I have recently become a Facebook fan of a cool group, Farm2U. This page is made by farmers and ranchers and is written for consumers. With informative news articles, personal farm stories and positive messages, Farm2U is designed to bolster consumer confidence and trust in America’s food supply once again.
With 1,691 fans to date, Farm2U describes itself as, “A place to connect with farmers and ranchers and ask questions about why we do what we do to grow and raise food for you.”
Represented in this fan page are several folks within the agriculture industry including: a grain farmer, cattle rancher, dairy producer, hog farmer and even moms. What a great way to utilize social media in order to share the positive message about agriculture with consumers! Check it out!
My favorite clothing gear on the ranch, Carhartt and Cintas have recently launched a search for North America’s toughest workers. The Are You Carhartt Tough? Contest is being conducted in conjunction with the roll-out of a new product line being offered by the two companies. I know at my cattle operation in South Dakota, we don’t step foot outside without our Carhartt coats (and layers of long johns, of course!), and I want to know who else out there is Carhartt tough?
Cintas Corporation (Nasdaq:CTAS), North America’s largest uniform supplier, has partnered with Carhartt, a global manufacturer of premium workwear, to offer Carhartt garments for the first time in a Uniform Rental Program.
With Ducks Unlimited® acting as media sponsor, contest organizers will reach out to the American workforce to identify people who are strong, dependable, resilient and rugged.
Beginning on April 30, three finalists will be announced each quarter. After a year’s time, all twelve finalists will be featured on the contest website where the public will be encouraged to cast votes for the toughest of the tough. Two Grand Prize winners will receive either a weekend duck hunt trip designed by Ducks Unlimited® or a trip to The STIHL® TIMBERSPORTS® Series in 2011.
If you think you’re tough enough, submit a short essay and photograph for this contest here.
Hello from the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky! Cindy is off to Florida, and I’m going to be here at NFMS for a couple of days covering events.
Just a few minutes after I got into the airport, I was able to find my way to the Louisville Convention and Expo Center just in time for a seminar officially entitled “High-horsepower, Row-crop Tractors.” But it might be more accurately called “What’s New at NFMS.”
Among those presenting from some of the major manufacturers of farm equipment was our friend Tom Lano from New Holland. I videotaped his presentation with Chuck’s Flip video camera:
I apologize for the shaky video (not quite like the good ol’ days of betacams) and shaky editing (Windows Movie Maker is a little different than what I used to use), but I think you get a sense of what he presented. For time purposes, I had to edit out part of the promotional video Tom presented, but I was able to keep the video of the T-7000 line of tractors’ new anti-lock braking system (ABS).
“The tractors are getting bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier, and we’re carrying huge loads behind them down the road … so they need to be safe.”
Tom went on to say that New Holland does farm machinery shows all over the world, and these events gives New Holland not only the opportunity to show off what they have, but they can also get a lot of good feedback from the farmers who have to use this equipment every day.
Tom also talked about how New Holland was the first company to OK a 100 percent biodiesel blend in all their tractors … pretty darn important when you consider many of the folks who use their tractors are using them to plant and harvest the feedstocks, such as soybeans and canola, that make that same biodiesel they put in their tanks.
AgWired continuing coverage at the National Farm Machinery Show sponsored by:
You can here more of my conversation with Tom here:
Since I’ve found that many AgWired fans are not familiar with Leica Geosystems, a new sponsor of ours, I thought it would be helpful to post a little background for you. You can also listen to an interview I did with Rob Kiernan at the recent AG CONNECT Expo. In it he said:
“Being a late entrant in the precision ag market, we have had the advantage of looking at what the market is seeking and identifying the gaps.” One of the gaps Leica identified was that of timely service. To address this need, Leica developed the Virtual Wrench™ service.
“Virtual Wrench is the world’s first remote service option. It gives the people who are operating the machinery the ability to reach out to the service team without having to leave the cab. Through cell phone connectivity, our technicians can look right inside that machine and see exactly what the operator is seeing. We’re able to help people with that service very quickly and very efficiently anywhere there is cell phone service.”
