I got Kay Johnson Smith, Executive Vice President, Animal Agriculture Alliance, to wrap things up from the Stakeholders Summit. She says that the speakers focused on positive, proactive ways “we can reach the public and invite them in to our businesses without jeopardizing bio-security and food safety concerns.” She mentioned one speaker from a company that has live web cams of their hog barns to show the public what they’re doing.
Kay is looking forward to next year’s Summit which will be during the first week of May. I hope to be able to make it!
You can listen to my interview with Frank here: Kay Johnson Smith Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
The new Chair of the Animal Agriculture Alliance is Dr. Chris Ashworth, Elanco Animal Health. During his term he want to further distribute the message about how safe, affordable and abundant food is to citizens all across America. That includes showcasing farmers who produce pork, poultry, beef and fish. He says “We want to be able to make it even more safe and more abundant in the years to come.”
Chris says there has been a lot of energy in this year’s meeting. That tells him that they’re very engaged in the program. In his summary comments he wants the people participating to think about the challenges in a long term sense. He sees a bright future for American agriculture.
You can listen to my interview with Frank here: Dr. Chris Ashworth Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
What is the perception of farmers and ranchers? That’s the broader question that was being addressed by participants at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit according to Mary Kay Thatcher, American Farm Bureau Federation. She was one of the many people I had the pleasure to speak with.
One of the things she got out of Frank Luntz’s presentation had to do with communicating effectively with non-farm people. She thought he gave great advice that included, “His whole thought process about making sure when we make comments to people, we don’t just jump in to our expressions of concern but we give them a little credibility first and say things like, “I get it, I see where you’re going,” and give them a chance to pause and then we can come up with our 45 second elevator speech.” A take away for her was the need to do better helping states deal with the threat that is coming from animal rights groups.
Mary Kay also brought up the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance which AFBF is participating in and says it’s off to a great start. But like any other group dealing with these issues she says it will important to supply good information, messaging and coordination to state groups.
You can listen to my interview with Mary Kay here: Mary Kay Thatcher Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
At the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit we got an international lesson from Jim Sumner, President, USA Poultry & Egg Export Council. Jim says we have to look out for our own government policies and regulations or “we’re going to end up as bad or worse off than our friends in the European Union.” Let’s face it, regulations have been burdensome for a long time and they haven’t gotten better. In fact, he says it seems like the government doesn’t want to listen sometimes.
Jim says we need to address consumers so they better understand animal agriculture. He uses our cheap food costs as something that consumers need to realize and he doesn’t think the general public does. This was Jim’s first meeting with the Animal Agriculture Alliance and he calls it a “very dynamic group.”
You can listen to my interview with Frank here: Jim Sumner Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
Safer, healthier, convenient and cleaner. Those are words that Frank Luntz, Luntz Global, wanted people to take away from his remarks at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit.
I was able to ask him one question afterward while he was signing books and that was what he hoped participants took away from his presentation. His answer, “I think it’s essential that they use the most effective words and phrases that connect to the America people in where they live and how they live. That you talk about not just affordability but convenience, safer, healthier, cleaner. When you show that you’re doing it so much better now than before and you’re going to do it even better in the future than you did it now, that’s success. That’s good communication. That’s what I hope they take away from my presentation.”
Frank shared results of survey work he’s done that show how people of various demographics respond to certain words or phrases. It was very eye opening. For example, he found that people really don’t care much about the word sustainability. It just doesn’t have a meaning that’s clear since there are countless definitions. He recommended not using that word in marketing efforts. Here are some other tidbits that stuck out for me:
Imagine is most powerful word in English language.
You create miracles everyday.
Consumers take responsibility for their own nutrition. They don’t depend on the food industry.
Convenient is the word that makes consumers most interested in product.
Only people under 30 or who went to Berkely like “organic.” Although he does think this category of food product will grow.
You can listen to my interview with Frank here: Frank Luntz Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
This week was the National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s Washington Watch meeting in our beautiful Nation’s Capitol. It definitely was an interesting time to be in DC after the events of last weekend.
Washington Watch gives NAFB members an opportunity to sit down with folks inside the Beltway and get an update on some of the major issues of concern to agriculture. After Monday’s meetings broadcaster’s had a chance to delve deeper into the hot topics during Issues Forum.
