At the 2010 Symposium we got a glimpse at this market from Joaquin Pelaez is the Senior Vice President for Product Excellence at Yum! Brands, Inc. In this morning’s closing session Mark expanded greatly on some of those ideas from what he has found out from his time in China. For example, he says he conducted a survey in which the word Respect came up over and over. In his presentation you’ll learn from his observations and perhaps these will serve you well if you ever work in the China market. Mark concluded his remarks saying that it’s the perfect place for the aspiring CEO!

Listen to Dr. Mark Lyons talk about the China market here: Dr. Mark Lyons on China

2012 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

I asked Mike what he wanted to communicate to our group here. He says that he first wanted us to know how big the impact is going to be on hog production when closed confinement stalls for sows are banned next year. He says this change is happening in Europe and will happen here as well. This change is going to be huge. He says that minor changes can be dealt with but a change of this magnitude which will require massive investment to implement without showing a greater return is going to be hard to deal with.

You can hear my interview with Mike here: Interview with Mike Sheldon

2012 Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

Thanks to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and United Soybean Board for their sponsorship of our coverage of this year’s Summit.

I had a chance to chat with Jeff as he attended the Pursuit of Maximum Yields (POMY) grower event last week in Collinsville, Illinois. He told me that the program is designed to help growers meet the challenges of feeding a growing world population. “We believe that the production that we have to have to feed the world is so important,” Jeff said. “The way that you go about it is through good, sustainable, environmentally-sound practices which allow us to farm with freedom, to do it in the right way, and to make sure that we get the yields to feed all the people we’ve got coming at us in the next 30 years.”

2012 is a big year for GROWMARK and for cooperatives throughout the entire world. “We have a double celebration this year,” Jeff says. “It’s the International Year of Cooperatives, but it’s also GROWMARK’s 85th anniversary. It’s a unique way of doing business and it’s also a really great way of doing business.”

Listen to my interview with Jeff Solberg here: GROWMARK CEO Jeff Solberg

Check out photos from the two Pursuit of Maximum Yields events held in Iowa and Illinois this month.

Photos from Illinois Pursuit of Maximum Yields Event

Photos from Iowa Pursuit of Maximum Yields Event

Application Form (.doc)

Lycka till! (That’s Swedish for “Good luck!”)

The main objectives of the network is to help agricultural journalists throughout the EU communicate easily with each other while also providing members with better access to issues of importance including the CAP debate from DG Agri.

New scope had arisen with the imminent launch of RTE television and the growing significance of public relations for the larger agricultural bodies like the Department of Agriculture, the Irish Sugar Company and the newly formed Bord Bainne.

and

The Guild’s Journalism awards honour professionals who have achieved excellence in journalism and communications. The awards were initiated in 1976 in honour of the late Vincent Colgan, public relations manager with Bord Bainne (now the Irish Dairy Board).

The Journalist of the Year was selected by nomination and ballot of Guild members and was presented with the bronze bull. There was just one annual award which was presented at the Bord Bainne sponsored function for the Guild, held on the eve of the RDS Spring Show.

You can learn more about Farming First on their website. What do you think about efforts like this?

Farming First is a coalition of multi-stakeholder organisations, not an organisation. The coalition exists to articulate, endorse and promote practical, actionable programmes and activities to further sustainable agricultural development worldwide. There is no secretariat and it is not intended that one will be created.

The Illinois Soldiers have educations and backgrounds in agronomy, plant and soil science, forestry, engineering, pest management, zoology and hydrology.

A big part of Richard’s presentation deals with the supply management system in Canada that is “based on planned domestic production, administered pricing and dairy product import controls.” There are licensed quotas and various other components to the system which you can read about in this pdf. A good source of information is the Canadian Dairy Information Centre. They national system was introduced in 1970. Listen to his presentation here: Richard Doyle Presentation

2011 IFAJ Congress Photo Album

With us is a delegation from Japan including Masaru Yamada (at the podium). He gave us some information about the disaster situation and how things have gone since then.

You can listen to remarks from Masaru here: Remarks from Masaru Yamada

2011 IFAJ Congress Photo Album

Cees says his organization is guided by Dutch farmer groups and cooperatives and believes that farmers can do a lot to work with people in poverty stricken areas to help them. That led to the start of an effort called Famers Fighting Poverty. He says this effort needs more communication outreach and hopes IFAJ Congress participants will assist them. He would especially like to see support from companies and organizations in the United States.

