The congress will bring together key figures from industry, government and NGO’s to discuss the way forward for an industry with a central role to play in a number of global challenges – the economy, energy, climate change and hunger. “The focus on agriculture and food production is unprecedented,” said 2011 Congress Chairman, Jim Bolger. “Prices are rising, shortages are feared and the hungry are not getting any less hungry. And concurrently, the responsibilities placed on agriculture are increasing – as a source of energy, industrial raw materials and pharmaceuticals while all the while using less water and reducing its environmental impact.”

Among the agricultural company representatives who will be taking part in the Congress are Novus International president and CEO Thad Simons and Dr. Jürgen Oldeweme, Senior Vice President of BASF Agricultural Products Division in Germany. Other big company names with representatives on the program include Bayer Crop Science, Novozymes, Syngenta, and Monsanto.

“The World Agricultural Forum is a not-for-profit organization, headquartered in St. Louis, that brings together world leaders to address issues of the agricultural sector and agribusiness to feed the world’s growing population,” Kathy told me. To that end, WAF holds a World Congress every other year in St. Louis, but they also saw a need to take those discussions on the road to other regions of the world, including Latin America, China and Africa.

Thad says Novus has been a long time supporter of the World Ag Forum and is sponsoring these regional roundtables, which fits in with the mission of the company to help feed the world affordable, wholesome food and achieve a higher quality of life. “If we’re going to be helping to feed the world wholesome and affordable world, then it’s important that we reach out to all the different stakeholders to complete that vision,” Thad says.

WAF events planned for 2010 include a regional roundtable for Latin America in Brazil May 12-13; a world congress in China July 1-2; and a regional forum focusing on east Africa in Uganda October 6-7. More information is available on the WAF website.

Listen to or download my interview with Thad and Kathy in the player below:

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Thad says they work with their customers to improve efficiency and deal with issues of sustainability, which is more than just a word for Novus International. They don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk as well, which can be seen in their new headquarters building in St. Charles, MO. “We just received the certification from the Green Building Council of the United States for the Platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and we are very proud of that,” Thad says. He says their goal for the building was that it be sustainable in three ways – economically, environmentally and socially. “It was intended to be an open, team-based work environment and the environmental design part of the LEED program is really focused on the employees, so it is very open and very light.”

The grand opening of the new Novus International headquarters is coming up next week – June 3 – and we will be able to provide you with a peek inside this new sustainable building.

You can listen to my interview with Thad here:

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Dr. Mitloehner talked about the United Nations report that claimed livestock produce more greenhouse gases than all transportation. “This has been a very controversial report,” he said. “You can’t take these global numbers and apply them regionally. That’s one of the big issues.”

He says that increasing efficiency in livestock production is already decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, comparing the efficiency of dairy cows in the United States between 1944 and 2007. “To produce one billion kilograms of milk in 2007, we need 20 percent less cows, 25 percent less feed, 10 percent less land. In 2007, we produced 40 percent less methane and 56 percent less nitrous oxide compared to 1944. The reason for that is improved efficiency, and these are huge gains.”

He believes that while livestock production may be part of the problem in some regions, it can be part of the solution by producing energy from manure. “I come from a village in Germany that decided five years ago to establish a very large digester, which is fed with animal manure, food waste, green clippings and other residue. It produces methane, which is burned, the heat from the burning heats up a water tower, the heated water goes through a pipeline system into every home in the village and the power that is generated is used to power the entire village. This village is now the first one in the world that is off the grid.” Mitloehner says they are working on a similar project at UC-Davis.

During the Novus roundtable, it was brought out that the issues of climate change, sustainability and animal welfare are all tied together and provide both challenges and opportunities for the livestock industry. Mitloehner says producers need to confront the issues and be proactive.

You can listen to Frank Mitloehner’s opening remarks during the climate change session at the World Ag Congress:

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Read Mike’s feature on Paul Collier here.

Collier is a professor of economics at Oxford University and author of a book on global poverty, “The Bottom Billion”. He contends that there are three major policy changes that can be made by nations that would alleviate hunger in the poorest countries. One is biofuels subsidies. “I’m not against biofuels, I’m against subsidies for biofuels,” Paul says.

