Leaving an icy downtown St. Louis this morning Cindy and I traveled to Columbia, MO where the Missouri Beef Industry Council was holding a board meeting. It was a slow trip since I-70 still had lots of icy spots. We lost count of the cars, trucks and semi’s that had run off the highway and were waiting for tow trucks. Needless to say slow was the safety word of the day.
Most of the MBIC board was able to make the meeting and we enjoyed seeing them. The MBIC was ZimmComm’s first client and we’re heading toward seven years of spreading the good news about beef! Cindy is pictured interviewing MBIC board member Sally Angell for an upcoming episode of the Checkoff Chat podcast, one of the oldest farm related podcast series. The MBIC is meeting in conjunction with the 42nd annual Missouri Cattle Industry Convention & Trade Show.
This is the Gateway NAMA holiday dinner group. Not a big one thanks to some icy weather. Cindy and I only had to walk a few blocks to our hotel though.
We had a wonderful dinner at Copia Urban Winery & Market and didn’t worry about the weather. Hopefully you’ll support your local chapter and realize that the greatest value you get out of your professional organization are the relationships you develop through activities like this.
The U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) has selected Drake & Company to provide association management services. I missed this in my Twitter feeds and it was brought to my attention this evening during the Gateway NAMA holiday dinner by Brian Reuwee. So, way to go Steve Drake and Hugh Whaley and Brian and crew!
“USFRA established a transparent process to select a general contractor to guide us towards the enactment of our vision and the accomplishment of our goals,” said Bob Stallman, USFRA Board chairman and American Farm Bureau Federation president. “Of our three highly qualified finalists, Drake & Company was selected for their innate knowledge of our business focus, their staff experience and their record of helping volunteer-driven organizations achieve measurable results.”
DrakeCo, an AMC Institute-accredited association management firm, had been providing start-up and interim general contractor assistance to the organization since August.
“We are passionate about the Alliance’s cause and strongly believe in its vision and goals,” said Steve Drake, DrakeCo president. “We will continue to apply our experience working within the agricultural community, checkoff organizations and customer-facing communications to achieve USFRA’s goals.”
During the first quarter of 2011, USFRA will continue to develop and plan a national trust and image campaign to strengthen the image of agriculture to be launched in 2011. Veteran agricultural association executive Hugh Whaley will serve as general manager.
By a vote of 81 to 19, the Senate has passed the $858 billion tax compromise worked out between President Obama and Senate Republicans that includes a key provision keeping the estate tax at levels acceptable to agricultural interests.
The measure reduces the top rate of the estate tax, more appropriately known as the “death tax,” to 35 percent, increases the exemption level to $5 million, index exemptions to inflation, and includes a stepped-up basis.
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) President Steve Foglesong, who is currently in Washington DC, was relieved to see this action taken by the Senate. “The Senate’s vote to extend the current tax rates and bring the estate tax down to more reasonable levels offers a great deal of relief to U.S. cattlemen and women right before the New Year,” said Foglesong in a statement.
Without the bill, the tax would have gone back to pre-2001 levels at 55 percent and an exemption level of $1 million on January 1, which would have a devastating impact on farmers and ranchers who wish to pass on family-owned operations after their death. The American Farm Bureau Federation calls estate tax relief the “single most important tax issue” for America’s farm and ranch families. The bill also includes an extension of the ethanol blenders tax credit, or VEETC, and a retroactive extension of the biodiesel tax credit which expired at the end of 2009. Both tax credits would now expire at the end of 2011.
The deal now goes to the House, where some Democrats have already indicated they will try to make changes in the estate tax which they consider giving too much to the wealthy. It is still expected to pass.
An Illinois-based crop technology company is getting on track with NASCAR.
BRANDT is pleased to announce a partnership with Turner Motorsports and will serve as primary sponsor of the No. 31 Chevrolet Impala, driven by NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) championship contender, Justin Allgaier during the 2011 racing season. Allgaier, who finished the 2010 season fourth in the NNS championship points standings, joins Turner Motorsports in 2011 for his third full season of Nationwide Series competition.
