The need for more training of meat-counter employees became evident after Merck Animal Health conducted a series of consumer panels that revealed consumers identify the staff behind the counter as experts. “The consumer that goes to the retail store today still sees the person behind the counter in a white coat as the butcher and they expect them to have vast knowledge of the beef products they’re selling,” said Kyle Pfieffer with Merck Animal Health, who notes that the need for training was quickly confirmed during retailer discussions.
The Better Beef Sales program includes six video segments and takes about two hours total to complete. To learn more about the Better Beef Sales retail education program, visit www.beefretail.org.
Listen to Kyle’s comments, along with Melissa Tessitore and Trevor Amen of NCBA as they introduce “Better Beef Sales” on Wednesday at the Cattle Industry Convention in Nashville: Better Beef Sales Introduction
At the International Poultry Expo, Novus International announced a new enzyme “candidate,” the first from their collaboration with Verenium. I spoke with Gary Hayen, Global Business Director for the fermentation products division. Gary says that by bringing these two companies together they will bring a strength to the industry to bring solutions to their customers.
He says that because of the growing demand for feed enzymes there will be be nothing but increased demand for high quality and specialized products like those being worked on by the two companies. He says the collaboration with Verenium has helped Novus achieve a desire to diversify their product portfolio while meeting customer needs.
Besides the new collaboration with Verenium, Novus is re-branding itself with what they’re calling the Triple S Bottom Line. To learn more about it I spoke with Dan Meagher, President for Global Animal Nutrition Solutions business unit. Dan says the goal is “really to align with our customers and our customer’s issues.” He says everything has to be focused on profitability and on sustainability.
The Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica staff veterinarian with a focus on PRRS, the swine disease that so many are trying to eliminate, is Dr. Reid Philips. Reid was on hand for this year’s PRRS ARC&E Seminar.
I asked Reid to provide a wrapup viewpoint about how this year’s seminar went. He says this year’s program came together really well. The seminar keeps growing each year and this year was no different. BIVI supplies a list of speakers that are involved in area control projects, several of whom you’ve heard from here on AgWired. Reid says that as new tools and studies are developed on PRRS this seminar becomes more important to producers. The value for both the participants and BIVI is the interaction and sharing of information.
Dr. Jim Branstad, Keota Veterinary Clinic, spoke about PRRS Surveillance in area regional control projects during the Boehringer Ingelheim PRRS Seminar. He should know all about pig surveillance since as he says, “I spend about 90 percent of my time with pigs.”
The message he had included the need to talk individually with producers in the project area. That one on one approach works well since he’s only had one producer who didn’t want to cooperate in the program. So besides having full participation if possible he says the next crucial thing is testing and this is a challenge. He says they’re doing surveillance testing but not as often as “we need to, to know everything.” He also spoke about there being too much pig movement within the area project he’s been involved with. He believes this is causing a lot of the problems they’ve been having.
Dr. Jim Lowe is an independent veterinarian and one of the attendees at the Boehringer Ingelheim PRRS ARC&E Seminar. He’s the guy on the Mac. I asked him why he attends this seminar.
Jim says that he spends a lot of time dealing with PRRS and this program allows him time to visit with colleagues and share information. He’s involved with several regional control projects and says this ability to share information is very valuable. He says these projects are “a tough row to hoe.” One of the things he’s been seeing is that the small well-defined projects with good producer participation are having some success. There’s that need for participation coming up again in one of my interviews. Jim says that sometimes it’s not so much a science project as much as a “persuasion” project to get producers to participate.
There is a serious financial impact from the PRRS disease in pigs and at the Boehringer Ingelheim PRRS Seminar we learned how much. Dr. Derold Holtkamp, Iowa State University, made a presentation titled, “Bio-economics: The Impact of PRRS & PRRS Control. He had recently completed a Pork Board cost of PRRS study and says they were able to use that data to calculate the impact of the disease in an area control project.
He says they looked at a Minnesota project which they felt best exemplified success at elimination of the disease and asked the question, “What was the value of the productivity improvements in that county after they successfully eliminated the virus there?” So they made a comparison between having the virus eliminated and projecting out to 2018, to if the area had continued in that time period without having the virus eliminated. The difference was positive $4.2 million to the county, using a net present value analysis, if they completed the project. That sounds like real value for going to the effort of getting rid of this disease!
