The board of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting has made some decisions regarding the currently unfilled positions in the organization of president and executive director.
Tom Steever, Brownfield Network, sent out the following update:
As a result of Lindsay’s tragic death, with Board approval, I’ll serve out the year as President-Elect and also assume the responsibilities of NAFB President. Then at the start of 2012, I’ll assume the office of President as I normally would have. That will also allow for candidates to surface for the office of NAFB National Vice President to be elected at the annual convention in November when current Vice President Mark Oppold will be considered at that time for President Elect.
Moving on to other matters, I want to personally welcome NAFB veteran and Hall of Fame inductee Gene Millard to the temporary position of NAFB interim executive director. Gene has agreed to work for us part time as a staff point person in the executive director search and also to assist in securing a new office location for NAFB. There are several factors that led us to a decision to move our headquarters to a new location actually less than a mile from our current one.
It has certainly been a difficult year for NAFB, so Tom and the rest of the board members and staff have had their hands full in dealing with a very unprecedented situation. We wish them the best of luck moving the office and continuing the search for a new executive director.
The U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance got a boost from DuPont. The company has announced its support of USFRA by becoming one of the first members of the Premier Partners Advisory Group.
“DuPont is proud to support the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance as they bring together an unprecedented group that crosses all boundaries in modern agriculture with a single goal of building understanding about the dependable, abundant supply of food produced by today’s farmers and ranchers,” said DuPont Executive Vice President James C. Borel. “There is an increased need to reinforce the importance of agricultural contributions and its value to society, and promoting the merits of a career in agriculture also are essential to recruiting tomorrow’s farmers and innovators.”
“We appreciate the support of DuPont as we build the foundation for an alliance that will tell the great story of America’s farmers and ranchers, and the healthy and sustainable food supply that they produce,” said Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation and chairman of USFRA. “Agriculture continues to be attacked by a number of groups, and it is critical that we work together to enhance public trust and maintain the freedom of U.S. farmers and ranchers to operate in a responsible manner.”
DuPont is one of the first members of the USFRA’s Premier Partners Advisory Group (PPAG) that will support the efforts of the independent farmers and ranchers in the Alliance. PPAG members will be able to participate in USFRA board meetings as non-voting participants and will be able to serve on committees and task groups. The members of PPAG will elect a representative to serve as an ex-officio member of the USFRA Executive Committee.
Good morning agrimarketing world. I hope you’re having a sunny start to the week. Ours is a little stormy here in mid Missouri but the sun was trying to pop out.
I just thought I’d take a moment to go geek on you. If you’re in the market for a good quality digital camera that fits in your pocket consider the Canon Powershot S95. They’re hard to get right now but if you can find one, you’ll like it. I used it for this photo while stopped at a red light this morning. What I’m liking about this camera includes the fact that I can manually adjust things like shutter speed, exposure and ISO. It also has low light settings and a better lens than you’ll find in most small point and shoots. Of course you can go fully automatic too. It also shoots video and saves as .mov files which are much more user friendly than the .avi files of my previous one.
Some of you are probably thinking, “Chuck usually has a big Nikon hanging off of him.” That’s true. But this one fits in my pocket and I plan to use it as much as I can. Between it and my iPhone I always have a camera on me. It’s hard to get a photo of something if you don’t have a camera, if you know what I mean.
When we got married, my mother thought it was odd that I wasn’t putting china and crystal glassware on our registry. Gone are the days of formal dining rooms, china hutches, “good” dishes and expensive glassware. At least at my house anyway.
If you peer inside our kitchen cabinets, you’ll instead see plastic cups with lids, plastic plates and refillable cups from a gas station. Yes, we have ceramic place-settings and glass drinkware, but since we have an almost 3-year-old, the dinner table is usually adorned with non-breakable items.
This is a cut-glass condiment set, made for vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. I can picture this as the centerpiece on a beautiful table with a hand-made lace tablecloth, where the silver has been polished, the butter is neatly placed on its own silver platter, and the girls wear dresses to dinner.
Definitely not the dinner scene at my house.
Don’t get me wrong – we sit down and eat dinner as a family, we enforce table manners, and if I’m at home, the TV isn’t allowed to be on while we eat. We just have wooden salt and pepper shakers and the butter comes in a plastic tub.
This condiment set reminds me of a more formal time, where prim and proper were the foundational manners of every good girl. I guess if I preserve some of that mindset, it’s that we sit down as a family and have meaningful conversation. That’s what will stand the test of time in my mind, not the container the salt and pepper were in.
