I interviewed two of my favorite people at the Ag Media Summit and have saved those interviews for this week’s program. First up, you’ll find Jerry Harrington, Pioneer Hi-Bred. He talks about how he helps agricultural journalists connect with agronomists so they can get the word out and help producers, “grow more corn and soybeans.” Then I talk with U. …
Cow Tunes
Cows wearing headsets. Uh. Right. I want to know if they can subscribe to farm podcasts. The same Global Positioning System (GPS) technology used to track vehicles is now being used to track cows. But Agricultural Research Service (ARS) animal scientist Dean M. Anderson has taken tracking several steps further with a Walkman-like headset that enables him to “whisper” wireless …
Florida Farm to Fuel Summit
Cindy and I got up early this morning and left Tampa for Orlando where we’re attending the Florida Farm to Fuel Summit. I think this is the third one. We missed our old friend Charlie Bronson, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, although he’ll be here later this afternoon. We did see him on video though. Right now our U.S. Secretary of …
Research Needed For Ethanol Company Success
What we know and what we need to know was Peggy Caswell’s, USDA-ERS, topic here at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy conference. She says we need to know things about how farmers or the providers of biofuels and feed stocks are going to have to change the way they do business. She used the example of having …
Talking Rural Policy
My good friend Tom Dorr, USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development, was our opening speaker for day two of Farm Foundation’s Transition To A Bio Economy conference. He was glad to see the golden ZimmComm microphone once again! We visited for a while before the session got started. He says that rural policy is more important and timely a topic …
USDA Rural Development Biofuels Assistance
We had USDA Rural Development represented here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference by Tony Crooks. He works with their rural business cooperatives program and has done a lot of work with communities in the area of ethanol and biodiesel. The challenge he says we have today in rural communities is the large capital outlay to get a …
Rural Development Secretary Keynote at CUTC
I really enjoyed getting to talk with our USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development, Tom Dorr, this evening. He was our keynote speaker at the CUTC. He told corn growers and all the attendees that they’re doing a great job. He also said that there are challenges ahead like the recent Grocers Association attack on ethanol. He says that’s making …
USDA Undersecretary Bruce Knight Speaks at BASF Media Summit
Wow. What a morning here at the BASF Media Summit. After doing some live video streaming, interviews, pictures and recordings we got to have lunch with USDA Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Bruce Knight. Bruce talked about the farm bill of course. He used a description from a story in the Washington Post which called the current proposal “an …
USDA Census of Ag PSA
At NAFB’s Washington Watch we all received psa’s from NASS for the 2007 Census of Agriculture. You can listen to Sec. of Ag Schafer voice one of them here: usda-census-psa.mp3 I’m curious if any radio stations or networks use these. It was my experience before getting out of farm broadcasting on air that psa’s didn’t get used much. Is it …
Secretary of Ag Schafer Addressing NAFB
Okay, this is my last post with Secretary Schafer here at the NAFB Washington Watch. While I was streaming it live, taking stills and recording audio I also shot a video clip so you can see what the room is like when we meet here in the USDA board room. I know there’s a story about the huge table that …