeeds.com encourages comments to posts that enable growers, farm managers, crop consultants and others involved in the industry to engage in an ongoing dialogue with each other and Syngenta agronomists.
“Syngenta prides itself on the relationships that we, as agronomists, have created with growers all across the country,” said Chris Cook, head of agronomy for Syngenta Seeds. “We hope this new blog will help strengthen and improve those relationships.”
The “Op-Ed by R-CALF USA President Max Thornsberry, DVM, MBA” directly targets the editors of BEEF magazine, Drovers and Beef Today for what he calls “disparaging and immensely disrespectful” editorials they wrote about the proposed rule and the workshop, prior to it being held last Friday. He charges the editors with attempting “to discourage attendance or to draw attention away from the joint hearing on competition in animal agriculture.”
Dr. Thornsberry is very harsh toward the media in general, saying the beef industry publications just “want to appeal to the big, to those that represent the powerful.” He uses the word “disrespect” repeatedly, yet he clearly has no respect for the very competitive nature of the media business. “I think to be an editor of one of these magazines it should be a requirement to have to feed two pens of fat cattle a year and to independently market them,” he writes. “How can they speak with such contempt to those of us who make a living in the beef production sector, without any real knowledge of how the business operates within the United States today? It would be like me being the editor of Cosmopolitan.”
Maybe you should try that before you criticize, Dr. T. You have no idea what it is like to compete in the media world, which has its own version of packers in an industry that is progressively consolidating on all sides. And when it comes to ag media, you’d probably be surprised at how many of the reporters and editors have marketed their own cattle, either now or in a past life. They probably know more about the industry from more angles than the average cattle producer because that is their job.
Incidentally, I thought the editorials were way more fair than some of the GIPSA stories that we did here on Agwired. Sure, we did an interview with R-CALF to let them explain their position regarding the GIPSA rule, we did have live coverage of the R-CALF rally the night before the hearing, and we did live webcast the entire event so that anyone who wanted to listen could hear all viewpoints. You can thank the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association for all of that because they sponsored our coverage and contracted us to do a series of interviews with producers who are concerned about the proposed rule. Thanks to NCBA we were actually able to bring the workshop live with comments from both sides of the issue to over 800 people who could not attend, and audio from some of the panels is now available for listen or download. Thousands of other people have seen our photos, listened to our interviews and interacted with us on this issue. We would not have been able to do without NCBA’s support. Like the rest of the ag media, this website isn’t a hobby farm – we need to make money in order to stay in business.
Sorry, you can’t fire us, or hang us either – you can’t even sue us for not being fair. But, maybe a little respect would be in order.
Day three of the Farm Progress Show is going to get off to a wet start. We’ve got rain on the way and had some overnight. I don’t think it will cause too many problems, especially if most of it goes south of us.
Joanna and I are back in the media tent working on some story posts. We did a lot of interviews yesterday and will be posting them through all of the next week.
Some of the best minds in agriculture will get together to discuss and debate the budget implications for the next Farm Bill, Tuesday, Sept. 14 at the next Farm Foundation Forum at the National Press Club in Washington, DC:
Presenters will include:
Craig Jagger, chief economist of the House Agriculture Committee; Patrick Westhoff of the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute; Chuck Conner of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives; and Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
People with an interest in agricultural, food and rural policy, including members of Congress, congressional staff, executive branch officials, industry representatives, NGO representatives, academics and members of the media should attend this important conversation.
If you want to make it to this free event, you need to get your reservation in by noon Friday, Sept. 10. More information is available on the Farm Foundation’s forum website.
It doesn’t take much to entertain the media sometimes. In this case it was a toad. The Farm Progress Show Media Tent Toad.
This little fellow caught everyone’s attention as he took up residence right in front of the press conference stage. I wonder if he was paying attention during this afternoon’s Growth Energy discussion. We’ll have a full story on that coming up on AgWired soon btw.
Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley spent some time at the Farm Progress Show. I caught up to him and found out that he had been checking out all the new technology on display at the show. When it comes to Washington, DC policy and specifically energy policy he provided an update of what we might expect in coming weeks. In September he says there should be a push to deal with taxes and that might include the expired biodiesel tax credit and the expiring ethanol tax credit. He also mentions the estate tax and the impact of the loss of the exemptions we currently have. In the photo the Senator is being interviewed by Michelle Rook, WNAX.
Pioneer Hi-Bred announced IMPACT today. That’s Intensively Managed Product Advancement, Characterization and Training trials. The announcement was made at a press event in their exhibit at the Farm Progress Show. I spoke with Brent Wilson about the new initiative. You can listen to him describe what this means for Pioneer’s customers in my interview below.
Pioneer Hi-Bred announced plans to expand a new, innovative research initiative across North America for the 2011 growing season. The program supports a 50 percent increase in the number of experimental products Pioneer can test to help growers ultimately get the right product on the right acre to maximize productivity.
Pioneer’s IMPACTTM program, which stands for Intensively Managed Product Advancement, Characterization and Training trials, will significantly increase Pioneer’s investment in local research and development, helping to maximize grower productivity and profitability. These plots provide local testing of multiple products at the last stage before they are advanced for sale to growers. Evaluations take place on growers’ farms, emphasizing local testing to match products with regional growing conditions.
The IMPACT program also marks a unique cooperative effort between Pioneer’s research efforts and its sales organization, linking product development and advancement with the company’s “Right Product, Right Acre” strategy to help producers get the best results from each acre.
As the world produces more and more fish protein to feed a growing population, Novus International is helping to feed those fish more efficiently and sustainably.
Did you know that aquaculture is the fastest growing segment of the animal production industry? But, like every other segment, aquaculture producers are facing the challenge of expanding to feed a growing population and doing it in a sustainable manner.
Because of that, Novus has launched a range of sustainable programs for the benefit to the aquaculture industry that include Reducing Feed Costs, Improved Health Through Nutrition, Optimizing Feed Through Quality Raw Materials, Feeding with a Purpose and Supporting Sustainable Practices. The company exhibited and was a sponsor of the World Aquaculture Society 2010 meeting in San Diego earlier this year to reach out to producers.
Since Asia is one of the fastest growing regions for aquaculture, Novus also established the Novus Aqua Research Center in collaboration with Nong Lam University in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, with the primary goals were of conducting research, developing and producing innovative science-based products and serving as a resource center to aquaculture stakeholders and the industry.
Find out more about What’s New with Novus in the world of aquaculture in this podcast that Jeremy Lutgen did: Novus aquaculture podcast
For breakfast this morning I went to the Bunge M.O.E. at the Pioneer Hi-Bred exhibit at the Farm Progress Show. My biscuit and ingredients were cooked with Plenish, the new high oleic soybean oil being developed by Pioneer. Bunge Chef Adam was doing the cooking and you can meet him in the video clip.
It’s not just farmers who visit the Farm Progress Show. Politicians have a great opportunity to interact with constituents and prospective voters. One of them is former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad who is hoping to become Governor again! Terry is pictured second from the left with his new Pioneer Hi-Bred cap.
I spoke with him after our photo opp. He lives in Boone County right near the show. He says agriculture is one of the bright spots in the economy. Without the permanent location of the show he says conditions would have been very different today. However, even with all the rain he’s expecting a great show day. He remembers the wet weather during his term as Governor in 1993 but this year may go down as wetter than that.
You can listen to my interview with former Governor, running for Governor, Terry Branstad here: Interview With Terry Branstad
The Farmers Only on-line dating service is still going strong after five years.
We told you about FarmersOnly.com when it launched in August of 2005. According to founder Jerry Miller, it quickly became THE place for farmers and ranchers to meet like-minded people. In the last five years, membership went from 2,000 to well over 100,000 members, and despite the name, FarmersOnly does include non-farmers looking for love. The rapid growth includes just good old fashioned, down-to-earth people who live in small towns and rural areas.
“There have been countless successful matches and friendships made on the site. I get thank you emails and phone calls almost daily. In fact, there have been hundreds of marriages since FarmersOnly.com began,” Jerry says, in his five year update release about the site.