Kansas Speedway announced that SFP has signed a multi-year deal to sponsor the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway starting in 2012.
At World Pork Expo I visited with Stephanie Gable, pictured second from the right. Stephanie is now the global marketing manager for beef, dairy and pork for Novus International. She is also a past president of the National Agri-Marketing Association.
We talked about the new Novus Accelerating Finishing Profitability program that was announced during the show. Stephanie says this boils down to helping customers “take what they have and make it more profitable.” She says that Novus has created a step by step process that helps them figure out what their current needs are and how the products Novus offers can help them meet those needs. To get the help offered by Accelerating Finishing Profitability Stephanie recommends contacting a Novus representative, nutritionist or the Novus Pork website. Stephanie Gable Interview
I just got my copy of The Food Security Reader. It is “The Best of Truth About Trade & Technology” with the foreword written by Dean Kleckner and edited by Mary Boote. I have only just skimmed it but if you like what you find at TATT then you will like reading through the stories told in this book. The TATT board has dedicated the book to Dr. Norman Borlaug.
From the start, Truth about Trade & Technology has spread its message of hope and growth. We began a weekly column, produced a weekly economic analysis, launched a website, spoke to journalists, appeared on radio and television, and attended meetings in the United States and abroad. More than a decade later, we can report many successes, such as the passage of new free-trade agreements and the growing acceptance of biotech crops. Yet plenty of tests await us: Agricultural trade remains badly distorted and biotechnology continues to face substantial resistance in Europe and many developing nations. As old battles end, new ones emerge–and our work remains as important and daunting as ever. The Food Security Reader is a chronicle of what we’ve done, a collection of our best columns on a wide range of subjects. Contributors include Michael Allen, Jeff Bidstrup, Mary Boote, Gilbert Arap Bor, Tim Burrack, Reg Clause, Maria Gabriela Cruz, Rosalie Ellasus, Bill Horan, Ken Kamiya, Carol Keiser-Long, Dean Kleckner, Cheryl Koompin, Rajesh Kumar, Darrell McAlexander, Jim McCarthy, Paul Rasgorshek, John Reifsteck, Tim Recker, John Rigolizzo, Jr., Ted Sheely, Al Skogen, and Terry Wanzek.
The past four years of my life has been dedicated to agriculture in Central Illinois. Every Tuesday during the planting, growing and harvest seasons we would catch up with agronomist from different parts of WMBD and WIRL’s listening area to see how things were looking as the growing season progressed.
I was able to develop a great relationship with area agronomists and value the copious amounts of knowledge gained from them. One of my most cherished relationships is with Matt Montgomery. Matt is the former County Director for the Mason County Extension (with the recent extension reorganization his title escapes me), but most importantly he’s always been my “bug man”.
I found it only fitting that Matt was my last in-studio interview this week. We talked about crop conditions, concerns with this years crop – and of course some of the things that we need to look out for this year.
The theme this year for farmers Matt says – no matter where they are located – is going to be “SCOUT”. You’ve got to be in there – rooting around – looking for problems and be able to utilize the many tools available to us in that always important tool belt.
Derek Burk of Brookville, Ind., was selected as the grand prize winner from more than 121,000 entries in the John Deere Green Fever Sweepstakes. Burk had the choice of a new Ford F-250 Lariat 4×4 pickup and new John Deere 1026R Sub-Compact Utility Tractor with loader or $50,000 (USD) cash. He took the $50,000 cash.
Burk farms corn, soybeans and hay and raises cattle with his grandfather in southeast Indiana and also works as a mechanic for a general contractor. He said he plans to invest some of the money and use the rest to buy a home or additional farmland. His John Deere dealer is Koenig Equipment, Inc., in Oxford, Ohio.
The Green Fever Sweepstakes, which ended Feb. 28, 2011, drew entries from more than 20,000 property owners, farmers/ranchers and commercial landscape contractors in the United States and Canada.
After torrential downpours over night, it’s pretty quiet here on the last day of World Pork Expo.
We had some serious rain during the day yesterday, but it all cleared up just in time for the bands to start playing and the roasted hogs to come out. National Pork Producers Association CEO Neil Dierks says the expo was excellent this year, especially day one. “We haven’t heard the numbers yet, but we won’t be surprised if it’s not the best first day we’ve had for many, many years – even though it was 94 degrees and about 97 percent humidity,” he said.