Providing a report on the progress of the South-East Iowa PRRS ARC&E Project during the BIVI PRRS Seminar was Dr. Tim Loula, Swine Vet Center. He says these projects to try to eliminate Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome are similar to ones conducted some time ago for Pseudorabies. He says the Iowa program was started in a very pig dense area to get ready to “clean up” this virus. The project was started in 2010 and the goal was to have everyone do the same thing. He says it’s going to be a long journey.
Tim says they have about eighty percent buy in from producers in the area which has taken a lot of legwork. They’ve started mapping and have some early indication that the efforts have reduced some finishing mortality. This is going to be a multi-year project since PRRS is a very difficult virus and travels very fast in pig dense areas. If successful the area would be expanded and copied in other similar areas.
This is my favorite Dr. Laura. She’s Dr. Laura Batista, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica and she was our moderator at the PRRS ARC&E Seminar in Chicago last week. I had to wait until today to get these posts done (more coming) since I had to re-voice my part of my interviews due to losing my voice end of last week. It’s almost back to normal.
So Dr. Batista says the goal of the seminar was to share all the new information about PRRS and PRRS control projects. By bringing a diverse group of scientists and veterinarians together BIVI hopes this will improve the spread of information and collaboration and perhaps avoid duplication of efforts which would save on resources. The seminar was divided into three sections. First was a report on a couple of area control projects. Then the presentations focused on the different tools that are available like mapping and monitoring and surveillance. Then the seminar ended in an open forum for questions and answers and additional sharing of information.
During the Boehringer Ingelheim PRRS ARC&E Seminar participants heard reports from some of those area regional control & elimination projects. One of those was the North-Central Illinois Project. Our speaker was Dr. Noel Garbes, Bethany Animal Hospital Swine Services.
Noel says the PRRS (porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome) project has been going on for about two years and early on they were feeling pretty good about it. However, as many have noticed, the fall season presents challenges. He says the question being dealt with now is manure pumping at that time of year. As he puts it, “we’re chilling pigs and stressing them so maybe there’s something that happens there.” So they’re taking a look at that like other projects in other areas are also doing. He also mentions that participation in the area has to be one hundred percent which is a constant struggle. Looking ahead he says that using filters may be the way to go.
At the BIVI Swine Health Seminar in North Carolina last week, Dr. Greg Cline gave an update on the acceptance of the 3-way vaccine to combat Porcine Circovirus, Mycoplasma Hyopneumoniae AND PRRS. “The acceptance and reaction has been phenomenal,” Greg says. “It delivers in a lot of areas and we look for the acceptance to continue to accelerate as time goes by.”
The 3FLEX product is the first 3-way combination approved by the USDA to be mixed and administered as a single shot for pigs three weeks of age or older, combining BIVI’s Ingelvac CircoFLEX® 1, Ingelvac MycoFLEX® 2 and Ingelvac® PRRS MLV 3 in one 2 mL shot. “it was a vision by Boehringer-Ingelheim’s a very convenient vaccine in a one-dose, small dose delivery and have it still be convenient, safe and effective,” Greg said, calling it a winning team for hog producers. Chuck interviewed Greg last September when 3FLEX was first introduced.
New results from a trial done in Minnesota show that the PRRS modified live virus vaccine appears to reduce viral shedding.
The trial results were presented at last week’s Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar in North Carolina by Dr. Joel Nerem of Pipestone Vet Clinic. “What we found was that vaccinated pigs shed virus for fewer days and for a shorter duration of time than the vaccinated control pigs,” he said.
Why is that important in the fight against Porcine Reproductive & Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS)? “It is important when we are working on maintaining a high health status for a particular region,” Joel explained. “One of the things our group is looking at, is in the control of PRRS, can we establish regions that are free of the virus and what technologies can we utilize to maintain those PRRS-free regions?”
Novus International will be expanding its animal nutrition products thanks to a new partnership with enzyme company Verenium.
The focus of the partnership will target the development of products using Verenium enzymes for the global poultry, swine, beef, dairy, aquaculture and companion animals markets. “These new enzyme products will give us the ability to offer new solutions to the performance challenges our customers face,” said Novus International president and CEO Thad Simons.
Verenium is an industrial biotechnology company that develops high-performance enzymes for various industries, including biofuels.