Not sure I agree with him on that one, but I do agree with his second premise that the ban on genetically modified crops in Europe and Africa should be lifted. “Europe shot itself in the foot and in the process it shot Africa in the heart because Africa really needs to adapt to climatic deterioration and a rising population and genetic modification of crops is potentially a godsend,” said Collier.

The third policy mistake Collier notes is the over emphasis in Africa on “peasant farming” and the resistance to commercial agriculture. “This has tended to be imposed on African by the agenda of some NGOs and development agencies who have a romantic attachment to the vanished peasant lifestyle,” something he says is very self-serving, “trying to impose our fantasies on the poorest people on Earth.”

You can listen to my interview with Paul Collier here:

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Four speakers presented sustainability-related topics and the first was Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Center for Food Integrity (CFI) who talked about how building and maintaining public trust and confidence in contemporary U.S. food production is the only way to have a system that is truly sustainable. “We define sustainability as systems that are ethically grounded, scientifically verified and economically viable,” Charlie said. “If they aren’t all three, we don’t believe they are sustainable, nor will they be supported by consumers.”

Charlie says their consumer research has discovered that confidence, resulting from shared values and ethics, is most important to consumers who are unfortunately completely disconnected from food production, which diminishes their level of trust in the system. “What they tell us is, we trust farmers, but we’re not sure that what you are doing is farming because of the size and the scale and our use of technology,” he said. “That’s the challenge we have to overcome.”

To do that, CFI is launching a consumer-directed web-based campaign on a state basis, starting in Ohio. They will be offering a year’s worth of free groceries giveaway to encourage people to go on-line and learn more about real farmers and ranchers in their state. “We’ve got to do it by connecting people to people,” Charlie said. “People are telling us they don’t trust systems or companies, they trust people who share their values.”

You can listen to my interview with Charlie here:

Download the interview here: Charlie Arnot

While the issue may be debatable, there is no question that agriculture should be taking every opportunity to decrease greenhouse gas emissions – including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Panalist Jerry Hatfield with USDA’s National Soil Tilth Laboratory talked about how nitrogen stabilizers can make a major difference in nitrous oxide emitted from the application of nitrogen fertilizer. “Nitrous oxide is 320 times more powerful than CO2, so one molecule of nitrous oxide saved is like saving 320 carbon dioxide,” Jerry said. “So we can have a major impact on total greenhouse gas emissions by reducing nitrous oxide.”

Jerry told me that USDA-ARS has found that the use of stabilized nitrogen not only reduces emissions of nitrous oxide, but it is also better for plants because it makes nitrogen more available later in the season when the plant really needs it. “So, its a win-win – a win for the plant and a win for the environment simultaneously,” he said.

He says nitrogen stabilizers are readily available in various forms for farmers from companies like Dow and AGROTAIN.

You can listen to my interview with Jerry here:

Download the interview here: Jerry Hatfield

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Henk Joos with London-based D1 Oils moderated the panel focusing on an integrated approach to biofuels. He stressed that the purpose of the panel was to find solutions. “We can decide to go again in an immense debate on food versus fuel,” he said. “I would like to take a different approach. I would like with my fellow panelists to identify responsible ways to make food and fuel at the same time.”

The panelists included former Secretary of Agriculture for India Radha Singh, Lee Broughton with Enterprise, Bill Horan with 25x’25, and professor Nuhu Hatibu, CEO of Kilimo Trust, East Africa.

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Kathy says her goal going forward with WAF is to take the organization from only having congresses in St. Louis to expanding into other areas of the world. “To better bring the solutions and innovative ideas that are working in one area and see if we can replicate them in other areas,” she said.

They were expecting 200 participants for this year’s congress and Kathy says there are over 260 registered from more than 20 different countries. “The theme this year is food security and looking at the technological issues related to food security,” she said. “The participants feel the panelists have been outstanding and the discussions have been robust, and some pretty innovative ideas and concepts coming out of those.” She is also pleased with the participation in this year’s Congress by a variety of stakeholder companies – from food manufacturers like Hershey and General Mills to agribusiness companies like Novus, Monsanto and AGROTAIN.