You can listen to my interview with Cees here: Cees van Rij Interview

2011 IFAJ Congress Photo Album

The project will be based on a workshop with developing-country journalists initiated at the 2010 Belgium Congress, which was managed by AgriTerra, a Dutch-based agri-development agency. AgriTerra will help coordinate the master class program in Canada, owing to its experience in networking with journalists from underdeveloped countries

Here’s our Boot Camp group getting their first lesson of the day.

Alltech will expand its sponsorship of the successful IFAJ-Alltech Young Leaders in
Agricultural Journalism award to include a Boot Camp workshop. This activity will provide
select young journalists with expert training and feedback through on-site writing or
broadcasting assignments and further develop their leadership skills through formal in-class
training.

2011 IFAJ Congress Photo Album

As chairman of the United Soybean Board International Marketing Committee, Jim Call of Minnesota split his time between the animal utilization and the human utilization meetings. “I think we covered a lot of areas. I think it gives our staff a little more direction on the projects they need to bring forward to the farmers in the future that we as farmers think will add value,” he said.

The last panel at the animal utilization meeting discussed ways that animo acid profiles could be used as a marketing characteristic. “Currently the market focuses on protein and oil,” Jim explained. “What we’re trying to do is get the market to focus instead of just on protein, on amino acid or digestibility.”

Listen to my interview with Jim here. USB Director Jim Call

More interviews and stories from the meeting can be found here.

USSEC First Animal Utilization Stakeholders Meeting Photos

That is a vision this global animal nutrition company shares with the U.S. soybean industry, with exports around the world accounting for more than half of annual production. “A lot of commonality in that and a lot of opportunity to work together and have complimentary efforts to do the right thing, not only for agriculture and livestock production, but for mankind,” said Novus International Director of Product Management Wendell Knehans, who participated in the US Soybean Export Council Animal Utilization Stakeholders meeting in Seattle this past weekend.

Wendell gave a presentation at the meeting to provide an overview of Novus and possibilities of partnership, explain some of the technical services that Novus provides in the livestock industry, and discuss some of the mutual opportunities.

Listen to my interview with Wendell here. Wendell Knehans with Novus International

USSEC First Animal Utilization Stakeholders Meeting Photos

As far as stakeholders are concerned, USB is one of the major ones represented here, since soybean checkoff dollars are used to fund the USSEC’s export promotion efforts. “I’m here to learn more about the world demand for protein for animal feeds,” says David Hartke, USB Director from Illinois. “Sitting on the Production Committee with USB, I’ve been asked to be the lead on the composition of the soybean and felt that I needed to be here.”

Listen to my interview with David here. David Hartke, USB Director

While all the USB directors I have featured so far are from Illinois, there are directors outside of the Midwest! One of them is Jacob Parker from North Carolina who says the export market for US soybeans is critically important for the industry, accounting for over half the production nationwide.

“We need to maintain that business,” Jacob told me. “We need to also make sure that our domestic crush continues and try to figure out ways to export meal as well as whole beans.”

Listen to my interview with Jacob here. Jacob Parker, USB Director

USSEC First Animal Utilization Stakeholders Meeting Photos

“We had 11 speakers representing eight different countries or regions,” said Miguel Escobar, USSEC Global Director of Animal Utilization. “We heard from all of them what kind of things they are doing in the marketplace for the future.”

Miguel says they wanted to let the stakeholders who fund the efforts of the USSEC know how their money is being spent. “The main two are the the Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) of the USDA, the United Soybean Board (USB) and all the companies that are members of USSEC who have interest in animal utilization part of the business,” he said.

Miguel is very excited about the stakeholders meeting. “We are breaking the ground for what is going to happen in the future for animal utilization,” he said, noting that it represents an $18 billion segment of the U.S. soybean export market.

Listen to my interview with Miguel here. Miguel Escobar with USSEC

USSEC First Animal Utilization Stakeholders Meeting Photos

Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show will be held on September 13, 14, and 15, 2011 at Canada’s Outdoor Park in Woodstock, ON. For more information visit www.OutdoorFarmShow.com or call 1-800-563-5441.