“We are extremely enthusiastic about our partnership with Novus, the potential opportunity it represents for the continued development of our pipeline and for Verenium to become a more active participant in the animal health and nutrition marketplace with our suite of high-performance enzyme products,” said James Levine, President and Chief Executive Officer at Verenium.
We had a fantastic lineup of speakers for the Novus International 20th Anniversary Celebration. They all lined up at the conclusion of the festivities. I have captured remarks and interviews with a couple of them to share with you and will have a couple more later.
Missouri’s Director of Agriculture, Dr. Jon Hagler, was on the program. Jon says that what Novus has accomplished is a serious benefit to Missouri. He loves the slogan, “Innovation with Integrity,” which “so well suits Novus International. Having a company like Novus here for twenty years make such a difference not only for communities like St. Charles and St. Louis but also for farm families all across the state, all across the nation and frankly if you look around us, all across the world.” I also asked him about the current status of farm disasters from flooding and storms. He points to Missouri Agriculture Disaster Relief Fund as a place that people can get information about how to help those who are struggling to recover. Dr. Jon Hagler Interview
I also recorded his stage comments for you which you can download and listen to here: Dr. Jon Hagler Remarks
Another one of our speakers was Dr. William Danforth, Chairman, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. He says that it’s great to have a company like Novus that “serves the world.” He calls their growth an “expansion into something very important and that is providing enough food for people to eat.” He says we’ve got great challenges and Novus is going to help solve them. Dr. William Danforth Interview
I also recorded his stage comments for you which you can download and listen to here: Dr. William Danforth Remarks
The master carver working on a freshly roasted pig, pictured on the right, is Scott Moore, National Sales Manager, Pork, Novus International. Scott is from North Carolina. That was some very fine roasted pork he was preparing for us at World Pork Expo last week!
In his area Scott says that although the challenges producers have in his area aren’t unique they are more accentuated than other areas due to higher costs for grain brought in from the midwest. “If in fact $7 to $8 grain costs in the midwest is a problem, $9 to $10 costs is even more of a problem on the east coast,” he says. For this reason Scott says the new Novus Accelerating Finishing Profitability program contains specific elements to help producers deal with challenges, especially on a regional basis. Scott Moore Interview
Novus International has seen a big growth in the use of enzymes and the outlook is for that growth to continue. I learned this while speaking with Gary Hayen at last week’s World Pork Expo.
Gary is the global product business manager for the enzyme and fermentation products business area. I asked him to provide an overview of how important enzymes are for the feedstock industry. He says, “For cost efficiency and nutrient utilization, enzymes are going to play a key role in being able to help the producer obtain the efficiency and cost effectiveness they need.” Basically enzymes play a role in freeing up some of the energy and protein/nutrition values of feed ingredients that you wouldn’t get without using them. Gary provides some specific examples of how this works in my interview with him. He says that it’s a real growth opportunity in the coming years. Gary says that they can show an up to $3 return on each animal for use of enzymes. Gary Hayen Interview
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
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
This week’s program features a conversation I had at last week’s Alltech International Symposium with Billy Frey, Digita Marketing Manager. Billy was on the program with a session titled, “Precision Marketing: Don’t “get what you pay for,” only pay for what you get. His session was part of a new educational track called the New Ag Network. This track was created to take a holistic approach to business and marketing. The symposium still has species targeted educational tracks. His session was part of an effort to provide attendees with tools to do better marketing of their business.
Of course we talk about social media mechanisms since they now allow companies like Alltech to do their own branding without being completely dependent on traditional media channels. Billy says his number one message is “we have to listen to the customer.” These new tools that allow companies to engage with their customers make that easier than ever. At the same time they allow for very targeted and streamlined advertising efforts. There are ag media representatives from many countries that attend the Alltech Symposium. I asked him if he thought they are “getting it” when it comes to social media. He thinks they are or that they are at least in the process of making changes necessary to survive in the new media world. He’s proud of the ag media for embracing new media. In the photo Billy (left) is chatting with Dave Russell, Brownfield Ag News in the Symposium press room.
Billy thinks that the new media mechanisms provide an opportunity and a challenge since the younger generations are starting out with them while the older generations are only just coming around to accepting them. He echoes a belief I’ve had since we got into new media and that is that it’s just an evolution of the best form of marketing – word of mouth.