You can listen to my interview with Kathy here:

Download the audio file here: Kathy Moldthan interview

Click here to see all stories from the World Ag Congress.

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Another company making a difference in that arena is St. Louis-based AGROTAIN International and I talked with president Mike Stegmann today about some of the ways they are helping. “Sustainability means different things to different people but at AGROTAIN International we’re talking a look at fertilizer specifically,” Mike said. “We truly believe there’s ways to use fertilizer, be more efficient, get more, cost less and still do the right thing for the environment.” AGROTAIN is the world’s largest producer of StabilizedNitrogen™ fertilizers.

Along those lines, AGROTAIN has been participating in a study with USDA’s Agriculture Research Service on the impact of nitrogen fertilizer on climate change. “We wanted to understand what the climate change benefit is of using a product like AGROTAIN to using conventional fertilizer or no fertilizer at all,” Mike says.

In fact, the study has found there is a dramatic reduction in nitrous oxide emissions when nitrogen fertilizer is applied with AGROTAIN. More on that will be revealed tomorrow here at the Congress by Jerry Hatfield with USDA’s National Soil Tilth Research Laboratory.

You can listen to my interview with Mike here:

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“Our mission as a company is to support sustainable, industrial animal agriculture,” says executive vice president of marketing and sales Giovanni Gasperoni. He notes that there is a great deal of discussion about “organic” farming under the concept of sustainability. “Organic is not for the mass. You’re not feeding 6.2 billion people by going organic. We need to make sure that the people who want to spend the money for organic are not imposing the rule for the rest of the world.”

John Davis interviewed Gio here at the World Ag Congress yesterday about Novus’ role in sustainability and making food more accessible and affordable for the world. “It’s not by promoting free range chicken or organic chicken,” Gio says. He also talks about some of Novus’ products, Alimet and Santoquin, two livestock feed additives that he says have helped to “change the world” for livestock producers and meat eaters. Santoquin is actually 50 years old and has the distinction of being the first feed additive approved by FDA.

You can listen to John’s interview with Gio here:

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Roundtable participants included moderator Gary Blumenthal, CEO of World Perspectives; Joel Velasco of Brazil’s Sugar Cane Industry Association, Cargill’s Devry Boughner, Robert Modarelli with the National Center for APEC; and Tjada McKenna of The Gates Foundation.

I am taking over for John Davis covering this event this week and hope I can do half as good a job. Thanks to John for his excellent coverage, and thanks again to Novus International for sponsoring Agwired coverage of the congress.

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During a presentation after the last session today at the World Agricultural Forum in St. Louis, Syngenta Seeds President David Morgan presented Penn with the Syngenta Recognizing Contributions to Global Challenges Award for his work that has “contributed significantly to bringing plant potential to life by addressing the crucial issues of safe, affordable and reliable supplies of food, fuel, fiber and water.”

Morgan highlighted Penn’s work to calm fears after BSE in cattle was discovered to have been imported into the U.S. from Canada. He was also noted for his educational work about the enhanced safeguards put in place against BSE and helped lift bans on U.S. beef exports to other countries.

Penn told the delegates to the forum that he was very flattered, very honored and very pleased to accept the award. He hopes the award will help draw attention and better inform people of the daunting challenges facing agriculture in the future.

You can hear almost all of the award presentation (sorry, missed the first few seconds) and Penn’s acceptance remarks here:

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Right at the outset, Stallman stressed the American farmers’ commitment to making sure that not only people in the U.S. are fed but that the entire world has enough to eat.

“Any hungry person should be great cause for concern to all of us.”

Stallman says agriculture needs to figure out how it will feed the 9 billion people who will live on the planet by the year 2050… on basically the same amount of land used to feed about 6 billion today (including the nearly 3 billion who now don’t get enough to eat). But, he says global hunger has less to do with production than it does with infrastructure and politics. “Hunger in the world today is not a lack of calories. It’s a problem of distribution,” he said.