BRANDT, located near Allgaier’s hometown in Illinois, was founded in 1953 to help Illinois farmers adopt new technologies for their operations. Today, the Springfield, Ill.-based company is a global enterprise consisting of three operating divisions: Specialty Formulations, Retail Agronomy and Dealer Support. This will mark BRANDT’s first endeavor as a primary sponsor with a NASCAR team.
BRANDT President and CEO Rick Brandt, says they are excited to team up with Justin and Turner Motorsports for the 2011 racing season. “Coming from the small town of Pleasant Plains, Illinois and having the opportunity to team with such a great driver from nearby Riverton, Illinois adds to the excitement of the collaboration,” he states in a company release. “Also, NASCAR’s upcoming transition to ethanol fuel embodies BRANDT’s leadership as a premier producer of environmentally sustainable products for agriculture. We look forward to representing American farmers on the track.”
Pictured is Rick Brandt (left) with Justin Allgaier who drives the No. 31 Chevrolet Impala.
At the NAAA convention, BASF held a drawing for some custom airplane nose art. The winner is Terry Harchenko of Salem, OR. Hey, Terry, send us a photo of your plane with the new artwork if you get a chance.
Sometimes the unsung heroes of a trade show booth are the company sales representatives who work in shifts and answer questions for hours and hours each day. I spoke with two of them during the NAAA convention starting with Tony Goede, seen in the photo making sure aerial applicators got their drawing entries done right. Tony is the aerial manager for BASF. He says BASF has formed a very strong relationship with NAAA over several years. Most recently that has grown to include new scholarships. Tony says that since the industry is mature it’s really important to bring new people into the business.
Another one of the hard working BASF reps is Chris Wharam. About the only shot I got of him was this one as he was interacting with customers. Chris is a technical services representative from North Dakota. He thought the 20 degree weather we were having in Savannah was warm compared with home!
Chris says that BASF made another commemorative NAAA convention patch for the applicators that they could pick up at the booth in addition to entering their drawing for custom nose art for their airplane. He says that the NAAA folks are very “energized” and I would echo that.
The results of the first ZimmPoll are in. The question was “How do you think agricultural interests will fare in the new Farm Bill?” We thought we’d give you an easy one to start. The results were pretty well mixed with “Too early to tell” getting the most votes. You can add your comments about the question or the results using the comment feature here at the bottom of the post. Feel free to let us know what you think.
Our first poll had participation from 5 countries including 25 states in the U.S. The top ten states with participants were IL, CA, VA, IN, NJ, TX, KS, MO, NY and SD. Thanks to all of you.
The new poll is now live and the question is, “Do you participate in social media?” Social media consists of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, blogs, podcasts and a whole variety of other services. Let us know by taking the poll and next week we’ll post the results and you can add your comments add feedback at that time. Feel free to suggest questions for our poll anytime too.
ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.
At the same time Chuck was in Savannah covering the National Agricultural Aviation Association meeting on behalf of BASF Crop Protection last week, the company was making news at the 40th annual American Seed Trade Association’s (ASTA) 2010 Seed Expo in Chicago.
In several updates provided to seed partners, BASF announced a label expansion for Stamina® F3 HL. The fungicide seed treatment is now available for use on corn, sorghum, rye, oats and triticale, in addition to wheat and barley, which were previously approved.
Also at the expo, the Illinois Soybean Association (ISA) announced that BASF grower teams placed first in all four 2010 Yield Challenge districts they competed in during the American Seed Trade Association meeting in Chicago.
Each first-place team used a combination of BASF products, such as Headline® fungicide, Respect® insecticide and Kixor® herbicide technology, to intensively manage their acres and achieve winning yields. The BASF District 6 team, led by BASF Sales Representative Brad White, was also awarded the Novel Practices Award for earning the largest yield difference between traditional and high-yield practices in the entire state.
