Agriculture economist Glenn Grimes, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri, and former Iowa state senator and “Master Pork Producer” John Soorholtz were inducted into the National Pork Producers Council Hall of Fame for their outstanding contributions to the pork industry.
PEER Bearing Company announces a new product offering for tillage equipment, a maintenance free gang disc tillage bearing, TILLXtreme.
Sanofi-aventis and Merck & Co., Inc. announced that sanofi-aventis has exercised its option to combine Merial with Intervet/Schering-Plough, Merck’s Animal Health business, to create a global leader in Animal Health.
June 4 to 7, 2010, a new tradeshow called Canada’s Outdoor Equine Expo is poised to bring all breeds and disciplines together.
Happy Ag Week to you. Isn’t American agriculture amazing? You bet it is and it’s time to thank our farmers and ranchers for the abundant supply of safe economical food, fiber and fuel they produce for us. And without a lot of thanks in urban areas and increasing pressure from governmental regulations.
Thank you farmers for all you do!
In this week’s program you can hear my conversation with Linda Tank, CHS, Inc., who is Chair of the Agriculture Council of America, the coordinating group for National Ag Day which we’ll celebrate officially on March 20.
In our interview Linda talks about this year’s celebration and we note the new communication channels now available to help get the message out about the importance of agriculture. She points out that there will be a big three part celebration in Washington, DC on Thursday. Wish I could be there. Here are the planned activities: Coffee with the Secretary
The coffee will take place at 8:00 a.m.on March 18 on the Whitten Patio of the USDA.
Over 3,500 industry leaders have been invited. This includes sponsors, commodity group leaders, Ag Day supporters, members of congress, etc. Also in attendance will be students from AFA, FFA & 4-H who will be making Hill visits after the coffee concludes.
Seating is limited to 150 people. The Secretary is confirmed and will speake briefly and the coffee will conclude by approximately 8:30 – 8:45 a.m.
There is no charge for the coffee but attendees do need to register so we have a list for the security staff at the USDA. Mix & Mingle Luncheon
11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Washington, D.C.
Complimentary admittance to Luncheon
This is a standing luncheon and featured speakers include an Outstanding Young Farmer Honoree and national officers from AFA, FFA & 4-H.
5:30 p.m.
USDA Whitten Building Patio, Washington, D.C.
Tickets: $100 per person, or $1,000 for a reserved table of 10
Hosted by the Agriculture Council of America in recognition of Ag Week.
The pork for the dinner will be donated by the National Pork Producers Council and will be prepared by Chef Mark Salter from the Inn at Perry Cabin. Seating is limited (we have about 20 seats left).
INVITED GUEST SPEAKERS:
Senator Blanche Lincoln, Chair, Senate Ag Committee
Congressman Collin Peterson, Chair, House Ag Committee
BASF Headline fungicide continues to make headlines, even after years on the market. The more research they do with growers using this product, the better it gets.
During a press conference at Commodity Classic, BASF Regional Sales Manager Gary Schmitz and Technical market Manager Nick Fassley talked about the more than 6,000 on-farm trials that have been held just in the United States on various crops. While we talk a lot about Headline in the major crops of corn, soybeans and wheat, Nick says the fungicide also provides plant health benefits for crops like peanuts, citrus and even sugarcane. “We’ve done a lot of work on southern crops,” Nick said. “We actually see some added benefits on our plant health label for citrus growers who see their crop mature more at the same time.” Nick says peanut growers have seen an overall increase in quality and yield with Headline, and some new rust species in sugarcane moved Florida to requested a section 18 for the use of Headline in that crop.
Gary talked about Headline AMP™, which is being offered for the first time this year for corn. “What they’ll get with Headline AMP is all the benefits that they’ve seen with Headline over the years, plus it has an additional active ingredient called metconazole, which is a best in class triazole and has very broad spectrum control of many of the diseases you find in corn,” Gary said. In trials, Headline AMP provided control for tough diseases like Rust and Southern and Northern corn leaf blight and delivered higher yields.
Download or listen to back to back interviews with Nick and Gary in the player below.
The Pioneer exhibit at Commodity Classic got lots of attention from pancake lovers with the Pioneer corporate chefs demonstrating the versatility of soybean oil for cooking.
