Looking at the dollars and cents of the agriculture industry today can be tough at times. With sky-rocketing input costs and low-profit margins, producing food has become an even more challenging “game” than ever before. Because of the struggling economy and decreased consumer spending, there are less dollars to go around, and that means ag lenders are having to tighten …
Book – Review Our Choice
“Producing first generation ethanol from corn is a mistake,” writes Al Gore in his new book, “Our Choice A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.” The book details the issues surrounding global warming, and presents various options to curb the issue. As a writer in the agricultural industry, I paid extra attention to the chapter regarding biofuels. It came as …
Shopping For That Cowboy In Your Life
Everyone has that farmer or rancher in their life to shop for this Christmas, and boy, can it get tough to select the perfect gift for this category. Every year, I think my dad counts on getting Coveralls and pliers from Santa, and I’ll admit, we struggle trying to shop for him. If you are like me, you spend many …
Feeding DDGS To Water Buffalo
The Chairman of the Egyptian Buffalo Producer’s Association is Dr. Saad Alhayani (pictured left). He also owns and operates a very new open water buffalo feedlot and dairy. The U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission team toured there this afternoon. I’ve got lots of photos in the photo album. These cute, sweet, little creatures are very different than your average bovine. …
Improving Beef and Dairy Herds In Egypt
Presenting information at Cairo University on the Cattle Information Center was Dr. Samy Abou-Bakr. He describes that there are two different water buffalo dairy and feedlot systems. One is old and one is new. In the older model, the herd size is small, handled with lots of labor and very little if any records are kept. In the new, the …
Cairo University Ag School
The first stop for the U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission team today was Cairo University and specifically the ag school. Our first presenter was Dr. Rabie Ragab Sadek who gave us an overview of the Center Information Systems Center of Egypt. The project was created to develop a cattle information system that would provide statistically representative, adequate data for cattle …
Zimfo Bytes
Farm Journal Media has announced that Greg Vincent is promoted to editor of AgWeb, and Jeanne Bernick is promoted to editor of Top Producer. The deadline for submitting nominations for the Agribusiness Leader and NAMA Marketer of the Year awards is Jan. 15, 2010. Fill out the nomination form on-line now. Agribusiness professionals can build their management skill set at …
Ag Outlook 2010
This week, I’m planning to attend Ag Outlook 2010 in Sioux Falls, S.D. at the Ramkota Exhibit Hall. The theme for this year’s conference and trade show is, “Meeting the demands of the future,” and I’m excited to listen to the great lineup of speakers that the conference has to offer. Speakers include: Matt Utterback, an ag commodity market analyst; …
Fluidigm System Work Flow
In this latest edition of the stories about Fluidigm Corporation you’ll get to meet Amy Hamilton, Technical Support Specialist. Amy works in the lab at Fluidigm headquarters. She walks us through a workflow of the Fluidigm System. As you’ll see in the video, the size and scale of equipment needed for the Fluidigm System to conduct many different simultaneous samples …
PRRS Control Progress
Last year when we interviewed Dr. Bob Morrison with the University of Minnesota at the first PRRS control seminar sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (BIVI) he said they were “just at the beginning of this process to create area and regional PRRS control.” At the second seminar held last week, Morrison said, “We’re one year further ahead, one year more …