Hello from the Florida Fertilizer & Agrichemical Association/Florida NAMA Chapter luncheon.
Here with me is (L-R) Debbie Brummel, NAMA, Dave Herndon, Southeast AgNet and Mary Hartney, FFAA. They’re also on our lunch program. I’m using this post as a demonstration post done live for the group of almost 100.
We’re talking Web 2.0 and all that it means, using words like Twitter, Tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, Blog, Podcast, and on and on and on. . .
We’ve also got a drawing for some cool AgWired/ZimmComm swag.
Post Update: Right before lunch I interviewed Mary Hartney about FFAA. The organization was started in 1932 and changed names in 1985, moving from a research focused group to one that’s more involved in public policy.
Listen to my interview with Mary here:
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The Florida Fertilizer and Agrichemical Association is holding it’s annual meeting this week in Palm Beach, FL. I’ll be there on Wednesday doing a Web 2.0 luncheon talk. It’s a pre-conference event that includes NAMA members. I’ve been told we’ve got over 100 people registered for lunch so far. I wonder how many of them have a blog or know what Twitter is.
The Florida Fertilizer & Agrichemical Association is a not-for-profit trade organization of fertilizer, limestone, agrichemical manufacturers, formulators, distributors, and dealers.
The Association was formed in 1932. The founding members advocates strong standards for improving agriculture through science and furnishing the Florida growers with dependable and proven agriculture production facts. For decades, FFAA has been committed to this goal and will continue to strive to meet the challenges of the agriculture industry.
Internet? No one’s ever going to use that! Blogs? Fad, not going anywhere.
Four years ago I heard that a lot. Rob Cook and I talk about it in this week’s ZimmCast.
Well, here’s another blog just to show you another example of how the platform can be used. This time it’s Missouri Agriculture’s Lunch & Learn Series.
The goal of Missouri Agriculture’s Lunch and Learn Series is to spread knowledge about Missouri agriculture and the impact livestock and crops have on our rural economies. This series also highlights the important connection between livestock and row crops, as well as the relationship between the growing biofuels industry and the state’s animal agriculture industry.
The 9th annual Precision Ag Conference is being held in Denver, CO. The conference kicked off today and will continue through Wednesday, July 23rd. Experts from around the globe will be presenting the latest techniques in precision farming technology. During the reception this evening, I spoke with precision experts from South Africa, India and Egypt. So far, the general idea seems to be that the U.S. is the leader in developing precision technology while the rest of the world puts it to use. We’ll see if that’s really the case.
I’ll be covering the conference in Denver this week. Updates will be posted on PrecisionPays.com, and most of the content will be used for continued posting on the precision ag Website.
I must say, the reception on the 12th floor of the Hyatt Regency boasted spectacular views of the Rockies. A few of us couldn’t tear ourselves away from the stunning sunset over the mountains and foothills.
The Cattle Industry Summer Conference is over. It’s been a great week of cowboys, steaks and following the grass roots process of the work of the NCBA and CBB. Helping me wrap up my coverage is CBB Chairman, Dave Bateman. I want to thank CBB for once again having me in as their Beef Board Blogger.
I spoke to Dave after the joint board meeting was over. Dave says it’s been a great conference. He says we’re looking at some difficulties like decreasing revenues due to things like cattle numbers being down along with lower imports.
Dave says committee members rose to the occasion though by prioritizing projects and that they have done an exceptional job. He says there’s a “unity of decisions” although that doesn’t mean everyone is happy with every decision. As he puts it, no one likes to see really good programs get cut back. He says that they’re beyond cutting the fat and now they’re cutting into the muscle.
Dave does point to a bright spot which is foreign markets. He says that the numbers are up and for that reason they’ve put some extra money into the foreign markets program.
He also says that the conference has been a good place to start the effort to improve the Checkoff with recommendations. In conclusion, he says that with the cow herd shrinking, “we’re a victim of our own success.” He says producers are so much more efficient in terms of production that revenues haven’t kept pace.
You can listen to my wrap up interview with Dave here:
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The first ever winners of the BQA Award were announced today.
Quality. It’s not only a word written in an instruction manual but a responsible action – one must live it and then teach it. That was the underlying theme this week as two producers were honored with the national Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) award, created to recognize outstanding beef and dairy producers from across the country who incorporate BQA principles as part of the day-to-day activities on their operations. The winners were selected based upon their commitment to beef quality assurance while operating sustainable cattle operations.
This year’s winners were Jim Docheff, Diamond D Dairy from Longmont, Colo., and Anne Burkholder, Will Feed Inc. from Cozad, Neb.
A common trait among the two winners is a strong desire to continually improve BQA on their operations while successfully encouraging others around them to implement BQA. The National BQA award winners are selected annually by a committee of representatives from universities, state beef councils and cattle industry groups. For more information about the beef checkoff or BQA program, visit www.bqa.org, www.dbqa.org or www.beefboard.org.