Translated, that means farmers aren’t waiting for a service truck to arrive in their field to fix the problem. Leica has found that about 90 percent of the service calls related to ag electronics can be “repaired” remotely, as it is primarily a matter of adjusting the various settings to the terrain and the task at hand.
So just what is Leica Geosystems? To start with it’s part of a nearly 200-year-old Swiss company with a long heritage of pioneering measurement solutions around the world. That background has been why they believe they can offer a strong lineup of precision ag products to today’s farmers. (more…)
In case you can’t tell, I’m a big fan of the music of Emily Richards and Jason Brock since I first met them at a National Biodiesel Conference years ago. The photo is from one of the screens that was displaying them during their time on stage at the conference and I thought it looked cool.
Emily announced that she and Jason have been working on a music project since last year’s conference. They’re using a service called CCMixster and have published the first of three albums. This first one is available for a free download right now. It’s already on my iPhone.
Emily says they wanted to create an album of music on biodiesel. They created a project called, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Remix” or R4. They had about 50 musical contributions from the CCMixter community. The Brown album is the first of what will now be 3 albums. You can learn more about how the R4 project worked with this link.
After the final general session concluded I interviewed Emily and Jason along with CCMixster member Bob Nunnally. Jason describes the CCMixster community and how it fits in well with the biodiesel community. This week’s program contains that interview as well as a song from the Brown album called, “Biodiesel Family.”
Syngenta Seeds, Inc., announced it received import approval from the National Commission for Sanitary Risks of the Mexican Ministry of Health (COFEPRIS) for genetically modified corn event MIR162, also known as the Agrisure Viptera trait.
The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives launched a campaign to tell the story of this country’s 2,500 farmer cooperatives to policy makers, government officials, and the American public. Based around the theme of “Farmer Cooperatives: Providing for America”, the campaign will emphasize the central role that co-ops play in preserving the family farm, supporting the rural economy, and bringing innovative products to consumers in the U.S. and around the world.
The American Humane Association and the Federation of Animal Science Societies (FASS) praised the new HBO movie, Temple Grandin, which aired Saturday, Feb. 6.
Manna Pro has launched a new corporate logo and and tagline, Nurturing Life, which reflect the modern values of its primary customer base.
So we’ve gone from wondering if social media was just a passing fad to a general acceptance of its existence and usefulness. At least most people who haven’t closed their minds to reality have. So, let’s just say your company or organization is in the acceptance mode. What’s the future hold? What do you do next? Many of you don’t have a blog, Twitter account or Facebook page but you’re about to. Aren’t you?
First of all I highly recommend working with someone who not only says they understand social media but is actively engaged with it. Do they have a Twitter account themselves? I’ve seen some “experts” out doing presentations and consultation with inactive social networking of their own. That should be considered a reason to go with someone else (Like oh, let me see. Me!). Okay. Enough of that.
As your online social media consultant, let me point you to a new article on eMarketer about the future. The first paragraph says a lot.
In the few short years that social media has been a marketing vehicle, it has already had an enormous effect on the way companies do business. In the coming years there will be even more changes, as social media marketing extends from the marketing department to nearly every aspect of a company’s business.
That’s right. It’s not just for marketing purposes although social media is a fantastic tool to be using to connect with and engage your customers and members now. Let’s look at one example of how a company is integrating social media into their marketing campaign now. This is from a USA Today story about the Olympics and social media/advertising. They picked four companies to highlight how they’re moving to more social media. Visa. About 40% of its Olympic marketing funds will go to digital, four times the past share, marketing chief Antonio Lucio says. It created a YouTube channel where its six Olympic spots can be seen before they air on TV. Folks can pick their favorite and enter to have their name appear in the ad.
Have you thought about how you’re going to integrate social media into your marketing campaign? Are you afraid of it? What’s your major concern? Is it the production of the content? If so, there are companies like ours you can turn to for help with everything from writing to audio and video production for the web. I dare say the costs will be significantly less than a major national advertising campaign using traditional media tools. In fact, if your company or organization doesn’t have a big budget this could be your opportunity to make a big impact without breaking the bank.