I stopped by and happened to catch Adam Moore flipping flapjacks on the griddle and later was able to do a video interview with Chef Charlie Baggs who showed off the dishes they were making for the trade show crowd, including Chicken Marsala and a sweet Romaine and cranberry salad with feta cheese and a soy oil/mustard vinagrette dressing. Charlie is president and founder of Charlie Baggs, Inc., and he and his Chicago-based staff travel around the country doing this kind of gig for Pioneer and other corporate clients. Seems like a pretty sweet job!
Between Passion and Pressure is the them of this year’s International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress. It’s going to be held seaside April 17-21 in Ostend, Belgium at the Thermae Palace hotel. I’ll be attending and get back just in time for the start of the NAMA convention in Kansas City.
This year’s IFAJ Congress is being hosted by the Belgian Association of Agricultural Journalists (BVLJ-ABJA), a founding member of IFAJ. Here’s a look at the program:
Saturday April 17th, 2010 – Arrival at the Thermae Palace Hotel (Ostend)
* Beach animation in the morning and afternoon
* Executive meeting at 2 P.M.
* Welcome dinner at 8 P.M
Sunday April 18th – The city of Ghent
* Symposium ‘Ghent, cradle of biotech’ (morning)
* Partner program: ancient city of Ghent (morning)
* Visit to the Floralies (afternoon)
* Dinner at ‘t Boerenhof and tribute to the sax” by the new Orleans Night Owls
Monday April 19th – Tours
* Tour 1 – West-Flanders : Intensive horticultural production, horticultural auction, arable crops and
beef production
* Tour 2 – East-Flanders : Pig production and processing, biogaz and agro-environmental management
* Tour 3 – Antwerp & Flemish Brabant : Intensive horticultural production & horticultural auction, horticultural research, Belgian endive and dairy
* Tour 4 – Antwerp :Janssen Animal Health, veal production and dairy
* Tour 5 – Wallonia : Agricultural machinery (Joskin), artificial insemination, cattle breeding (Belgian White Blue), beef production
Tuesday April 20th
* Partner program: city of Bruges: historical centre, Belgian chocolate and lace(morning)
* Specific technical tours (morning)
* Partner program: city of Ostend (afternoon)
* Workshop: ‘Agricultural journalism, between passion & pressure’ (afternoon)
* General assembly at 4 P.M.
* Farewell dinner – IFAJ Band
Taking a team approach to problem solving often saves both time and money and that has been the goal of the North Central Soybean Research Program (NCSRP) in using soybean checkoff dollars more efficiently for the benefit of growers.
During the Commodity Classic I talked with NCSRP executive director David Wright, seen here with South Dakota farm broadcaster Michelle Rook, about the program which is run by soybean producers for soybean producers. “NCSRP is a grower-based organization that invests soybean checkoff dollars into research and education activities to improve soybean yield,” he told me. “These are state checkoff dollars combined with some national checkoff dollars. We’re a regional organization, we pool money from both sides, and then invest it at approximately 20 land grant universities throughout the United States.”
Twelve states participate in the program, from Kansas to North Dakota and east across to Ohio and Michigan, and the dollars are distributed each year through a very competitive grant process. “We don’t just do research, we target research to solve problems,” David said.
NCSRP has a website (www.ncsrp.com) where growers can find all of the latest management recommendations to increase soybean yields, and they also hold numerous meetings in the various states during the year to get the information out to farmers. In addition, NCSRP has a producer communications effort called the Plant Health Initiative which aims to help growers manage soybean from the ground up. That site features a regular update on soybean health issues by David called David’s Desk.
Listen to or download my interview with David in the player below.
The chemical company, BASF, produces a podcast called The Chemical Reporter. In the latest episode you can learn about fungicides.
Just like animals and human beings, plants can get sick. In many cases, the cause is a fungus. Not a mushroom like you see poking up out of the ground in the woods, but a network of branching, filamentary cells that botanists call ‘hyphae’. In entertaining episodes our Chemical Reporter answers questions of our Podcast listeners on Chemistry in our everyday life.
Spring is near and that means so is AgDay which is coordinated by the Agriculture Council of America. This year you can follow AgDay on Twitter and Facebook. AgDay also has a blog now too.
Tune in to the ZimmCast on Monday for an interview with ACA Chair, Linda Tank, CHS, Inc.