“The consensus reached today by the G-20 Agricultural Ministers marks an historic union of resolve in combating the pressing challenges of hunger and food price volatility confronting our world with greater regularity,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement from Paris where the meeting took place this week.

The G-20 Action Plan includes creation of an agricultural market information system charged with collecting accurate and timely data on world crop supply, demand and food stocks; and the removal of barriers to food exports for humanitarian purposes. The ministers also agreed to starting a pilot program for “small, targeted regional emergency food reserves for a limited group of countries” and helping smaller, women and young farmers in developing countries to improve productivity.

The ministers stopped short of making any recommendations that would impact the production of biofuels, but did call for further analysis of the impact of biofuels on food availability, price volatility and sustainability. “We also recognize the importance of research and development on biofuels, including those produced through new processes or new feedstocks, non-food feedstocks and other vegetable materials,” they said in their declaration.

Mandi says the New Zealand dairy model is still working but needs to evolve further in light of disruptive changes in the industry. She says that their level of productivity hasn’t kept up with the price of their product which makes them vulnerable at the moment. The current pricing of dairy products is just not financially sustainable and it looks like that isn’t going to improve soon. Mandi is a family business strategist and advises dairy farmers to take a look at their business and make sure they’re using resources wisely. Sounds like common sense advice for any business. She wants people to enjoy what they are doing by finding a balance in their life and business. Having a good plan would help a family business tremendously. Perhaps you should give Mandi a call if you need help. Mandi McLeod Interview

2011 Alltech Symposium Photo Album

Rural Empowerment Initiative (REI), a Wisconsin charitable organization, announces Harvest Shares Initiative (HSI), a program which engages local farmers, household gardeners and communities by asking them to share a portion of their agricultural harvest, or other form of involvement, to sustain families in need in West Africa.

REI’s Harvest Shares Initiatives allows individuals, community gardens, family farms and corporate harvesters to share the abundance from a portion of their crops to fund community farms in West Africa that will sustain life and provide hope for families in need.

Hopefully this program will include some effort to help people in West Africa become self sufficient and not just supply aid, although that is truly needed. What do you think of efforts like this?

Post Update:

REI pointed out to me that they do in fact work to help these people become self sufficient. Glad to hear it and sorry I overlooked that point.

“What’s unique about Harvest Shares is that donations from volunteer HSI projects provide long term sustainability for West African families and communities by teaching them to farm and harvest their own nourishment.”

As well as timely discussions on private equity investment in the full agriculture supply chain, the challenges and benefits of investing internationally and capitalizing on farmland investment, time has been set aside specifically for one-on-one networking.
All registered attendees are able to arrange private meetings on site to discuss proposals, opportunities and allocations behind closed doors – meetings will be arranged on a first come, first served basis.

For additional information, registration assistance or questions, please contact George Kiley by email on gkiley@aginvestconference.com, or call on +44(0)207 3757 545.

Confirmed participants already include: Emergent Asset Management, Macquarie, Duxton Asset Management, InvestAg Savills and many more.

For additional information, registration assistance or questions, please contact George Kiley by email on gkiley@aginvestconference.com, or call on +44(0)207 3757 545.

For additional information, registration assistance or questions, please contact George Kiley by email on gkiley@aginvestconference.com, or call on +44(0)207 3757 545.

According to Masaru the amount of farm land impacted is less than one percent of the total farmland in Japan. Most of this area was being used for rice and fruit and vegetable production. He says that in some ways the worst of the situation has passed such as affected transportation. However, he fears that in other ways the worst is yet to come for Japanese agriculture. The worst may be how the rest of the world reacts to fears about radiation contamination of food stuffs and he’s hoping that accurate information will be published by journalists the world over. Right now there is a lack of information about how agricultural products and farm land are affected because of the immediate need to devote resources to the disaster itself. He says that there are estimates that more people are missing and feared dead than have already been confirmed. I find that just hard to comprehend. And then there’s the problem with the nuclear power plants themselves.