Tuesday we visited USDA where we heard from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. He touched on topics from the lack of planting progress this spring to the heartbreaking Birds Point New Madrid levee. I think one of the most important items addressed was the decision to allow crop insurance protections for those affected by the Birds Point New Madrid levee situation (see Cindy’s post earlier this week). We wrapped up Tuesday with a luncheon at the National Press Club with Former Secretary of Agriculture and Former Representative Larry Combest. Tuesday afternoon left time for some Hill visits. I had the opportunity to chat with my Representative, Aaron Schock, and his staff. It’s always a good feeling to leave discussions with the confidence that the agriculture industry is in good hands. Wednesday morning concluded with visits from several of ag’s biggest supporters in the Longworth Building.
One of the most touched on topics in DC this past week was the issue of trade. I had the chance to speak with American Farm Bureau Federation’s Trade Specialist Chris Garza about the current pending free trade agreements.
Garza thinks there is light at the end of the tunnel…
Garza on Trade
Soybeans came up on the program at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit in the form of Aaron Putze, Director External Relations, Iowa Soybean Association. He thinks it’s time to reflect on blessed we are in this country to have abundant food and thank the people who produce it. He gives a startling statistic that forty percent of the food produced in the United States is either spoiled or thrown away! That’s huge. And it’s why the Iowa Soybean Association supported the development of the Iowa Food and Family Project.
The Iowa Food & Family Project isn’t an organization. It’s a movement, one that celebrates the miracle of food and the men and women that provide it.
The Iowa Food & Family Project doesn’t consist of a board of directors. There are no officers or board of directors. It isn’t incorporated.
Instead, the Iowa Food & Family Project is an activity-led initiative that brings together Iowans from all walks of life. They include farmers and farm families, teachers, students, health professionals, food retailers, manufacturers, bankers and lenders, academia, geneticists, agronomists, transportation specialists and people of faith. All those who are involved in the Iowa Food & Family Project believe in the increasingly significant role Iowa plays in feeding and fueling our state, nation and the world. They want all farmers to prosper. They believe that food should be respected.
In my conversation with Aaron he mentioned that he’s on the board of the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance. He says USFRA is doing a lot of due diligence right now that includes research and “knowing how to engage in the social environment that exists today that then gives an opportunity to agriculture to become part of the fabric of the conversation.”
You can listen to my interview with Aaron here: Aaron Putze Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
Dairy farmer LuAnn Troxel is one of the attendees here at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. She’s also President of the Indiana Professional Dairy Producers. This is LuAnn chatting with speaker, Frank Luntz, just before his presentation this morning.
LuAnn is one of my Twitter (@DairyLu) friends that I have had the pleasure to meet here. She is hungry for the kind of information being presented here about telling the story of agriculture. She wants to be completely open and honest in her presentation of dairy farming. The program has been fantastic according to LuAnn. She especially liked Dr. Frank Mitloehner’s presentation. When she gets home after getting her “catch up” work done, she hopes to maintain and build on connections she has made her.
You can listen to my interview with LuAnn here: LuAnn Troxel Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
The S word came up during the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit in a big way during a presentation by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, Agriculture Air Quality Center Director, University of California, Davis. That word is sustainability. He talked about research he conducted that debunked the “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report that was published by the FAO in 2006. That report had major errors with the biggest being miscalculations of data when comparing greenhouse gas emissions between livestock and human transportation.
I spoke with Frank to get an executive summary of his remarks. During his research he found a lot of interesting things and shares some in our interview. One that stuck out for me was his finding that in Mexico it takes 5 dairy cows to produce the same quantity of milk as one in the United States. Our dairies have become models of efficiency and it’s a great story to tell. You can find copies of Dr. Mitloehner’s research online.
You can listen to my interview with Frank here: Frank Mitloehner Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
Stamina® F3 Cereals fungicide from BASF Crop Protection has received EPA registration for seed treatment use on small grains, including wheat, barley, rye, oats and triticale.
“Stamina F3 Cereals arms our growers with an effective seed treatment for their small grain seedlings,” said Don Guy, Marketing Manager, BASF Cereals Portfolio. “As one of our SeedSolutions treatments in our cereals offering, Stamina F3 Cereals delivers excellent disease control, convenience of use and low-dusting application. Stamina F3 Cereals has a red colorant and its higher application rate makes it very suitable for on-farm applications. Stamina F3 Cereals also complements Stamina® F3 HL fungicide seed treatment, which is designed specifically for commercial application.”
