Both corn and soybean production for this year were cut in this month’s crop report out this morning from USDA. Corn production is forecast at 12.7 billion bushels, down 4 percent from the September forecast and down 3 percent from last year’s record production of 13.1 billion bushels. Soybean production is forecast at a record high 3.41 billion bushels, down …
Connecting International Buyers With U.S. Producers
After leaving the NAMA Trends in Agriculture conference I headed on down the agriblogging highway to another conference of importance to U.S. grain producers. This is the Export Exchange 2010 which got off to an official and social start this evening with welcoming remarks from U.S. Grains Council President/CEO Tom Dorr (left) and Renewable Fuels Association President/CEO Bob Dinneen. The …
Tell Good Stories
Joseph Rueter, Curation Station, talked to the NAMA Trends in Agriculture conference about effective digital brand communities. Actually, our scheduled presenter could not make it and Joseph was called in at the last minute. One of the things he did to prepare included tweeting his followers for their input for what he should tell this group of agrimarketers. How many …
Key Consumer Trends
The leader for the trends team within the consumer insights strategy group at General Mills is Carol Bagnoli. Carol was part of the Macro Food Trends Panel Discussion at the National Agri-Marketing Trends In Agriculture conference. She looks at consumer trends and how they’re shifting including consumer values, behavior shifts outside of food, food trends, health trends, sustainability and demographic …
Food Trends
What are the trends in food facing a company like Hy-Vee? We found out at the NAMA Trends In Agriculture conference from Rose Mitchell, Senior VP, Governmental Relations. Rose says there are four key trends they are looking at that include health, safety, taste and how to cook. She says they listen to their customers to identify these trends and …
NAMA Professional Development Awards of Excellence Winners
This year the National Agri-Marketing Association presented Professional Development Awards of Excellence to four people. Pictured are (l-r) Marvin Kokes, NCBA (Sales), Sue Otten, AGCO (Public Relations), Scott McClure, Brighton Agency (Marketing Communications) and not pictured Elena Lindemann, Land O’Lakes Purina Feed (Product/Species Management). I spoke with Marvin, Sue and Scott about their award and how the theme for the …
Agvocate About Feeding The World
Capping off the first day of the NAMA Trends In Agriculture conference was Dr. Jay Lehr, The Heartland Institute. He started out his presentation on feeding the world with a video of him promoting agriculture and fertilizer to consumers on the streets of San Francisco. It was actually pretty funny to see people’s reactions from cab driver to old man …
World Outlook For Agriculture
Our kick-off speaker at the NAMA Trends In Agriculture conference this afternoon was Mark Pearson, Market To Market. Mark is a lot of things, including farmer and stockbroker in addition to his hosting of the tv show. He was here to talk about what he sees as trends in agribusiness which means looking forward but also backward. Mark looks at …
Kicking Off NAMA Trends In Agriculture
The National Agri-Marketing Association, Trends In Agriculture conference has a big crowd in Minneapolis. Welcoming us was committee chair, Lacy Carroll, Colle+McVoy. She introduced our kick-off speaker Mark Pearson, Market To Market. I’ll have an interview posted with Mark soon. I’m on my Verizon Mifi and it’s not real fast right now, especially since I’m uploading photos to get the …
What’s New At Rhea + Kaiser
This week I’m beginning an informal series for the ZimmCast to learn what’s new at marketing and communications agencies. To get things started this week I’d like to share a conversation with Diane Martin, President/CEO, Rhea + Kaiser. So let’s start out by asking, “Who is Rhea + Kaiser?” In their words, “We’re an agency of highly collaborative, creative problem-solvers …