Listen to my interview with Jim and Anne here:
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In a real show of gratitude, we allowed Joe Schuele, USMEF, to attend the media reception here at the Cattle Industry Summer Conference. We even let him say a few words. We did it because we appreciate all his hard work in the media room for years.
Joe let us know how much he enjoyed doing it and said that we’d be taken care of very well by Grace Webb and Melissa Tessitore, pictured here with him.
Tom Ramey, CBB’s CEO sure has his hands full dealing with some challenging times for the Checkoff. This morning he made a presentation at the second general session of the Summer Conference. You can listen to his presentation below.
I also interviewed Tom and found out that there are two main issues of special importance to the Checkoff here at this conference. The first one, according to Tom, is the budget. The recommended budget was presented at the CBB Update Session and committees will be looking at the parts that affect them during their meetings. Tom says that Checkoff dollars are down and that it’s a tough time right now. He says some difficult decisions will need to be made.
The other big issue is the process to create recommendations for ways to improve the Checkoff. Tom says the staff has sent out over 300 letters soliciting comments and that they’ll be organizing meetings with a number of the organizations targeted. Once those comments come in the staff will organize them and scrub them so that the Admin Subcommittee, which is charged with overseeing this process, can look at them on the merit of the comment without being affected by seeing who wrote them. Then the staff will be helping organize meetings with the committee to review the comments and formulate recommendations prior to the end of the year.
Tom says producers here seem excited about what the Checkoff is doing but are concerned about the budget. He says these are difficult times for the beef industry.
Listen to my interview with Tom here:
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Listen to Tom’s general session presentation here:
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The red-shirted Beef Ambassadors have been wandering the halls here at the Summer Conference. I spoke with two of them this morning, Leticia Varelas, NM (L) and Jennifer Rassler, PA. They wanted to make sure I pointed people to their blog: Raising The Steaks. I hope you’ll take some time to see what these ambassadors of the industry are doing.
In my interview they each talk about projects they’ve been involved with like:
Summer Photo Contest: So, our mission for you is to capture those little moments of you washing your animal, leading him around, or how well you take care of them. Let your photo show how your involvement with the beef cattle production project really encourages you to be aware of animal welfare. So what we want from you is your best photo. Send it in to us at our email, which is raisingthesteaks@gmail.com. Feel free to include a caption about your picture. The contest deadline is October 1st, so you’re sure to have the perfect moment for a picture. Be sure to include an email adress where we can contact you. Photos will be judged, and a winner notified. Check back for more details as we get this contest rolling.
Penn State Blood Drive: Jennifer says they held a blood drive that had the slogan, “Beef, It’s What’s For Donors.” They fed donors hamburgers and gave them t-shirts too. She says it was the biggest blood drive they’ve ever held.
YouTube Videos: Both of these ambassadors produced YouTube videos for Earth Day to showcase the positive things farmers do for the environment. You can find Leticia’s video here and Jennifer’s video here.
Listen to my interview with Leticia and Jennifer here:
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Milwaukee-based Bader Rutter is welcoming three new associates to its public relations group. Anna Kirk, Josh Sova and Sara Pellowski are the newest additions to the marketing services agency.
Anna Kirk (pictured top right) joins Bader Rutter as a team leader. Kirk brings 11 years of professional communications experience to her position. Most recently, she owned and managed Launchpad MCPR, Inc. Kirk holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. She will be working on the Schneider Electric account.
Josh Sova (pictured middle left) joins the agency as an assistant account executive. Most recently, Sova worked for The Promotions Network (TPN), Milwaukee. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. Sova will be working on the Merial account, an animal health company.
Sara Pellowski (pictured bottom right) also joins the agency as an assistant account executive. Pellowski previously worked for Ron Sonntag Public Relations, served as a reporter for the West Bend Daily News and was a contributing writer for Soho Magazine. Pellowski is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater. She will be working on the Dow AgroSciences account.
One of Monsanto’s Mobile Greenhouse “Street Team” representatives is a student from Purdue. Daniel Stauffer is a Field Sales Intern for Monsanto and is one of the experts farmers and growers at the Michigan Ag Expo can grill about Monsanto’s new Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans. Daniel says one of the most exciting attributes of Monsanto’s “next generation” soybeans is the “drastic” increase in crop yields. Soybean crops, Daniel says, have maintained flat yields for more than ten years. That is, until now.
Daniel isn’t an expert only in Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans though. He’s also contributing to Monsanto’s stress mitigation research on corn and soybean crops, testing traits such as drought-resistance. Daniel says he’s also involved in research with Vistive soybeans and silage corn among a handful of other projects.