Neil says producers are “reasonably pleased” with the current state of the industry, but concerned about issues facing them such as feed availability, getting trade agreements approved and government regulation, especially the proposed GIPSA rule.
“Value through Innovation” is the theme for Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (BIVI) at the World Pork Expo this year and the company is proud of its commitment to helping pork producers.
I stopped by the BIVI exhibit at the trade show yesterday and talked with Tim Bettington (right), executive director of the company’s swine division and Randy Buller (left), senior associate director for the division.
“BI is very committed to the swine industry,” Tim told me. “We have several other species under our umbrella but the swine industry is the key one for us. We’ve grown up as a swine organization and globally swine is the number one sales driver for us.” Tim says they are in the process of completing an R&D facility in Germany that will complement the facility they have in Ames, Iowa that has been very successful in developing the company’s PRRS vaccine.
Randy says there is a great deal of interest among producers in the 3FLEX vaccine they introduced just last year. “It is the only product in the swine industry that mixes three vaccines in a similar platform,” said Randy. The 3FLEX consists of three vaccines: Ingelvac CircoFLEX®, Ingelvac MycoFLEX® and Ingelvac® PRRS MLV to address circa virus, mycoplasma, and PRRS in one shot.
The crowd formed early and eagerly awaited the Novus International hog cooked by Lynch BBQ. Just before slicing and picking the pig the team gathered for a photo.
It only took a few minutes to get this hog into trays and ready for serving. I sampled and can’t say enough about how tender, juicy and tasty this pork was. It was just the right way to finish off a long day at World Pork Expo.
So we’re now on location for the final day. Check out the our photos. They’ve been freshly updated this morning.
The folks at Automated Production Systems led a peaceful pig protest at the 2011 World Pork Expo Thursday with their 60s-themed roast pig.
With cries of “Fork More Pork” in different languages, the AP team really outdid itself this year. The company, which specializes in swine production equipment such as feeders, ventilation and flooring, has a different theme for their pig every year. Previous years have included Mexican Fiesta and Elvis, but this one will be hard to top.
Notice that the roast pig is sporting peace sign earrings and shooting a peace sign with its cloven hoof! The video shows just how much the AP folks really get into their theme.
BBQ is what’s cooking at World Pork Expo. This is the best smelling show I’ve been to this year! Here’s Scott Beaton, Lynch BBQ. He’s been cooking this hog since about six o’clock this morning. I visited with him but all I got on the spices side was, “our secret seasonings.” Okay. This pig will be served this afternoon at the Novus International tent.
It’s the sixth year for Scott to be cooking at World Pork Expo. He’s a big Minnesota Vikings fan and has had a chance to cook for them which was a real highlight in his cooking career. Scott also says that the pork industry is vital to their business and to the state of Iowa. Scott Beaton Interview
We’ve been talking nutrition, politics and promotion but for a big part of the crowd coming out to World Pork Expo it’s about showing pigs. The World Pork Expo Junior National Show is taking place and I wandered through to take some photos.
If you’ve never been to a show then watch the short video clip. I saw two show rings in action this afternoon and people were having a good time.
The Korean ambassador to the United States says “time is running out” for Congress to approve pending free trade agreements and “the stakes are high.”
Ambassador Han Duk-soo was the keynote speaker at the National Pork Producers Council Strategic Investment Program luncheon at World Pork Expo on Thursday. He encouraged pork producers to “not let up” in urging Congress to ratify the FTA with South Korea, which is pending along with those for Colombia and Panama. “The disagreements in Washington that have delayed the FTA’s ratification are ironic, in that it enjoys almost unanimous support,” he noted. “America’s pork producers have been among the most vocal and active proponents of these agreements.”
Like those here in the U.S. who want to see the agreements passed, the ambassador is concerned that if they are not approved by end of summer, the presidential campaign will effectively delay them even longer.
Thanks to the efforts of the Pork Checkoff, pork producers now have a tool that will allow them to calculate their carbon footprint.
The “Live Swine Carbon Footprint Calculator” was unveiled today at World Pork Expo by the National Pork Board. Pork producers Randy Spronk of Minnesota (pictured) and Roy Henry of Kansas did the introduction, as well as Rick Ulrich with the University of Arkansas, which actually developed the program.
Randy was one of the first to test the carbon footprint calculator and shared what he learned with the media and later during an educational session with producers. “The impetus for this came from producers,” Randy said. “The original intent was to identify ‘hot spots’ for energy use, areas where they could have the most impact on cost of production.”