Every year, producers, agricultural associations, corporations, universities, government agencies and countless other across America join together to recognize the contributions of agriculture. This year, Ag Day will be celebrated on March 20, 2010, and Ag Week during the week of March 14-20, 2010.
The world’s population is growing and simultaneously, malnutrition is growing. The World Soy Foundation (WSF) is a nonprofit organization that is helping to eradicate malnutrition around the world through soy protein. I had the chance to spend a few minutes with Nathan Ruby, Executive Director of the World Soy Foundation to learn more about what they do.
Ruby explained that they address malnutrition issues through soy protein in four ways:
Food distribution of soy protein
Microenterprise – helping people start small businesses like the soy cow where people add 1 lbs of soybeans to 1 gallon of water to produce soy milk which they then sell in the local community
Research – studying soybeans in different nutritional settings
Education – working with people around the world to help them learn how soy protein can increase nutrition
WSF is currently working in areas with high malnutrition including Haiti. “Our program there is really about development,” said Ruby. “We’re not a diasaster relief agency so we’re more concerned about what happens when the television cameras leave and go away and the world kind of forgets about Haiti. We’re still going to be there developing and we have a long-range plan to do that.”
The organization is typically anywhere where people live in areas that are disconnected form the general flow of resources and opportunities. Currently, they are considering some programs in Iraq to help them learn how to farm soybeans and a similar program in Central America.
As a nonprofit, WSF is always looking for more people to become involved in their programs. Soybean farmers around the world can participate through the Acre Challenge. Ruby explained that in this program, soybean farmers donate the proceeds from one acre of production.
To learn more, click here and you can listen to my full interview with Nathan below.
Hey horse loving bloggers. Want to blog the upcoming 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games? Enter this contest.
Land O’Lakes Purina Feed is excited to announce the Purina® “Live from Lexington” Contest, an opportunity for horse lovers everywhere to showcase their blogging skills for a chance to attend and report live from the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games™ in Lexington, Ky. The contest is sponsored by Purina Mills, LLC and co-sponsored by EquiSearch (www.EquiSearch.com) and Active Travel. Contestants can learn more about “Live from Lexington” and enter online at www.LiveFromLexington.com.
“Two grand prize winners of the contest will be our Purina blog-o-spondents and will report to our fans on the latest happenings at the Games,” said Brant Gilbert, marketing manager, Horse Business Group. “We know that Purina has some of the most loyal customers and horse enthusiasts in the industry, and we are excited to find the perfect duo to send to the competition and enjoy the festivities.”
Contest entries can be submitted online at www.LiveFromLexington.com between March 1 and May 31, 2010. To participate, entrants must submit a video of sixty seconds or less explaining why they want to be a Purina® Live from Lexington blog-o-spondent. Videos will be judged based on the entrant’s response, qualifications, articulation, and talent.
The National Pork Producers Council at its annual business meeting – the National
Pork Industry Forum – held March 4-6, elected new officers and members to its board of directors. Click here for a complete list.
Syngenta Seeds, Inc. announced it has submitted to the U.S. EPA an application for the registration of its Agrisure Viptera 3220 trait stack, featuring two modes of action against all major lepidopteran corn pests and a reduced refuge of 5% in the Midwestern Corn Belt.
The National Organic Coalition and Center for Food Safety are announcing more than 200,000 individuals have contacted the USDA saying they disapprove of the government’s potential deregulation of Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered Roundup Ready Alfalfa.
CVT stands for Continuously Variable Transmission and Case IH was spotlighting its benefits over power shift during Commodity Classic, both at their exhibit and during a WIN session.
“The advantage of having a completely variable transmission is that you can allow the computer to operate both the engine and the transmission to dial in the ‘sweet spot’ for power and for fuel consumption with the tractor,” says John Bohnker, Case IH marketing manager.
The technology has been around for many years, but Case just recently narrowed it up to use in row crop applications. CVT is now available on Case IH MagnumTM 180, 190, 210 and the new 225 tractors, as well as the Puma 165 to 225 series. “If you look at North America, the row crop tractor is the area where there’s a strong demand for variable transmission,” Bohnker said. “In particular, the sugar beet and potato areas, as well as the Midwest row crops.”
Listen to or download my interview with John below.
His wife calls him a “PMG” – Professional Meeting Goer – because Alan Kemper has been serving on the boards of state and national agricultural organizations for over two decades now.