So, looking into the future I only see more and more applications and growth for social media. I think it’s all about creating information your customer wants and engaging with them where they are. That’s online and on their phone and includes farmers as well as consumers. New technology like the iPad and increased broadband capability will continue to drive a move towards communications that we’ve never seen before. Because what the technology is allowing us to do is communicate like we want to and that’s conversationally as opposed to being forced to see or listen to information on another person’s schedule. That’s why this is growing and not a fad.
Immediately following my presentation on Thursday’s Partner Program at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference, I served as the moderator for a student panel titled, “Issues, Engagement and Impact.” The panel featured university students sharing how they have become engaged on the front lines to speak up about industry issues and the impacts of their actions.
Participating on the panel were three outstanding college students including: Greg Thon, Celeste Laurent and Bailey Albright. As moderator, I asked them several important questions pertaining to the agriculture industry today such as: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions consumers have about where their food comes from? What are the biggest challenges facing young people today?
How can we combat animal right activist activities? What goals do you have for the future? What opportunities are out there for young people in agriculture? How do you feel about the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board? What advice do you have for high school students involved in agriculture? How do we educate our state policy makers?
These three young people fielded these questions with the ease and poise of seasoned pros. All three will be looking for jobs in the agriculture industry in the near future, and I think they could be your next employees! Look them up!
There’s so much to see at New Holland exhibit at the 2010 National Farm Machinery Show that I had Dennis Hann take me on a tour and explain a little bit about everything. It ended up being just a few minutes longer than the 10 minute limit for YouTube, so I split it into two parts. Definitely worth watching.
You never know who you are going to run into at the National Farm Machinery Show, but I am sure this young man has been to many of these shows over the years.
Many of our Agwired readers will recognize Mr. John Harvey, who was with DuPont for numerous years and very active with NAFB. He has been living out his passion in his golden years as president of Classic Tractor Fever and I have to say he looks marvelous. The years have certainly been a friend to him. Gene Hemphill snapped this photo of us and John scampered away before I had a chance to interview him, but it was great to see him again. I think he looks even younger than the last time I saw him at least ten years ago!
I am heading to the Sunshine State for a couple days of fun with daughter Carly, my sister and niece at Disney World before covering the National Ethanol Conference, but ZimmComm reporter John Davis will be taking over for me and covering the last couple of days here at NFMS. I will still get a couple more posts on before I’m done here and more later.
AgWired continuing coverage at the National Farm Machinery Show sponsored by:
I had a chance to chat about the state of the farm machinery industry with Dennis Hann, manager of North American Strategic Planning for New Holland, at the 2010 National Farm Machinery Show. He told me that, even though some segments of the farm economy are suffering, they were seeing serious buyers at the show this year.
“We see three different product segments,” Dennis says. “The under 60 horsepower tractors, that follows automotive, trending wise, so that’s the toughest of all the industries because a lot of that is discretionary income. The dairy/livestock area, tractors in the 60-140 horse and our hay tool line, that industry was off about 24% last year as an industry. We grew share, but the industry’s down and we believe that will continue to be depressed in 2010. What’s really surprised us is the cash crop, the combines, the 140 plus horsepower tractors and 4 wheel drive continues to be very strong.”
Dennis also talks about some of New Holland’s various products, including the new Rustler and the 9090 combine, and their commitment to the biodiesel industry. Listen to or download his interview below.
I happened to be in the right place at the right time to be a guest on “The Sheep and Goat Radio Hour” live with Ray Bowman from the National Farm Machinery Show on Thursday.
Ray is executive director of the Kentucky Sheep and Goat Development Office and does this live internet show every week on America’s Web Radio, which is pretty cool. He is very into social media as a communicator and follows us on Twitter. Ray did his whole show live from the media room on two cell phones, grabbing various guests to interview and talking about the NFMS. It was a really impressive use of the latest technology and he was a pleasure to meet.