I spoke with Daniel at this week’s Michigan Ag Expo. You can listen to my interview with Daniel here:
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By now you know that the new CBB website is MyBeefCheckoff.com. I just realized that it’s what you get when you type in the old CBB web domain too.
One of the features you’ll soon find on the new CBB website will be producer profiles. The idea is to find out what producers (beef and dairy) think about the programs and activities of the Checkoff.
To get things started I did a number of interviews today and will get many more before the end of the summer conference. I started out with Jim Eschliman, Ericson, NE. He’s a dairy producer and it has been his career. He says they milk 140 cows but have around 300 head all together.
So when it comes to the Beef Checkoff he says that we have to continue to promote beef and get dairy producers to understand that fact. As he says, they’re beef producers too.
Jim says it’s important for dairy and beef producers to understand how to handle their animals and especially pay attention to the shipping process.
He sells cull cows and steers and thinks the Checkoff has increased the price he receives. As he puts it, “The Checkoff really helps.”
You can listen to my interview with Jim here:
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FFA Alumni State Leaders are gathered in Washington, DC and thanks to a new blog, you can keep up with the action.
The National FFA Alumni State Leaders Conference kicks off today. FFA Alumni members will have an exciting week touring Washington, D.C., visiting with their congressional representatives and learning more about opportunities available through the FFA Alumni. The event would not be possible without the generous sponsorship of Tractor Supply Company, Toyota and Farm Credit Services.
This blog has been created to provide information and photos regarding the National FFA Alumni’s 2008 State Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C. Joy Carter with the Georgia Peanut Commission, who is southern region director on the National FFA Alumni Council, is the blog developer and poster - I am sitting in the Panama City airport with her right now as she prepares to head out to DC. The FFA Alum blog address is ffaalumnislc.wordpress.com.
The Zimfo Bytes you see several times a week have been a very well received feature of AgWired. It allows us to post more nuggets of news to help keep the agrimarketing community informed. Melissa Slage, Cattlemen’s Beef Board, is the author of Zimfo Bytes. She’s pictured with Lynn Heinze at yesterday’s CBB Admin Subcommitte mtg.
This morning I talked to Melissa about what she does at CBB and their new website, MyBeefCheckoff.com. Melissa is Trade Media Manager which means she’s responsible for news releases and trade show activity. She’ll be at the upcoming Ag Media Summit for example.
I’ve logged in to MyBeefCheckoff.com and am glad they finally got a website that’s intuitive and easy to find things I need.
You can listen to my interview with Melissa here:
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The Cattlemen’s Beef Board Administration Subcommittee got things started here at the Cattle Industry Summer Conference in Denver today. I spoke with CBB Chairman, Dave Bateman, about what we can expect to see happen during this meeting.
Dave says that producers come together here at the summer meeting to do the work of the industry.
He says that the committee structure of the CBB is part of the groundwork of what happens here and that part of the process is to get the most bang for the buck while increasing beef demand.
One of the exciting topics they’ll be talking about is international markets. Dave says that the current value of the dollar, coupled with some real opportunities, makes for some interesting challenges. He says that attendance is expected to be slightly higher this year.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more about this, but Dave also mentions the process that has been started here for recommending improvements to the Beef Checkoff Program.
You can listen to my interview with Dave here:
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Southern peanut growers know the place to party and this week that’s Panama City, FL. While I get ready to go west to Denver, Cindy is attending the Southern Peanut Growers Conference. In this week’s program you can hear several of her interviews. We’ve got Randy Griggs, Alabama Peanut Producers, several guys from Trimble and Ag Technologies, the companies sponsoring the conference blog we built and Wesley Powell, past president of the National Peanut Buying Points Association. Wesley talks about grilling peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
The program this week ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. Since we’re talking peanuts, you get to listen to “Peanuts” from one inch from midget. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.
You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 179 (18 min MP3)
Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:
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The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes
Sounds like a drink almost, doesn’t it? Cindy’s lounging around on the Gulf of Mexico at the Southern Peanut Growers Conference, eating grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Can you imagine?
I tried something new today that I had frankly never even thought of eating before - grilled peanut butter and jelly. Don’t know why I never thought of it - after all, I like toast with peanut butter and jelly. But, grilling gives it a much richer flavor that, as Wesley Powell of Bainbridge, Georgia says goes great with a tall glass of cold milk for breakfast. Add some sliced bananas and you have yourself an “Elvis” sandwich!
Powell is past president of the National Peanut Buying Points Association, which grills up these tasty morsels every year at the SPGC. He shares his secrets to making the perfect grilled PB and J in this interview:
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You can see these delicacies on display at the conference.
Here’s a sight we won’t be seeing anymore. That’s because Joe Schuele has started a new job at the U.S. Meat Export Federation. This means he won’t be at the media room desk.