Stamina F3 Cereals delivers the benefits of three active ingredients that work together to provide broad-spectrum seed and seedling disease control in small grains. These three active ingredients, F500® (the same active ingredient in Stamina and Stamina F3 HL fungicide seed treatments, Headline® fungicide and TwinLine® fungicide), triticonazole (active ingredient in Charter® fungicide and Charter® F2 fungicide seed treatments) and metalaxyl (active ingredient in Acquire® fungicide seed treatment) have proven performance as shown in BASF’s current Crop Protection Solutions and SeedSolutions offerings. Seed treatment application with Stamina F3 Cereals has been associated with more rapid and increased emergence of seedlings under certain cold conditions.
In addition to meeting with President Obama, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales gave the keynote address at “The Future of Food” conference at Georgetown University, sponsored by the Washington Post.
Since the prince has “tried to farm as sustainably as possible for some twenty-six years” he was about the closest to an actual farmer that the conference had on the agenda (see Chuck’s previous post). On the Royal Website, there is a page about the Prince’s farm which is “a completely organic system” he developed “to demonstrate the environmental and commercial benefits.” Among the farm’s produce is organic mutton. “The Prince is enthusiastic about restoring mutton (meat from a two-year-old sheep), to the dinner tables of the nation after speaking to struggling sheep farmers who found they could no longer get a decent price for older ewes. To this end, The Prince launched the Mutton Renaissance campaign.” I am not making that up.
So, HRH believes that we can feed nine billion people on this planet with a food system that is “not dependent upon the use of chemical pesticides, fungicides and insecticides; nor, for that matter, upon artificial fertilizers and growth-promoters or G.M.” and he provided His Royal Vision of a “sustainable food production” system during his address in Georgetown.
“For me, it has to be a form of agriculture that does not exceed the carrying capacity of its local ecosystem and which recognizes that the soil is the planet’s most vital renewable resource,” he said, adding that “genuinely sustainable farming maintains the resilience of the entire ecosystem by encouraging a rich level of biodiversity in the soil, in its water supply and in the wildlife – the birds, insects and bees that maintain the health of the whole system. Sustainable farming also recognizes the importance to the soil of planting trees; of protecting and enhancing water-catchment systems; of mitigating, rather than adding to, climate change. To do this it must be a mixed approach. One where animal waste is recycled and organic waste is composted to build the soil’s fertility. One where antibiotics are only used on animals to treat illnesses, not deployed in prophylactic doses to prevent them; and where those animals are fed on grass-based regimes as Nature intended.”
Read the whole speech here.
Day one of the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit is coming to an end. We’ve got a reception with silent auction to support the organization’s intern program and I’m sure I’ll collect a couple more interviews. We’ll begin again in the morning so you can count on more from here then.
In the meantime check out photos from today’s sessions: Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
Cattle rancher Debbie Lyons-Blythe talked social media at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. We follow each other on Twitter. Find her @DebbieLB. She was here to encourage people not to be afraid of social media and make some suggestions on how to use it to advocate for agriculture. She starting blogging and considers her blog, Life On a Kansas Cattle Ranch, the center of her social media universe with Facebook and Twitter being some of the planets revolving around that center. She does think there is fear out in the country to use these mechanisms but believes more and more farmers are starting to use social media.
You can listen to my interview with Debbie here: Debbie Lyons-Blythe Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
The winner of the College Aggies Online scholarship competition is Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, represented at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit by Jacob Nyhuis. In the photo Jacob is accepting the school’s $750 award. The award also included his costs to travel to the Summit. I interviewed him after the presentation and you can hear him talk about participating in the program below.
College Aggies Online is a joint program between the Animal Agriculture Alliance and the American National CattleWomen, Inc. The goal is to help college students utilize social media tools to share agriculture’s story. The program was started last fall and has attracted 600 college students from more than 50 universities
Members have earned points by posting blogs, photos and videos related to agriculture and by participating in Aggie Homework agriculture advocacy challenges via Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail.
With 765 total points, the individual high score went to Jessie McClellan of the Casper College Ag Club in Wyoming. She will receive a $250 scholarship. Jacob Nyguis of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Georgia came in second place with 655 points and will be awarded $100.
Members of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College’s Cattlemen’s Club formed the top-scoring club with 3,030 points. The group will receive a $750 scholarship and a trip to Washington, D.C. for one representative to attend the Alliance’s Stakeholders Summit in April. Casper College’s Ag Club came in second place with 2,525 points and will receive $300. Other high-scoring schools included Pennsylvania State University, Western Kentucky University, and the University of Missouri.