Alan was a very busy guy at the Commodity Classic last week but I was able to do a quick interview with him while he was in the BASF exhibit presenting the annual BASF/ASA Scholarship award. He talked about the scholarship program, the attendance at Classic, his thoughts on Secretary Vilsack’s speech and the importance of the soybean export market. Listen to or download that interview in the player below:
The future of agriculture is important to BASF and that is why the company sponsors scholarships for young people along with both the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and the American Soybean Association (ASA).
The NCGA program awards five $1,000 scholarships to college students studying agriculture, while the ASA program chooses one student to award $5,000. So, each year for the past three years, BASF has helped six students pay for their future career in the field of agriculture. All awards are presented at the annual Commodity Classic
I talked with BASF North American Crop Protection Group Vice President Nevin McDougall about the scholarship programs as he was presenting the students with their awards during the Classic last week. “We have a very common base and understanding in terms of vision, values and goals for the respective grower organizations and we feel it’s our obligation to contribute to the long term sustainability to their membership, to help educate the young talent that will be contributing to the growth of our industry in the future,” Nevin told me.
Nevin enjoyed getting to meet the scholarship winners who were able to make it to the Classic to receive their awards and talk about their future goals, as well as getting to meet their families. “Our scholarship initiative is a good example of how we are trying to contribute to individual family farms, support their children in terms of their educational goals and to be a part of the future they’re trying to create,” he said.
Listen to my interview with Nevin in the player below:
The CME Group has started a blog.
The exchange launched Open Markets to communicate CME Group’s views and help spark a dialogue on a broad range of issues that affect a diverse, and increasingly interrelated, array of financial markets.
In addition to the blog, content will include testimonies and speeches, white papers and features from CME Group Magazine, video clips and your media articles that cover related issues.
Open Markets’ initial focus will be on the various proposals and discussions taking place in Washington, D.C. among regulators and lawmakers. Over time, content will expand to include a broad range of issues such as market access, technology and globalization.
There is a rare treasure nestled in the heart of the Ozarks in Southern Missouri – a college that offers students a degree in hard work.
I’ve lived in Missouri for 18 years but never knew about the College of the Ozarks until this week when I joined the Missouri Beef Industry Council (MBIC) for a luncheon and tour at the school located just south of Branson in a picturesque spot called Point Lookout. It was originally founded as a Presbyterian high school in 1906 and today is a Christian-based four year liberal arts college with 1500 students who pay their tuition by working 15 hours a week on campus and two 40 hour work weeks at the end of each semester. Students are chosen on the basis of financial need as well as academics and only about 1 in 7 who apply each year actually get the opportunity to attend.
The college offers 48 different degrees, including culinary arts, hotel and restaurant management, agribusiness, animal science, and ag education. There are about 125 students majoring in some area of agriculture there, but the school offers amazing hands-on experience for them, including hog, dairy and beef operations, a meat processing facility and a feed mill. They also have a beautiful center that is open to the public which features fine dining, historic lodging, meeting rooms, and more. During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Sarah Palin chose to visit the college as one of her stops in Missouri.
You can find out more about the college by listening to the MBIC podcast here or in the player below the video. And you can see all the photos from the tour online in this Flickr photo album.
One of the highlights of the tour was a culinary demonstration and gourmet lunch prepared by college Chef Robert Stricklin. The menu included Cranberry Cinnamon Biscuits, Pear and Feta Cheese salad with Baby Greens, Braised Short Rib Shank with roasted vegetables and rosemary jus, Black Walnut Coffee Toffee Ice Cream made by the students – and everything was fabulous! Chef Stricklin made his five star gourmet entree look amazingly easy to prepare in his short demonstration, which you can view below:
The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center (NCERC) is relatively new to Commodity Classic with this being their third year. You could tell when you talked with John Caupert, the director of NCERC, how excited he was to be there so I asked him why.
“There’s energy, there’s enthusiasm back around around ethanol and biofuels. Some people believe that corn ethanol is an old technology. We believe just the opposite. We feel the corn ethanol industry is still in its infancy and through technological advancements, there’s much more to learn and prove in corn ethanol production.”
Caupert explained that the NCERC is unique in that they bring together the ethanol industry, corn growers and livestock producers and one of their goals is to ensure that there is a long-term market for corn growers through the corn ethanol.