Since Porcine Respiratory and Reproductive Syndrome (PRRS) has been a problem in the U.S. hog industry for more than 20 years and is costing producers nearly $600 million per year, Boehringer Ingelheim (BIVI) is working with the industry to find and implement changes that will help control and even eliminate it.
Dr. Dale Polson, a member of the BIVI Area Solutions Team for PRRS which leads the company’s Area Regional Control and Elimination (ARC&E) efforts, says their concept is a game changing strategy of producers, veterinarians and industry working together. “We’ve got to do things differently to make progress because we’ve been dealing with PRRS for so many years,” he says. “So we just have to fundamentally change the way we approach it and that’s where change the game comes in.”
BIVI introduced the idea of ARC&E about three years ago and Dale says it is slowly gaining momentum. “Success builds on itself,” he says. “What we’ve seen is that people are starting to recognize that this is working better than what we were doing and could work even better if we have more areas involved.”
Listen to my interview with Dale here here: Dale Polson
The winners of the AG CONNECT Expo 2011 “Advocating for Agriculture” award have been announced. These awards recognize those who support “in a compelling way the work of farmers and ranchers to provide abundant and affordable food and fiber.” Online voting by the Ag community helped select the winners, and more than 12,500 votes were cast for the nine finalists.
The “Advocating for Agriculture” award winners are:
Ag Woman of the Year — Beverly Hall from Baxter, Tennessee Community Advocate Award — Ray Bowman from Frankfurt, Kentucky Next Generation of Ag Award — Elliott Marsh from Statesboro, Georgia
The “Advocating for Agriculture” awards seek to create a wider public understanding and appreciation of the industry’s role and the significant contribution that production agriculture makes to our quality of life. The achievements and significant contributions of the award winners also serve as an inspiration for future industry leaders.
Grand prize winners receive a round-trip for two to AG CONNECT Expo 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia and will be honored at AG CONNECT Expo during the “Celebration of Agriculture” reception on Preview Day, January 7.
You can see more about the winners here including their video entries. You can watch Beverly’s below.
After seeing a retweet this morning from FarmerNation I found this video posted that is a very tongue in cheek criticism of the Canadian Wheat Board. It’s on YouTube and the FarmerNation site and comments can be left and have been. I have no position on this but have to say that this video is hilarious regardless of which side you fall on. At least I hope the CWB can laugh (and comment). My favorite line from the CWB character is “You’re speaking eskimo.” Thanks FarmerNation and TheSaskFarmer for a good laugh.
It’s time for NAMA Regions and Chapters to present their Best of NAMA Awards. These will be done at a variety of events. Look to NAMA for full and final details as we get closer. However, here’s some info for your calendar.
January 13, 2011 – Region II (Gateway, Great Plains, Midlands, Missouri-Kansas, Rocky Mountain, and Southwest Chapters) at Boulevard Brewing Company, 2501 Southwest Boulevard, Kansas City, MO 64108, starting at 6:00 pm. For more details, visit http://www.nama.org/amc/bon/region2.htm. You can also register online at http://www.nama.org/ConferenceRegistration/Default.aspx?confid=29.
January 20, 2011 – Region IV (Badger, Chicago, Heartland, and Mid-America Chapters) at the Chicago Marriott Northwest, 4800 Hoffman Boulevard, Hoffman Estates, IL, starting at 6:00 pm. For more details, visit http://www.nama.org/amc/bon/region4.htm. Registration will be available soon.
January 27, 2011 – Region III (Cornbelt, Iowa, North Central, and Northern Prairie Chapters) at the State Historical Society of Iowa, 600 E. Locust St., Des Moines, IA 50319, starting at 5:30. The day will begin with a “Welcome to Iowa” tour, which includes a continental breakfast and lunch. Registration for the tour will be available soon For more details, visit http://www.nama.org/amc/bon/region3.htm. Online registration for the banquet is available at http://www.nama.org/ConferenceRegistration/Default.aspx?confid=30.