Stallman says policies, in particular, the trade protections that too many developing countries insist upon, are some of the political decisions that are having a tremendous impact on world food supplies. He also defended biofuels, which had been a bit maligned during this session, as not being to blame for the spike in food prices the world has seen. Stallman pointed out that American farmers are getting better at sustainability practices.

Stallman tells the group in St. Louis that there are some solutions to the daunting tasks world agriculture will face over the next couple of decades.

“We must continue to seek out new production technology, adapt new production technology and not fear new production technology. Those countries that choose to turn their backs on tech will be left behind.”

Stallman says open borders and open trade are also part of the solution to how to feed those 9 billion people by 2050.

You can hear more of Bob’s comments during the session here:

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The most current session features several prominent bankers, including: Shuillin Wang, China Investment Corp.; Joseph Quinlan, Chief Market Strategist for Bank of America; James Bond, CEO, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency at The World Bank; Jonathan Campaigne, CEO of PRIDEAFRICA in Kenya; and Esther Muthoni Muiruri, the General Manager Marketing-Agri Business, Equity Bank, Ltd.

Quinlan warned that with the current global financial crisis, there might be a tendency for some banks, especially those in North America and Europe, to keep more of their capital at home.

“As the banks rebuild their balance sheets, there’s going be a home bias.”

As bad as that might sound for some of the developing countries, which rely on foreign investment to move their ag programs forward, they might look more to their own homegrown finances to get the local economies moving. That growth in local economies, in turn, will fuel the overall growth in the world’s economy.

Quinlan says the political instability that plagues many developing countries will make banks in the U.S. wait for local banks, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) take the lead at financing those operations in those areas.

He says that a forum such as this one only confirms in his mind the importance of agricultural commodities and the investment opportunities they offer.

Listen to my conversation with Joseph here:

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During a session this morning, the RT Hon. James B. Bolger, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and the current Chairman of the World Agricultural Forum; Carl Hausmann, President and CEO of Bunge North America; J.B. Penn, Chief Economist for John Deere; David Morgan, President of Syngenta Seeds; Michael Bennett, CEO, Terra Industries; and Prof. Nuhu Hatibu, CEO of the Kilimo Trust, East Africa, fielded questions from the audience… ranging from making organics profitable and worthwhile for developing countries to produce… to employing and lifting up those at the bottom half of the world’s economic ladder.

Some of the answers I’ve already covered in previous postings, but I thought you would be interested in hearing how the participants interacted during the session:

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We’ll have more as the events progress, but to start with, you can see about 40 pics from last night’s welcoming reception and behind-the-scenes tour at the St. Louis Zoo, sponsored by our friends at Novus International.

World Ag Forum photo set.

He told the group that while you can park unsold cars, you can’t park hunger… drawing parallels to the bailout of the US auto industry but a lack of similar action to bail out some of the world’s poorest people.

Just a few minutes ago, I caught up with Mr. Bolger as he stepped off the stage from a session that included representatives from some of the world’s biggest agri-businesses talking about how to solve the current global financial crisis. He says the most important thing we can do is lift up the 3 billion people who are at the bottom of the economic ladder.

“Fundamentally, if we are going to have a world economy moving smoothly, we need to have the 3 billion on the bottom having the income to buy the goods of the others.” Mr. Bolger sees those 3 billion as potential customers who could make a tremendous difference in the world’s economy as a whole.

Several of the panelists pointed out that while banks and companies would like to invest in these developing countries, there needs to be a stable political environment. Mr. Bolger sees it as a “chicken-and-egg” quandry as to which one is solved first.

“Poor countries will be unstable. We’ve got to start looking at how we lift them up out of absolute poverty to have more stable societies. It’s naive to say we can’t do anything until they all settle down and behave.”

He says a venue, such as the World Agricultural Forum, is a tremendous place where people can get together and hear other viewpoints and learn from others backgrounds.

Listen to my entire conversation with Mr. Bolger here:

World Ag Forum photo set

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The RT Hon. James B. Bolger, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Chairman of the World Agricultural Forum, pointed out to the group that the world needs to its food policies. He says we need to get out of the idea that the way out of the current financial crisis is not to get the top 1 percent of income earners to spend so much more but to get the portion of the world’s population earning the least amount… 3 billion people in his estimation… to be able to buy more. He says that will raise all fortunes for everyone.