Recently, they have spent a lot of time reviewing data regarding how the value of how co-products improve the greenhouse gas footprint of fuel ethanol production. “I think more often than not, we forget about the fact a corn ethanol plant in addition to producing fuel ethanol, also produces this high value livestock feed called distillers grains,” said Caupert.
Caupert noted that although they don’t often work directly with farmers, they work closely with both the National Corn Growers Association as well as state corn groups.
I only touched on the work that NCERC is doing. You can hear more about their research by listening to my interview with John below.
A recent focus of Bill Hendrix, the Biology Team Leader, Insect Management Traits & Seeds Treatments for Dow AgroSciences, is developing the new SmartStax technology for corn with Monsanto. I spoke with Hendrix about the new SmartStax traits in more detail during Commodity Classic.
The SmartStax technology brings eight traits in a package of corn. It received registration in 2009 and is now available for the 2010 growing season. I asked Hendrix how this new technology benefited farmers.
“It’s a benefit to growers because it offers the broadest spectrum. It will bring the best of both the Herculex trait as well as the Yield Guard traits. So it’s got double modes of action, above ground and below ground. Plus, it has Liberty, Link and Roundup Ready herbicide traits,” answered Hendrix.
According to Hendrix, another major benefit for the farmer is that because of the resistance management protection and the extra modes of action, the EPA has granted a reduced refuge from 20 percent traditionally, to 5 percent.
Hendrix added that no matter where the farmer is in the country, the traits will bring them protection.”
You can get more information here as well as by listening to my interview with Bill below.
Commodity Classic was full of new products and technologies and two new product lines have come from the Channel Brand. The Channel Brand is under the Channel Bio company (launched in September 2009) which is a Monsanto company.
I spoke with Stacy Markovich, Channel Brand Manager about Channel Bio and the new Channel Brand products. “Our mission is to serve as the American farmers most trusted source for seed, and Channel is one of the largest seed companies in the United States,” said Markovich.
The company’s primary products are corn and soybean but they also have alfalfa and sorghum. This year, they have a new corn lineup with 18 new products including six Channel Brand Genuity SmartStax products. On the soybean side, they have 24 new products including 20 Channel Brand Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Yield products.
Also in the Monsanto pipeline are products that will address drought, drought tolerance and water utilization needs. Click here to learn more about the Channel Brand products.
Do you remember the Golden ARC Awards? I do. And they’re back.
Are you one of the best in agricultural public relations? Do you contribute valuable professional communications to your position? Are you proud of your work?
Since its inception in 1990, the Golden ARC Award came to represent the pinnacle of success in agricultural public relations. Now reintroduced after a multi-year absence, the Golden ARC esteem will undoubtedly wow clients, bosses and colleagues.
Now is the time to submit your best work to the prestigious 2010 Golden ARC Awards. The deadline is Saturday, May 1, 2010.
The Golden ARC Awards Program consists of two divisions, the “Campaigns Division” and the “Tactics Division.” Within each portion, individual categories exist. Check out the rest of the site for more information on how you can win in 2010.
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.
Happy Ag Week to you. Isn’t American agriculture amazing? You bet it is and it’s time to thank our farmers and ranchers for the abundant supply of safe economical food, fiber and fuel they produce for us. And without a lot of thanks in urban areas and increasing pressure from governmental regulations.
and 
The 
Taking a team approach to problem solving often saves both time and money and that has been the goal of the 
During the Commodity Classic I talked with NCSRP executive director David Wright, seen here with 
CVT stands for Continuously Variable Transmission and 
His wife calls him a “PMG” – Professional Meeting Goer – because Alan Kemper has been serving on the boards of state and national agricultural organizations for over two decades now. 
The 
There is a rare treasure nestled in the heart of the Ozarks in Southern Missouri – a college that offers students a degree in hard work. 
The college offers 48 different degrees, including culinary arts, hotel and restaurant management, agribusiness, animal science, and ag education. There are about 125 students majoring in some area of agriculture there, but the school offers amazing hands-on experience for them, including hog, dairy and beef operations, a meat processing facility and a feed mill. They also have a beautiful center that is open to the public which features fine dining, historic lodging, meeting rooms, and more. During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Sarah Palin chose to visit the college as one of her stops in Missouri. 
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
