We learned some interesting things about sorghum such as how 30 percent of the crop goes into ethanol and when it comes to export and food aid it’s big too. And last year sorghum was the number one requested food commodity through the USAID. Half as much of our sorghum is going to food aid as animal feed.
Immediately following my presentation on Thursday’s Partner Program at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference, I served as the moderator for a student panel titled, “Issues, Engagement and Impact.” The panel featured university students sharing how they have become engaged on the front lines to speak up about industry issues and the impacts of their actions.
Participating on the panel were three outstanding college students including: Greg Thon, Celeste Laurent and Bailey Albright. As moderator, I asked them several important questions pertaining to the agriculture industry today such as: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions consumers have about where their food comes from? What are the biggest challenges facing young people today?
How can we combat animal right activist activities? What goals do you have for the future? What opportunities are out there for young people in agriculture? How do you feel about the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board? What advice do you have for high school students involved in agriculture? How do we educate our state policy makers?
These three young people fielded these questions with the ease and poise of seasoned pros. All three will be looking for jobs in the agriculture industry in the near future, and I think they could be your next employees! Look them up!
New this year – you can become a fan of NFMS on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. Seems like every show is into the social networking thing now – and that is great!
Earlier this week Ag Leader Technology added the patent-pending SureVac electric row shutoff to their lineup of planter section shutoff devices. Since I was at the Iowa Power Farming Show I stopped in and learned all about it from Chad Huedepohl. You can watch the interview or just listen to it below. Here’s the details:
SureVac provides today’s precision farming operation with an easily- installed, zero-maintenance solution to reduce seed costs and increase yield potential.
SureVac is designed for John Deere Pro-SeriesTM XP row units, but is also compatible with any John Deere vacuum seed meter manufactured in the last 20 years. In addition to John Deere corn and soybean seed disks, SureVac supports the eSet® vacuum disk from Precision Planting.
Chad says SureVac is an electric row shutoff made to shut off the seed placement per row on a row by row basis. He says this benefits the farmer user by saving on seed and avoiding “doubles” such as on point rows.
Ag Leader Technology has announced the Blue Delta Dealer Network. At the Iowa Power Farming Show I spoke with Mike Olson to learn more about it. He’s pictured working in the booth here at the show.
Basically, Ag Leader Technology has developed a new elite precision farming distribution network in an effort to bring more structure to a growing precision agriculture community.
The network is designed to help precision farming dealers become well-rounded precision farming experts, as well as help farmers locate and identify elite precision farming dealerships throughout North America.
“There are thousands of precision farming dealerships and specialists out there; our goal with Blue Delta is to create an opportunity for the best of these dealers to separate themselves with in-depth training, and increased product and marketing sup- port so they can become an even better resource for their customers,” says Mike Olson, North American Sales Manager. “We recognize the end user’s most important resource is their precision farming dealer. This is a great way to bring more consistency and expertise to the marketplace.”
Ag Leader unofficially launched the Blue Delta network in December at the grand opening of Ag Leader Academy in Ames. Since that time Ag Leader has been working with dealers on intense product training and marketing efforts.
“Our goal is to provide these dealers with a number of tools to help them better educate and sup- port their precision farming customers,” continues Olson. “We’ve learned that the more educated growers are about precision farming, the more they embrace it. We believe this will have a significant impact on the industry.”
Tom says they represent about 400 dealers and have been doing the show for 55 years. They have a show in December in Nebraska now too. Here at the Iowa show they use 3 different buildings with 6 acres of exhibits. They’re hoping for another record attendance this year like they had last year.
You can listen to my interview with Tom below. I also uploaded a short video clip from above the show floor with my iPhone so you can see what it’s like.
One of the exhibits I visited at AG CONNECT Expo is our primary Precision Pays.com sponsor, Ag Leader Technology. Mike Olson, Sales and Support Manager, was on the floor interacting with attendees when I stopped by.
The Ag Leader booth was one of the ones displaying the “New Product” banner. I asked Mike what was new. He says there have been several new products released recently by the company including their new INTEGRA display. The 12.1 inch screen combines the operation control options Ag Leader is known for, with a built-in full-featured steering and guidance system including an on-screen lightbar.
Mike says most of the growers he spoke with know they need to implement precision technology but are asking questions about how they can use it in their operation.
You can watch or listen to my interview with Mike below:
A blizzard was brewing outside but the brand new Ag Leader Academy was just getting warmed up yesterday in Ames, Iowa.
ZimmComm’s Precision Pays website reporter Kurt Lawton was there for the kick off of the academy, along with more than 200 dealers who attended to learn about all the company’s new products and the steering technology and services gained from the recently announced partnership with AutoFarm.
There was a lot of buzz about teaming up two new products in particular, which highlights the strengths of the new partnership between Ag Leader and AutoFarm. The ability to pair the new ‘flagship’ products—Ag Leader’s INTEGRA monitor with the high-accuracy automatic steering ParaDyme product from AutoFarm—will offer the most advanced and innovative precision ag system ever, say the companies.
The INTEGRA full-featured, year-around display, comprised of a 12-inch HD touchscreen, features a new hardware platform that can handle mapping, planter and application control, yield monitoring, real-time data logging and more—controlling virtually every operation from the cab.
And to make this a fully integrated system, a patented dual-antenna roof module called the ParaDyme, delivers a unique steering system that can handle any correction (from WAAS to RTK), plus it offers factory-activated and integrated wireless and cellular communications for remote diagnostics. It not only can provide sub-inch accuracy with RTK or the CORS Network, but it can track pitch, roll, yaw, vehicle position and heading.
Commodity Classic took place in Anaheim, CA. You'll find all of Chuck, Cindy and Joanna's photos here.
Happy Ag Week
It's time to thank our farmers and ranchers for all their hard work to feed us.
In this week's program I interview Linda Tank, CHS, Inc., who is Chair of the Agriculture Council of America, the group coordinating National Ag Day. Learn more about their activities, especially this week in Washington, DC.
Representing the National Sorghum Producers on the Commodity Classic stage this morning was Chairman of the Board, Gerald Simonsen.
and 
Immediately following my presentation on Thursday’s Partner Program at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference, I served as the moderator for a student panel titled, “Issues, Engagement and Impact.” The panel featured university students sharing how they have become engaged on the front lines to speak up about industry issues and the impacts of their actions.
Participating on the panel were three outstanding college students including: Greg Thon, Celeste Laurent and Bailey Albright. As moderator, I asked them several important questions pertaining to the agriculture industry today such as: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions consumers have about where their food comes from? What are the biggest challenges facing young people today? 
I am heading out to Louisville this evening to cover the 
Ag Leader Technology has announced the 
I’m attending my first ever 
One of the exhibits I visited at AG CONNECT Expo is our primary 
ZimmComm’s 
It's time to thank our farmers and ranchers for all their hard work to feed us.