We also talk about the new Alltech App which currently provides unique information for pork producers and markets and weather. Basically, this means that Alltech has created their own information channel for their customers who can choose to get it and use it how and where they want.
Learn how Alltech is using new communications elements in the company’s marketing program: Alltech and New Media
Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsor, Growmark, locally owned, globally strong, for their support.
The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our Subscribe page.
The 2011 Alltech International Animal Health & Nutrition Symposium has concluded and with a resounding message to dream the impossible dream. Dr. Pearse Lyons took the stage to summarize what we learned and to provide some takeaway ideas that included five things that should be on your business survival action list.
1. No fads, no fashions, just change
2. Don’t be first, don’t be the best, be different
3. Know where growth comes from and get to where it is
4. Don’t act now!
5. It is about you – and everything you do
You can hear him explain these in his closing remarks below. In addition to these action items he listed a number of “Game Changers” that included an announcement that Alltech will make the single biggest investment in the company ever within the next eighteen months. This includes building new plants and expanding others in several countries. He also announced that the National Horse Show will be moving to Lexington, KY with Alltech as the title sponsor and that Alltech will once again be the title sponsor for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games which will be held in Normandy, France in 2014.
As Dr. Lyons encouraged everyone to dream the impossible dream he was joined on stage by Dr. Everett McCorvey and University of Kentucky students opera singers. They launched into a wonderful rendition of the famous song.
I recorded Dr. Lyons closing remarks which include the beautiful voices we’ve come to love at an Alltech Symposium: Alltech Symposium Closing Remarks
Follow the action on the Alltech Innovations Blog, including photos, interviews and there will be live streaming of certain sessions.
The closing general session of the Alltech Symposium features a number of speakers. First up is Dr. Karl Dawson, Center for Animal Nutrigenomics and Applied Animal Nutrition, Alltech. His theme is “Programmed Nutrition.” A very interesting concept. He was introduced by Dr. Pearse Lyons as Mr. Genomics since he has created or been involved in the creation of so many new words that end in genomics.
Dr. Dawson says he’s more optimistic about the future of animal health and human nutrition than he ever has been. He then walked us through many of the projects Alltech is working on in this area via the Center that he manages. Some quotes that really caught my attention from his talk include:
“Performance & product quality are not influenced by the genes but ultimately determined by gene expression.”
“You are what your mother ate.”
“It’s not just what we feed but when we feed it.”
Follow the action on the Alltech Innovations Blog, including photos, interviews and there will be live streaming of certain sessions.
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
Chuck and Mike often wind up at the same events all over the country so it seemed like a good idea to do a little AgriTalking about the changes they've seen in the ag media landscape.
The need for more training of meat-counter employees became evident after Merck Animal Health conducted a series of consumer panels that revealed consumers identify the staff behind the counter as experts. “The consumer that goes to the retail store today still sees the person behind the counter in a white coat as the butcher and they expect them to have vast knowledge of the beef products they’re selling,” said Kyle Pfieffer with Merck Animal Health, who notes that the need for training was quickly confirmed during retailer discussions.
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New results from a trial done in Minnesota show that the PRRS modified live virus vaccine appears to reduce viral shedding. 
The focus of the partnership will target the development of products using Verenium enzymes for the global poultry, swine, beef, dairy, aquaculture and companion animals markets. “These new enzyme products will give us the ability to offer new solutions to the performance challenges our customers face,” said Novus International president and CEO Thad Simons.
“We are extremely enthusiastic about our partnership with Novus, the potential opportunity it represents for the continued development of our pipeline and for Verenium to become a more active participant in the animal health and nutrition marketplace with our suite of high-performance enzyme products,” said James Levine, President and Chief Executive Officer at Verenium. 
This week’s program features a conversation I had at last week’s 
The 2011 Alltech International Animal Health & Nutrition Symposium has concluded and with a resounding message to dream the impossible dream. Dr. Pearse Lyons took the stage to summarize what we learned and to provide some takeaway ideas that included five things that should be on your business survival action list.
As Dr. Lyons encouraged everyone to dream the impossible dream he was joined on stage by Dr. Everett McCorvey and University of Kentucky students opera singers. They launched into a wonderful rendition of the famous song.
The closing general session of the Alltech Symposium features a number of speakers. First up is Dr. Karl Dawson, 
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