Bolger offered that we can feed the world, and he put it out to the panelists the question of how we do it. Many of the panelists seem to agree that the real need is for political stability in these poorer areas. Once stability is achieved, then investment, technology and the lifting of millions out of poverty will follow.

I’m going to catch up with some of the panelists individually as we go on, but I wanted to give you an idea what is being discussed here at World Agricultural Forum.

World Ag Forum Photo Album

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We’ve staked out a place about halfway back in the main ballroom at the St. Louis Ballpark Hilton… close enough to get what everyone is talking about but far enough back so we can break away and get interviews.

We’ll be here all week as delegates from around the world discuss the big issues facing agriculture… from food to feed to fuel and more.

I’ll have more in just a bit!

*Post Update*
The Flickr Photo Album for World Ag Forum is now loaded and ready for viewing!

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As part of the opening reception of the World Agricultural Forum, our friends at Novus International sponsored a behind-the-scenes tour of the St. Louis Zoo… truly one of the world’s greatest zoos. I’m posting a few pictures here, and I hope to win my battle with Flickr to post more at that site soon.

As I said, it was indeed a cool tour, as we started out seeing what goes on with the penguins and puffins. These two guys were more than glad to pose for pictures… a common theme for many of the animals at the zoo!

If these guys look all cute and cuddly as your pet cat, keep in mind that not only would a cheetah, able to run about 70 mph, easily chase you down, but it would also kill you and eat you. Come to think of it, if your cat got big enough, it probably would, too!

This guy’s another pretty tough character. Looked like we interrupted his nap… or his lunch. Look at those eyes… without that pit and fence between us, I have a feeling I would be the next lunch.

It only makes sense that the folks at Novus, who are so dedicated to animal nutrition, would be one of the benefactors of the zoo’s animal nutrition program. These folks at the zoo are doing some pretty important work, making sure these magnificent beasts are well taken care of.

I thought this one was too funny! At the end of our animal nutrition facility tour, we all got (well, at least we all were offered) biscuits designed for the primates. As most of us who tried it would agree (and, yes, I did eat one… proving that once again that broadcasters and news people will eat ANYTHING they’re offered for free!), it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t GOOD… but it wasn’t bad.

World Ag Forum photo set

Before we took off on our tour, I caught up with Novus CEO and President Thad Simons. While his company was sponsoring the reception and tour, it was also part of the bigger conversation at World Ag Forum of how to meet the challenges of feeding the world. He says the world’s population right now is about 6.5 billion people… and all of them are not being fed properly. He says the challenge becomes even more daunting when you consider the population is expecting to explode to more than 9 billion by the year 2050. But he believes ag technology is up to the task ahead.

“We know the technologies are there. It can be done if we can find ways to work together across the world.” That’s why he says an international forum like this is so important.

Simons adds that it is imperative that we come up with solutions to the agricultural issues facing the world today, because no agriculture means no food; no food means no hope.

Listen to all of my conversation with Thad here:

World Ag Forum photo set

Tonight, delegates from countries around the world were welcomed to this year’s events with a reception and behind-the-scenes tour of the famous St. Louis Zoo sponosred by our friends at Novus International (I’ll have more about that tour later).

Before everything got kicked off, I caught up with Dr. Leonard J. Guarraia, Chairman and CEO of the World Ag Forum. He says the major issues facing agriculture today are water availability, credit availability, production levels and the ability to provide the foodstuffs and feedstocks to feed and fuel the planet. He says a meeting such as this one give people from divergent backgrounds a place to discuss their concerns and plan for what might be next down the pike.

“The focus of this meeting is not on what’s happened in the past but what do we see happeneing one two three years down the road. Because it’s extremely easy to say what’s happened; it’s extremely difficult, but far more important, to look at what’s going to happen in the future.”