AgWired continuing coverage at the National Farm Machinery Show sponsored by:
I’m joining you today from Frankenmuth, MI, where I’m attending the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference as a speaker. This afternoon, I spoke at the Partner’s Program on social media. I provided tips and tricks for sharing the agriculture story through elevator speeches, blogs and social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.
I spoke about the challenges I face on my family’s cattle operation, in trying to make the transition back home. I discussed ideas for interacting with consumers and sharing those challenges to give them a better idea of who we are and where we come from. I offered ideas for making habits to tell the positive story about the food production story with consumers.
Overall, it was a great session, and I really enjoyed working in the Partner’s Program. There is nothing better than great people, educational sessions and free ice cream and chocolate milk!
Joliet Junior College and specifically the Weitendorf Agricultural Education Center was the location of the Chicago Farmers Farmland Investment Fair. I spoke with one of their faculty, Bill Johnson (pictured left), about the school. Bill is one of the many volunteers who work to put on the Fair.
He says that the College started that state’s first ag program in 1954 so it has the oldest ag program and it’s still the largest. They draw students from all the surrounding states. He says they’ve got 102 acres of farmland on the campus which is operated by the ag department. The Weitendorf Center is located across the highway from Chicago Motor Speedway. He says this is the third year they’ve held the fair in the facility.
New Holland’s new WORKMASTER™ tractors bear a trusted name, and the same important qualities that made the original WORKMASTER tractors so popular in the 1960s.
The new Workmaster made its debut right out of the box and off the boat here at the National Farm Machinery Show. I talked with Mike Stolitca, New Holland sales manager for Kentucky, about this dependable, basic workhorse. “We are very excited to have this tractor here, first tractor in North America for the Workmaster series,” he told me. “This provides a reliable, efficient tractor at an affordable price.”
Mike says this tractor is great for hobby farms and smaller operators looking for a good chore tractor. Some of the features that allow for ease of operation include an 8×8 shuttle transmission and a comfortable, open operator station.
Syngenta sponsors the Championship Tractor Pull at the National Farm Machinery Show, which kicks off each year to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” This year it kicked off to Lee Greenwood performing his signature song live at the arena and on Thursday morning he was in the Syngenta booth, signing CDs for fans and helping Syngenta kick off a new campaign called “Weeding Out Hunger.”
“This is a very important event for the tractor pull and for Syngenta, there’s a great cause here and that’s feeding America,” Lee told me in a real quick interview as he was signing autographs. You can here more from Lee on today’s AgriTalk from the NFMS.
I learned more about the campaign, which is associated with Halex GT herbicide, from Carroll Moseley with Syngenta Crop Protection. “We directly affect and feed the population by controlling weeds in corn, this is a product for glyphosate-tolerant corn,” he said. “What better way to relate it to another direct way to impact people more needy than others than to have this Weeding Out Hunger campaign where we are contributing to feeding America affiliates across the United States.”
Find out more about the campaign at WeedingOutHunger.com.
Listen to back-to-back interviews with Lee and Carroll in the player below and here’s a little video from the Syngenta booth.
As I was leaving the first day of the National Farm Machinery Show, the message on this young man’s shirt caught my eye.
“I didn’t climb to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian.”
Ain’t that the truth?
I am heading in for the second day at the show today and the weather is better so I expect traffic will be a little heavier going in this morning. Thanks to John Deere for coverage of the first day of NFMS – check out the posts from yesterday to learn about some of what they have on display and especially what’s NUE. The rest of the show our coverage this week is sponsored by New Holland. Green and blue go well together!
Snow may be on the ground but growers at the National Farm Machinery Show know that planting season is just around the corner, and with the potential for yet another wet spring this year, they are looking at ways to get that job done faster and more efficiently.
John Deere ‘s Ryan Lair was talking with farmers about the 1790 planter on display at the show. “On this machine you can see the two big yellow tanks which we call our CCS, or central commodity system, which allows the customer to have a lot of productivity and a lot of seed being carried on the planter itself.”
That is key when planting windows are tight. “Every year it gets tighter and tighter and the agronomists will tell you that there’s about a seven day window there where you’re gonna get the max out of the crop that you’re planting and anytime that you can carry more seed and control your inputs, that’s where we want to be and where the customer wants to go.”