This is a situation that’s going to take some time to resolve. In the meantime Masaru says that one way agricultural journalists can provide assistance is to make sure they are reporting good, factual information. I agree with that. We’ve already seen a high level of hysteria in some non-farm reporting about radiation. The upsurge in sales of radiation treatment medication is a good example of the impact this type of reporting can have. Just do a Google News search for it! It’s an example of how sensationalist news reporting can create a manufactured crisis. That’s not to in any way suggest that the situation in Japan with the power plants is not serious by the way. Let’s just use some common sense folks!

As I noted yesterday, IFAJ is coordinating an assistance effort for agricultural journalists in Japan. Here in the U.S. the place to contact if you’d like to help is the American Agricultural Editors Association. If Masaru’s fears become reality one of the biggest problems Japanese ag journalists may face is a lack of work. Of course in the mean time they also have health and safety concerns if they’re going to cover a situation that has a danger due to the situation with the potential radiation contamination.

Learn more about how the disaster in Japan has affected the country and its agricultural industry in this week’s program: ZimmCast 297 - Affects of Japan Disaster

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

If you want to make a donation to the Japanese IFAJ relief effort, contact your IFAJ executive in your country.

For additional information, registration assistance or questions, please contact George Kiley, Investment Director – World Agriculture Investment Series by email on gkiley@aginvestconference.com, or call on +44(0)207 3757 54

You can find the agenda here.

According to Nufarm officials, the company will provide selected products from its line of herbicides, insecticides and fungicides to VdM, which will offer those products through its well-established existing distribution channel.

“Nufarm and SCC are working together in many regions of the world to explore alliances that can capitalize on each of our strengths and we are pleased to find this opportunity in Mexico,” says Robert Renes, Nufarm vice president for Latin America North. “The combination of our broad product line and VdM’s distribution channel relationships will benefit both companies and our customers.”

VdM will have exclusive rights to sell certain Nufarm products to its distributors under private branded labels. Nufarm will continue its model of selling product to industrial customers. The final agreement is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter.

For additional information, registration assistance or questions, please contact George Kiley, Investment Director – World Agriculture Investment Series by email on gkiley@aginvestconference.com, or call on +44(0)207 3757 54

You can find the agenda here.

Shawn says the industry is in a precarious position in the U.S. because demand has declined while input costs have gone up. It’s like a double whammy on producers and Novus is working on products to help on the input side. You can listen to my interview with Shawn here: Interview With Shawn Atkins

Turning to another part of the world I spoke with Albert Van Dijk, Market Manager, Poultry & Swine, EME. Albert handles the European and Middle East territory. He says poultry is a challenging market in the EU right now since growth has stabilized. However, in areas like the Ukraine, Turkey and Russia poultry is growing.

He says that since the best way to reduce feed costs is to reduce the feed conversion ration in the animal and this is where Novus fits in. They can save up to five percent or more on feed costs. Additionally, Albert says that since antibiotics were banned in the EU in animal feed, Novus products have played an important role in the feeding program. You can listen to my interview with Albert here: Interview With Albert Van Dijk

Our next stop on our world tour with Novus is the northern Latin America region. Taking care of business there is Jorge Gonzalez, Sales Manager, LAN. His region includes Mexico. Jorge says the business is big and growing. It has also been expanding beyond poultry into swine and ruminants.

The poultry industry in his territory depends heavily on grains from the U.S. and so the higher costs of late have been challenging. This is why enzyme products like those sold by Novus play a key role in helping them be competitive on the world market. He says a trade show like this one are very important to producers in his area since it’s their opportunity to get first hand knowledge of technology that they can bring home to their operation. You can listen to my interview with Jorge here: Interview With Jorge Gonzalez

Finally, let’s look at the Asian/Pacific market with Craige Allan (pictured right), Regional Marketing Manager, South East Asia. He says all areas are experiencing growth in production/consumption since the population is growing so much. Craige enjoys finding out the needs of his customers and then helping them to formulate a solution. He says this strategy works well for Novus.

In his territory is a range of sizes and types of producers from large integrators like here in the U.S. as well as a lot of smaller operators. He thinks the market area will eventually become an exporter to other countries, particularly in the EU. Some of the customers he’s spoken with here are from Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladash. That shows the international nature of this show! You can listen to my interview with Craig here: Interview With Craige Allan

2011 International Poultry Expo/International Feed Expo Photo Album

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