Jerry designed the site after talking to a frustrated divorcee who found that the regular on-line dating services were populated by “city folks” who “just don’t get” the lifestyle of farming. “I talked to farmers and ranchers all over the country and discovered they all had the same problems. They already knew everybody in their immediate areas. They didn’t have enough time to socialize. When they did find time, they didn’t want to hang out at a bar. They wanted to find someone who understood their lifestyle,” he said. “The need for this new online dating service became very clear and six months later, I launched www.FarmersOnly.com.”
Check it out if you’re single and looking on the farm.
It was a little wet out here at the Farm Progress Show this morning but the sun is shining now and it’s drying out. Before the show got started I found a couple of examples of what the wind and rain did here. Kudos to the show site builders. I think we have had a great example of how the permanent location can handle whatever conditions nature chooses to provide us.
A severe storm passed through central Iowa overnight and due to the water and some wind damage the show will start two hours late today. I’ve been told there were over four inches of rain and that 2 1/2 inches came down in less than two hours at one point. But the show site is draining and I’m sure we’ll have a great day.
The photo shows an example of the the impact on the New Holland exhibit. I think this was the worst of it. So the show will go on and we’ll be providing more coverage throughout the day.
Jim Middendorf is an ambassador for the Ames Convention and Visitors Bureau. He was just one of the people welcoming the exhibitors in the Farm Progress Show to Iowa. Tonight we had the annual exhibitors dinner and reception. Jim also had a present for us. Barilla pasta! He says a woman came by earlier and after trying some locally produced Barilla pasta she hasn’t bought anything else. He says the show is a big boost to the local economy.
USB memory sticks just keep coming out in cool new “styles.” Gene Hemphill, New Holland, is providing the media with media kits saved on them that are built into a bracelet. Kind of looks like the LiveStrong ones and as you can see it’s helping me display mine!
Follow the fun at the 2010 Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa.
Trends In Agriculture
Learn more about Trends in Agriculture by attending NAMA's fall conference.
This year the National Agri-Marketing Association will be holding it's Trends In Ag conference in Minneapolis, MN due to a hotel scheduling conflict in KC, MO. I talked about the situation with Jenny Pickett, NAMA CEO, who also talks about the program which has the theme, "Agriculture In a Globally Local World."
Commodity group leaders always make time to visit with the media at Farm Progress Show. One of them I spoke with yesterday was Rob Joslin, President, American Soybean Association. Rob is a soybean grower from Ohio. In the photo he’s on the left and speaking with Stu Ellis. I asked him about the issues that ASA is working on and the biodiesel tax extension is number one since with Congress allowing it to expire last year it has “virtually idled the vast majority of the domestic biodiesel industry” which he finds very disappointing. 
and 
Anyone who thinks a PB&J is boring or just for kids should try it with Bananas Foster or Chocolate Panini, or maybe strawberries and basil. 
“Not only did this contest inspire imagination among peanut butter lovers,” said Leslie Wagner, executive director, Southern Peanut Growers, “it also gave participants a unique opportunity to make a difference by providing nutritious food to the people who need it most.”
The “Op-Ed by R-CALF USA President Max Thornsberry, DVM, MBA” directly targets the editors of 
Dr. Thornsberry is very harsh toward the media in general, saying the beef industry publications just “want to appeal to the big, to those that represent the powerful.” He uses the word “disrespect” repeatedly, yet he clearly has no respect for the very competitive nature of the media business. “I think to be an editor of one of these magazines it should be a requirement to have to feed two pens of fat cattle a year and to independently market them,” he writes. “How can they speak with such contempt to those of us who make a living in the beef production sector, without any real knowledge of how the business operates within the United States today? It would be like me being the editor of Cosmopolitan.” 
Did you know that aquaculture is the fastest growing segment of the animal production industry? But, like every other segment, aquaculture producers are facing the challenge of expanding to feed a growing population and doing it in a sustainable manner.
We 
Learn more about Trends in Agriculture by attending NAMA's fall conference.