John Deere’s AutoTrac™ RowSense™ makes more sense than ever for growers to use automatic guidance in corn, improve harvest efficiency and reduce operator fatigue. That’s because they now offer a universal version that can be used on older models and even other brands of combines and corn heads.
I talked with Aguimar de Souza of John Deere at the National Farm Machinery Show about AutoTrac RowSense and its benefits for growers. We also talked about the adoption of precision technology in his home country of Brazil and other parts of the world. “It’s growing everyday,” he said. “I would compare GPS technology for tractors and combines and sprayers to computer technology many years ago. Now, farmers in South America, North America, Australia, Europe understand that they need to buy these systems to be more productive.”
Listen to or download my interview with Aguimar in the player below and you can watch a video of him talking about AutoTrac RowSense here:
John Deere introduced the 8RT Series tractor just last year and it has quickly become a favorite of both dealers and growers.
Kyle Stewart with John Deere says they debuted the tractor in August so it is new this year to the National Farm Machinery Show. “What we’ve done is completely built from the ground up a brand new 8000 series tractor – the track frame is new, the vehicle frame is new, the whole design is new,” Kyle told me. “We’re getting great response from the farmers. They love the new cab. We’re seeing a lot more track tractors sold than what we saw before in this horsepower range. It’s a real popular product for John Deere.”
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
David conducted a presentation on delivering expert opinion via social media to an audience at the start of International Poultry Expo week. He's got some great information about who consumers trust and how you can use today's consumer behavior to help communicate your message.
I have recently become a Facebook fan of a cool group, Farm2U. This page is made by farmers and ranchers and is written for consumers. With informative news articles, personal farm stories and positive messages, Farm2U is designed to bolster consumer confidence and trust in America’s food supply once again.
My favorite clothing gear on the ranch, Carhartt and Cintas have recently launched a search for North America’s toughest workers. The Are You Carhartt Tough? Contest is being conducted in conjunction with the roll-out of a new product line being offered by the two companies. I know at my cattle operation in South Dakota, we don’t step foot outside without our Carhartt coats (and layers of long johns, of course!), and I want to know who else out there is Carhartt tough?
Since I’ve found that many AgWired fans are not familiar with 
In case you can’t tell, I’m a big fan of the music of 
Emily announced that she and Jason have been working on a music project since last year’s conference. They’re using a service called 
Immediately following my presentation on Thursday’s Partner Program at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference, I served as the moderator for a student panel titled, “Issues, Engagement and Impact.” The panel featured university students sharing how they have become engaged on the front lines to speak up about industry issues and the impacts of their actions.
Participating on the panel were three outstanding college students including: Greg Thon, Celeste Laurent and Bailey Albright. As moderator, I asked them several important questions pertaining to the agriculture industry today such as: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions consumers have about where their food comes from? What are the biggest challenges facing young people today? 
You never know who you are going to run into at the National Farm Machinery Show, but I am sure this young man has been to many of these shows over the years. 
I had a chance to chat about the state of the farm machinery industry with Dennis Hann, manager of North American Strategic Planning for 
I happened to be in the right place at the right time to be a guest on 
I’m joining you today from Frankenmuth, MI, where I’m attending the 
New Holland’s new 
I learned more about the campaign, which is associated with Halex GT herbicide, from Carroll Moseley with Syngenta Crop Protection. “We directly affect and feed the population by controlling weeds in corn, this is a product for glyphosate-tolerant corn,” he said. “What better way to relate it to another direct way to impact people more needy than others than to have this Weeding Out Hunger campaign where we are contributing to feeding America affiliates across the United States.”
As I was leaving the first day of the National Farm Machinery Show, the message on this young man’s shirt caught my eye.
Snow may be on the ground but growers at the National Farm Machinery Show know that planting season is just around the corner, and with the potential for yet another wet spring this year, they are looking at ways to get that job done faster and more efficiently.
John Deere’s 
John Deere introduced the 
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