You can listen to my interview with Jacob here: Jacob Nyhuis Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
Protecting and growing agriculture amidst the activist conflict was the topic of the first panel discussion at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. Nebraska Senator Tom Carlson was a panelist and he made it very clear that animal rights activists are not welcome in his state. He says that when these groups come into a state, they don’t know the state and they try to paint all of agriculture with a broad brush. The fact is that farmers love their animals and take very good care of them. He uses an anecdote of how during a winter blizzard farmers were out in the severe weather taking care of their livestock and HSUS was no where to be seen. He also pointed to research that found that ninety percent of people in Nebraska believe the livestock industry is important and ninety four percent trust farmers to take humane care of their animals!
The Senator believes the mission of the Church is number one and the mission to raise food to feed people follows and is a noble mission. He says activists just want to stop killing animals for food. They really aren’t in favor of the humane treatment of animals for food. He says this conference helps bring out how important it is for different agricultural interests to come together in the face of a common threat.
You can listen to my interview with Sen. Carlson here: Sen. Tom Carlson Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, ranking member, Senate Agriculture Committee, addressed the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. He spoke to a number of issues that included the farm bill and burdensome and troubling government regulations. Sen. Roberts is seen here receiving some cowboy cookie mix from our moderator, Jason Shoultz, America’s Heartland.
I’ll add some audio from his remarks later since I’ve got that recorder in use. However, I did get to ask him one question in the hall on his way out. I asked about anything animal agriculture interests should know when it comes to farm bill discussions and how things were going with efforts to curb unnecessary regulations from the EPA. He says that talking to farmers and ranchers around the country right now they don’t even bring the farm bill up. They’re most interested in regulations which he says they’re dealing with bill by bill. He thinks it’s premature to discuss the farm bill until hearings are held around the country and they determine a “number.”
You can listen to comments from Sen. Roberts here: Sen. Pat Roberts Interview
Listen to Sen. Roberts full comments here: Sen. Pat Roberts Full Remarks
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
Iowa-based Kinze Manufacturing, a leading agricultural equipment manufacturer, has selected Martin Williams, Inc. to create a new integrated branding and selling effort encompassing brand strategy, engagement strategy, social media, event marketing, advertising and public relations.
The win adds to Martin Williams’ roster of business and global corporate clients, which includes Cargill, Syngenta, Pfizer and Raymond James. Kinze is one of the largest,
privately-held, agri-business companies in the United States, specializing in high-tech equipment for planting and hauling grain.
The past Chair of the Animal Agriculture Alliance is Dr. Elizabeth Parker, Chief Veterinarian, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Dr. Parker welcomed us all to the Stakeholders Summit of the Animal Agriculture Alliance and I caught up with her on our morning break.
Dr. Parker says that when she took over as Chair for the Animal Agriculture Alliance her goal was to help further develop the groundswell efforts of both individual farmers and farm organizations to tell their story and not let others do it for them. She says it’s a big challenge to become more of a “voice.” But she’s seeing more and more of what I call agvocating going on at the state level now. She points to the NCBA Masters of Beef Advocacy program as an example. She uses a great family example of how social media has an impact on what people know, or think they know, about where their food comes from. Social media is on the program here by the way.
You can listen to my interview with Dr. Parker here: Dr. Elizabeth Parker Interview
Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album
Careful where you go burning grass or haphazardly cutting weeds because you never know what might be hiding amongst the rubbish. Along with the spike tooth disk, I found this sickle mower for mowing hay, grass or weeds. (Looks like it needed to be used right where it was sitting!) The operator sat on the seat to drive the horses that pulled the mower.
A short history on this mower:
Sickle mowers have a long bar on which is mounted fingers with stationary guardplates. In a channel on the bar there is a reciprocating sickle with very sharp sickle sections (triangular blades). The sickle bar is driven back and forth along the channel. The grass is cut between the sharp edges of the sickle sections and the finger-plates (this action can be likened to an electric hair clipper).
The bar rides on the ground, supported on a skid at the inner end, and it can be tilted to adjust the height of the cut. A spring-loaded board at the outer end of the bar guides the cut hay away from the uncut hay. The so-formed channel, between cut and uncut material, allows the mower skid to ride in the channel and cut only uncut grass cleanly on the next swath. These were the first successful horse-drawn mowers on farms and the general principles still guide the design of modern mowers.
Source: Wikipedia.(Where else?)
Today, we use large hay and forage disc mowers, built for compact tractors or full-size operations. If you want big, they got big. This modest sickle mower got its start around 1914 and is anything but big, but it got the job done.
Until we walk again …
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In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