Randy says the calculator is very simple to use and clearly shows how inputs, such as feed, energy use, manure and pig performance, are all related to the carbon footprint of a barn. Due to privacy issues and the tremendous size of the computer program, it is only available to producers via disc and cannot be downloaded from the web. Copies are being distributed here at World Pork Expo and can be ordered on-line at pork.org/sustainability.
The weather has been “interesting” this morning here at World Pork Expo. This is hail coming in the sides of the Novus tent at the start of their morning press breakfast. Novus did something very smart this year. They put their whole tent display on a riser. No more flooding through the tent here.
But even with some thunder and rain the show is going on. I’ve got a fully updated batch of photos for you and will have more as our coverage of this year’s Expo continues.
This morning Novus International announced the Accelerating Finishing Profitability program. This was done with a group of agricultural reporters in their World Pork Expo tent.
High feed ingredient costs are no longer a temporary blip on pork producers’ radar screens. Instead, lofty corn and soybean prices seem to be here to stay and thus require a long-term strategic solution aimed at helping producers get the greatest possible returns from all their nutritional inputs.
The new Accelerating Finishing Profitability program from Novus International is designed to be one of these strategic solutions. The program helps optimize nutrition and delivers tangible results to the performance and profitability of a pork operation during the grow-finish phase.
Our announcement panel included (l-r) Brad Lawrence, Novus Technical Manager, Pork Business Team, International; Randy Anderson, Novus Senior World Area Director, North America and Mark Bertram, Nutrition & Production Consultant, First Choice Livestock. I spoke with each of these panelists after the presentation and have those interviews posted below. Here is the full presentation to the media: Novus Panel - Accelerating Finishing Profitability
Randy says “We’ve been working on this for a couple of years already. It’s about how can we help you understand how to nutritionally feed your animals differently that will allow you to manage your total costs and your total performance. Ultimately it’s about working with our customers to figure out how to manage their total profitability.” Randy Anderson Interview
Brad says the takeaway message this morning is “allowing producers to challenge the paradigms that they’ve had that have limited their ingredient selections to corn and soy. Instead of saying this is all we can use challenging that paradigm and saying what are the limitations to use and what blend of nutritional technologies will allow you to overcome those paradigms, overcome those challenges and improve the returns you see to your operations by opening up a broader range of ingredient options.” Brad Lawrence Interview
Mark says what the Accelerating Finishing Profitability program is about is “utilizing the technology that Novus has developed and applying those technologies to current industry issues and allowing us to, for example, increase the utilization of some of the by-product feed ingredients that may have been limiting in the past and focusing on decreasing feed costs.” Mark Bertram Interview
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.
Tom Steever, Brownfield Network, sent out the following update:
Moving on to other matters, I want to personally welcome NAFB veteran and Hall of Fame inductee Gene Millard to the temporary position of NAFB interim executive director. Gene has agreed to work for us part time as a staff point person in the executive director search and also to assist in securing a new office location for NAFB. There are several factors that led us to a decision to move our headquarters to a new location actually less than a mile from our current one.
“We appreciate the support of DuPont as we build the foundation for an alliance that will tell the great story of America’s farmers and ranchers, and the healthy and sustainable food supply that they produce,” said Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation and chairman of USFRA. “Agriculture continues to be attacked by a number of groups, and it is critical that we work together to enhance public trust and maintain the freedom of U.S. farmers and ranchers to operate in a responsible manner.”
After torrential downpours over night, it’s pretty quiet here on the last day of World Pork Expo. 
“Value through Innovation” is the theme for 
The folks at 
Ambassador Han Duk-soo was the keynote speaker at the National Pork Producers Council Strategic Investment Program luncheon at World Pork Expo on Thursday. He encouraged pork producers to “not let up” in urging Congress to ratify the FTA with South Korea, which is pending along with those for Colombia and Panama. “The disagreements in Washington that have delayed the FTA’s ratification are ironic, in that it enjoys almost unanimous support,” he noted. “America’s pork producers have been among the most vocal and active proponents of these agreements.”
The “Live Swine Carbon Footprint Calculator” was unveiled today at World Pork Expo by the National Pork Board. Pork producers Randy Spronk of Minnesota (pictured) and Roy Henry of Kansas did the introduction, as well as Rick Ulrich with the University of Arkansas, which actually developed the program. 
In this week's program Chuck talks with David Armano, Global Innovation and Integration.