Guarraia says out of all the issues facing agriculture water is the most serious. He says 65 percent of the world’s population live in water-short areas. He even points to China where’s there’s talk about moving the capital of Beijing because of a water shortage. He says this gathering of ag leaders and decision makers from around the world should generate enough ideas that some solutions will be found. He says they’ve got the major food producers, the major financiers (the bankers), the processors, the shippers… the whole food chain… so at least they’ve got all the right people in place.

Guarraia hopes the ag credit pinch around the world will start to lessen and more money will flow. But he says the uncertainty of too many areas, especially in some of the developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, still makes some ag investments a risky proposition. But he remains optimistic a solution will be found.

“This is agriculture, and agriculture is always sunny. There are solutions, absolutely, and these people can come up with them because it’s in everyone’s vested interest to do so. We have to solve the problems because of the societal and social consequences of not solving the problems.”

You can hear all of my conversation with Guarraia here:

World Ag Forum photo set

This press release says the forum’s Sixth Biennial World Congress is entitled “Our Global Priority: Food Security—Financial, Trade and Technical Services” and is one of the world’s largest biennial gatherings of agricultural leaders in government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses and academia brought together to discuss the world’s growing population and the impacts on food, fuel, fiber and water in both emerging and developed markets:

Keynote speakers for the 2009 World Congress include: Right Honorable James Bolger, ONZ, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Ambassador to the United States, and current chairman of the WAF advisory board, Honorable Raghuveera Reddy, the
Minister of Agriculture for Andhra Pradesh, India and Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion and professor at Oxford University.

“Each participant in the Congress will have an active role in developing plans for change,” said Kathleen Moldthan, executive vice president and chief operating officer, WAF. “The World Congress is one of the only opportunities where government, NGOs
and the private sector can share an equal voice. We have seen many partnerships emerge from these gatherings that would have never come to fruition in a different setting. Its these partnerships that illustrate the value of WAF and initiate the actions for change.”

I’ll be there for part of the sessions with Cindy picking up the the second half. We’ll either see you in St. Louis or on the Web here at Agwired.com!

Ray focused his comments on this idea of how agricultural production can be the mechanism that developing nation countries can use to grow their economies. He believes that for-profit companies can get involved and not only help overcome the problems of poverty and starvation but still make a profit doing so.

He issued an invitation to anyone who would like to learn more to attend this year’s World Ag Forum Regional Congress which will be held in Kampala, Uganda, September 3-5. You can find the agenda for the Congress here.

Prior to the meeting I did a short interview with Ray on the topic which you can listen to here:

“It is my pleasure to welcome the World Agricultural Forum’s 2008 African Congress to Uganda,” said His Excellency Yoweri Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda. “Africa, as a whole, is enjoying the highest growth rates in 30 years. Our continent is breaking old paradigms in order to integrate profitably into the global economy and liberate itself. We are working to build the agricultural infrastructure that will boost our economic standings and transform Africa. Agriculture is vital to Africa’s survival, just as this influential meeting of the minds is essential to reveal the emerging new Africa.”

The simple fact is economic growth spurred by trade liberalization can have a profound impact, actually far more than voluntary aid donations although those are enormously important also. When the day comes that the nations of the world agree on greater trade liberalization, the United States is ready to be a good trading partner.

Bobby says that his best time in racing was when he won. That’s not surprising. I’m sure I’ll see him again later this month in Indianapolis at the Indy 500.

Also in the program I’ve got interviews with Ray Cesca, President of the World Agricultural Forum and Leonard Guarraia, founder of the WAF. They talk about the mission of the organization and what they hope to accomplish as this week’s World Congress taking place in St. Louis.

You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 118 (13 min MP3)

Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes.

Besides writing for their blog Julia and Nicki are helping the World Ag Forum staff by writing reports from the “Breakout Sessions.”

This is Mike interviewing World Agricultural Forum Chairman, James Bolger, this morning. Next to him is the producing machine, John Herath. He’s got a nice camera btw and takes good pictures which you’ll find on their website. An extraordinary thing for a radio show.

I am no longer at the World Congress of the World Agricultural Forum but am expecting to obtain some coverage via the Mizzou Ag Journalism Bloggers.