I just spoke to him and will miss him in the media room at the Cattle Industry Summer Conference next week. But, we’ll be in good hands with Yard-O-Beef Spokesmodel, Grace Webb, also pictured.
Joe says that he’ll have similar duties at USMEF. He’ll be working with ag media and national media helping fulfill requests for interviews. He’ll also be producing news releases including audio releases. He does admit to having to get up to speed on the pork side of things though. But, all in all, he’s happy to still be able to work with a lot of the same people he has been.
You can listen to what Joe’s up to here:
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I just got a little advance notice about a new Beef Checkoff website. I like the idea of making it easier to find information if you’re an ag journalist.
On July 15, we are launching a new Web site designed to make learning about the beef checkoff easy. MyBeefCheckoff.com is launching and you’re on our list! You’re receiving this email because we feel you’re an important news contact within the beef industry, and we’ve signed you up for exclusive media access on our site. This includes weekly updates such as press releases and audio releases; monthly updates such as Beef Briefs and daily access to our information (story) request form.
Another ZimmComm-developed website is now online. This time it’s the Southern Peanut Farmers Federation and the blog is for their annual conference. You’ll be able to follow all the nutty action in Panama City when Cindy gets there this weekend.
All the proceedings with pictures, audio interviews and more from the 10th Annual Southern Peanut Growers Conference July 13-15 in Panama City Beach, Fla., can be found on the site. The conference coverage is sponsored by Trimble Agriculture/Ag Technologies, LLC.
Over 500 peanut producers and industry representatives are expected to attend the conference, which includes educational sessions focusing on legislative issues, peanut grading, marketing peanuts, and research. One highlight of the conference is a Congressional simulation program, where participants play the role of a Congressman to obtain an idea of how Washington works.
The Southern Peanut Farmers Federation contracted ZimmComm New Media of Missouri to design and develop the site and provide on-site coverage of the convention.
Pre-conference information has already been posted and continuous content will be added starting with the kickoff of the convention on Sunday, July 13. Audio interviews from the convention will be posted for immediate playback and as a special series of podcasts that will allow people to download and listen to them on personal audio players. The interviews can also be used by radio stations or other media outlets.
Hello from the Florida Fertilizer & Agrichemical Association/Florida NAMA Chapter luncheon.
The 
Internet? No one’s ever going to use that! Blogs? Fad, not going anywhere. 
The Cattle Industry Summer Conference is over. It’s been a great week of cowboys, steaks and following the grass roots process of the work of the NCBA and CBB. Helping me wrap up my coverage is CBB Chairman, Dave Bateman. I want to thank CBB for once again having me in as their 
The first ever winners of the BQA Award were announced today.
In a real show of gratitude, we allowed Joe Schuele, USMEF, to attend the media reception here at the Cattle Industry Summer Conference. We even let him say a few words. We did it because we appreciate all his hard work in the media room for years.
Tom Ramey, CBB’s CEO sure has his hands full dealing with some challenging times for the Checkoff. This morning he made a presentation at the second general session of the Summer Conference. You can listen to his presentation below.
The red-shirted Beef Ambassadors have been wandering the halls here at the Summer Conference. I spoke with two of them this morning, Leticia Varelas, NM (L) and Jennifer Rassler, PA. They wanted to make sure I pointed people to their blog: 
By now you know that the new CBB website is 
The National FFA Alumni State Leaders Conference kicks off today. FFA Alumni members will have an exciting week touring Washington, D.C., visiting with their congressional representatives and learning more about opportunities available through the FFA Alumni. The event would not be possible without the generous sponsorship of Tractor Supply Company, Toyota and Farm Credit Services.
The Zimfo Bytes you see several times a week have been a very well received feature of AgWired. It allows us to post more nuggets of news to help keep the agrimarketing community informed. Melissa Slage, Cattlemen’s Beef Board, is the author of 
The Cattlemen’s Beef Board Administration Subcommittee got things started here at the Cattle Industry Summer Conference in Denver today. I spoke with CBB Chairman, Dave Bateman, about what we can expect to see happen during this meeting.
Southern peanut growers know the place to party and this week that’s Panama City, FL. While I get ready to go west to Denver, Cindy is attending the 
Sounds like a drink almost, doesn’t it? Cindy’s lounging around on the Gulf of Mexico at the 
Here’s a sight we won’t be seeing anymore. That’s because Joe Schuele has started a new job at the 
I just got a little advance notice about a new Beef Checkoff website. I like the idea of making it easier to find information if you’re an ag journalist.
Another ZimmComm-developed website is now online. This time it’s the 
Digital cattle news pioneer, Rob Cook, is now working for Vance Publishing after the company acquired CattleNetwork.com.