January 27, 2011 – Carolinas/Virginia Chapter at Junior League of Raleigh Center for Community Leadership, 711 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC 27603, starting at 5:30 pm. Registration will be available soon.
February 8, 2011 – Region I (Desert Southwest and Western Pacific Chapters) in the VIP tent at the World Ag Expo, Tulare, CA, with a reception/mixer tentatively scheduled to start at 12:30 pm.
A Midsouth Chapter event will be planned and further details will be forthcoming.
USDA announced last week that it is on the verge of going live with a commercial cloud service offering for its Enterprise Messaging Service (EMS) which includes email, web conferencing, document collaboration, and instant messaging. USDA is the first cabinet-level agency to move its e-mail and collaboration applications to the “cloud,” a rapidly growing form of computing involving flexible, scalable services delivered over the internet.
USDA awarded the contract to Dell earlier this year for Microsoft Online Services in an effort to streamline agency messaging, reduce costs and improve efficiencies that build on existing infrastructure and allow USDA to extend its on-premise software investments agreements to the cloud solution.
Over the past six months USDA has worked closely with Dell and Microsoft on a comprehensive set of plans and actions required to successfully migrate 120,000 plus users to the cloud solution. USDA expects to begin moving employees within the next four weeks and has granted Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Authority to Operate (ATO) for the Microsoft cloud infrastructure, certifying that it provides a trustworthy foundation for operations.
Read more here.
Had enough of social networking? How about some information about one of those “old” new media channels – Podcasting. Here’s a recorded presentation from the Blogworld event I couldn’t attend this year. The report is titled, “The Current State of Podcasting 2010.”
2010 Presentation of Edison Research data on podcasting. Originally presented at the Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas, this presentation by Edison Research VP of Strategy Tom Webster explores five years of data on podcast and downloadable media consumption habits, and presents new, thought-provoking insights for content creators.
Yield data and field evaluations from the 2010 growing season show Syngenta’s Agrisure Viptera trait delivers unsurpassed control of ear-feeding insects, demonstrating improved control vs. triple stacks.
Bayer CropScience LP recently announced that it has finalized a licensing agreement with Heads Up Plant Protectants Inc. for access to Heads Up seed treatment.
Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has chosen Wright City to be the location of its newest production and distribution facility, a capital investment of nearly $8 million that will create 14 new full-time immediately and a total of 25 as the facility progresses.
The Board of Directors of the American Soybean Association has confirmed Alan Kemper from Lafayette, Ind., as President and Rob Joslin from Sidney, Ohio, as Chairman.
Since I left the NAAA convention early I had to wait to catch up with Executive Director Andrew Moore (right) to see how he would characterize this year’s convention. Actually Cindy spoke with him by phone for me.
Andrew says they broke a number of attendance records. For example, they had 27 percent more room nights booked than their largest convention previously. They had nearly 1,700 attendees this year which is the highest number since 1998. He’s looking ahead to next year when the convention will be in Las Vegas. We hope to be there again.
You can listen to a NAAA convention wrapup with Andrew here: Andrew Moore Wrapup
Garrett Lindell, Lindell Aerial Ag Service, Aledo, IL. is the Treasurer for the National Agricultural Aviation Association. I visited with him at the BASF booth during the NAAA convention. He’s also a BASF fan and is pictured with Sue Koning, BASF.
Garrett says his business is about 15 years old. He’s got 6 planes on the field and hires up to 7 or 8 pilots during the peak of the season. With wet weather in his area this past season he says fungicides have been a big part of his business. I asked him what he thinks about my sponsor, BASF, and you’ll hear him say only good things. Like other NAAA folks I’ve spoken with he says that the convention attendance has been higher than expected. He’s also got a very positive outlook for the future of the aerial application business.
Apparently Garrett was the live auction winner of the PT6 engine donated by Pratt & Whitney Canada. Ag aviation newspaper, AgAir Update, got a short video statement from him on his winnings:
Christmas came last Friday for an Iowa City woman who won free food and fuel for a year from the Iowa Corn Growers Association. Katie Ortmann was the winner of the Iowa Corn Fed GameDay GiveAway campaign when her name was called during halftime of the Iowa State versus Iowa men’s basketball game held on December 10, 2010 in Iowa City.
The year-long promotion, designed to highlight the many uses of corn and its importance to Iowa, traversed a year of Iowa State versus Iowa sporting events that included football, basketball and wrestling matches. Iowans were able to register to win from August 20th through November 20th and the grand prize was free food and fuel for one year valued at $5,000 in groceries and $2,500 in ethanol from Kum & Go.
Runner-up prizes were also awarded. Marc Foster, also of Iowa City, was randomly selected to win free food and fuel during the Iowa versus Iowa State wrestling meet on Friday, December 3. In addition, Chris Dodel’s name was drawn to win the same prize during the Iowa versus Iowa State women’s basketball game on Thursday, December 9th. He resides in Urbana, Iowa.
“We’ve reached thousands of people with the Iowa Corn Fed GameDay GiveAway promotion,” said Mindy Williamson, director of communications and public relations for the Iowa Corn Promotion Board (ICPB) and the Iowa Corn Growers Association (ICGA). “Ethanol use was just one benefit featured in the program, which included food and feed uses for corn and messages about corn’s importance to Iowa’s economy, environment and energy independence.”
On behalf of ICGA and ICPB, Williamson thanked Kum & Go, Cyclone Sports Properties and Hawkeye Sports Properties for helping to sponsor the Iowa Corn Fed GameDay GiveAway sweepstakes that is part of a four-year contract with both Hawkeye Sports Properties and Cyclone Sports Properties. The promotion includes radio, television, internet, and on-site marketing and highlights the many uses for corn and its importance to Iowa- as everyday is GameDay for Iowa’s farmers.
NAAA/BASF Agricultural Aviation Scholarship winner Ben Cadenbach says receiving the scholarship “makes a huge difference” and will allow him to complete his education and become an aerial applicator. The people at the convention have been very open with him and offered a lot of advice.
You can listen to my interview with Ben here and hear what his plans are for the future: Ben Cadenbach Interview
I found out what’s new at BCS Communications at their recent holiday open house party. This is an episode in my series with the leadership of agricultural marketing and communications agencies.
Pictured are the principals, (l-r) Kelly Schwalbe, Leigh Ann Cleaver and Illinois Blaisdel. It was hard to drag them away from friends and clients but we found a place. Part of their story is the fact that they’ve expanded their office space significantly this year as well as their staff. As Illinois says it, it has been a year of finding the “right people” to add to the staff. He says they “hire on character.” (Which explains why they just hired our good friend Sally Behringer – she is definitely a character!) Also important to the interview and for those who attended the party you’ll know what I mean, they have a much larger new snow globe. You can ask them personally what that means exactly.
In our interview you’ll hear how they describe their agency and what they think sets them apart from others. ZimmCast 285 - BCS Communications
This week’s program ends with some music from Music Alley. It’s called “My Baby Likes To Eat” by Alec Berlin.
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.
Leaving an icy downtown St. Louis this morning Cindy and I traveled to Columbia, MO where the Missouri Beef Industry Council was holding a board meeting. It was a slow trip since I-70 still had lots of icy spots. We lost count of the cars, trucks and semi’s that had run off the highway and were waiting for tow trucks. Needless to say slow was the safety word of the day.
By a vote of 81 to 19, the Senate has passed the $858 billion tax compromise worked out between President Obama and Senate Republicans that includes a key provision keeping the estate tax at levels acceptable to agricultural interests.
.
At the same time Chuck was in Savannah covering the 
Also at the expo, the 
Since Porcine Respiratory and Reproductive Syndrome (PRRS) has been a problem in the U.S. hog industry for more than 20 years and is costing producers nearly $600 million per year, 
USDA 
I found out what’s new at 
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
