Get Ready For National Ag Day

Chuck Zimmerman

National Agriculture DayWe’re just over a week away from National Ag Day. Here’s a few faq’s you can use when talking to your urban friends about it. These come from the Ag Day website.

What Is Ag Day?

It’s a day to recognize and celebrate the abundance provided by agriculture. Every year, producers, agricultural associations, corporations, universities, government agencies and countless other across America join together to recognize the contributions of agriculture.

When Is Ag Day?

Ag Day is celebrated on March 20, 2008 – the first day of spring. National Ag Day falls during National Ag Week, March 16-22, 2008.

Who Hosts Ag Day?

The Agriculture Council of America hosts the campaign on a national level. However, the awareness efforts in communities across America are as influential – if not more – than the broad-scale effort. Again this year, the Ag Day Planning Guide has been created to help communities and organizations more effectively host Ag Day events.

What Is Ag Day All About?

Ag Day is about recognizing – and celebrating – the contribution of agriculture in our everyday lives. The National Ag Day program encourages every American to:

* Understand how food and fiber products are produced.
* Value the essential role of agriculture in maintaining a strong economy.
* Appreciate the role agriculture plays in providing safe, abundant and affordable products.

Ag Groups

Trimble Makes Precision Ag EZ

Chuck Zimmerman

Matt HesseThere was certainly a lot of precision agriculture equipment and software on display at this year’s Commodity Classic as well as at the National Farm Machinery Show. Here’s Matt Hesse, Auto Pilot Segment Manager for Trimble at Classic. We asked Stewart Doan to find out what’s new from Trimble in ’08.

Matt says they’ve got a number of new products out this year including a new EZ-Guide light bar, EZ-Office software package to manage collected data and a Trimble Agriculture Manager system that helps you save time managing all your precision assets. He says that precision starts with guidance and the returns are easy to see. Guidance pays for itself and with good commodity prices now is a great time to have new products to sell.

You can listen to Stewart’s interview with Matt here: cc-08-hess.mp3

Agribusiness, Audio, Commodity Classic, Precision Agriculture

Win An IFAJ Star

Chuck Zimmerman

IFAJ Star PrizeThe International Federation of Agricultural Journalists now has entries open for their annual Star Prize for Agricultural Photography.

There are some new categories this year including: best portrait, best landscape or nature photo and best production photo. Entries close May 1.

The contest is sponsored by DeLaval and you can find out more on the IFAJ website or by contacting Katharina Seuser.

IFAJ

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • The annual Downes-O’Neill/eDairy Outlook Conference, which is intended for dairy producers, processors, and end users, will be held June 18-19 in Chicago.
  • Soybean checkoff farmer-leaders announced the winners of the USB Outstanding Achievement Award and USB Excellence Award at Commodity Classic in Nashville, Tenn. The checkoff’s highest honor, the USB Outstanding Achievement Award, was awarded to Dr. Richard Wilson, retired national program leader for oilseeds and bioscience research at the USDA-ARS. USB’s Excellence Award, focused on production research, was awarded to Dr. Randy Shoemaker of USDA-ARS.
  • At the end of 33 months, the Pork Checkoff’s The Other White Meat.® Don’t be blah™ brand campaign provided positive results. The overall evaluation of the Don’t be blah program started with a consumer brand-tracking study that found that awareness of The Other White Meat’s advertising has increased significantly since the start of the campaign. In addition, there has been an increase in upbeat descriptions of pork. For every $1 producers invested in the program, producers received a return of $2.23.
  • Tom Nicholson, Director of Marketing, Ivy Animal Health, announces the introduction of the Component EZ Gun, a new, more durable, easier-to-use implant device for use with Component® with Tylan® implant products, except Component TE 200 with Tylan. According to Nicholson, this new direct drive implant device has been designed to be user-friendly, even for first time users.
Zimfo Bytes

Hushon Joins Filament Marketing

Chuck Zimmerman

Josh HushonJosh Hushon has joined Filament Marketing as a marketing executive. He’ll be working on strategic marketing plan implementation.

Hushon most recently spent four and a half years at Hoard’s Dairyman as associate editor. In this role, he coordinated coverage of manure handling, environmental regulations, cow comfort, buildings and equipment, animal welfare and content for the Young Dairymen page. He also led development of the magazine’s annual World Dairy Expo supplement.

Prior to his editor role, Hushon completed internships with Monsanto Dairy Business and ABS Global, and he has worked as a freelance writer for Farmshine Newspaper. Hushon serves the dairy industry as a member of the National Advisory Committee of Dairyfarmingtoday.org and the National 4-H Dairy Conference Planning Committee. He continues to be involved with Brothers Three Brown Swiss, his family’s cattle operation in Quarryville, Pa., which has bred or developed multiple All Americans and National Bell Ringers.

Agencies

New Viewer Software From AutoFarm

Chuck Zimmerman

AutoFarm Viewer Screen ShotAnother company I just didn’t have time to visit with at Commodity Classic is AutoFarm. They’ve got some new products out including software that displays data on precision displays. This is a screen shot of what it looks like.

AutoFarm® announces the upcoming release of AF-Viewer™ II software. Developed by Farm Works Software exclusively for AutoFarm, AF-Viewer II will offer AutoFarm GPS steering customers easy collection and field-to-office transfer of GPS-generated farm management data.

AF-Viewer II software is compatible with virtually all AutoFarm GPS steering systems currently in use: A5 RTK AutoSteer™, DGPS AutoSteer™, RighTrac™, OnTrac™, and ATC, as well as the new FarmPRO™ GPS Steering & Application Control System.

Justin Larouche, AutoFarm Director of Product Management says, “It is AutoFarm’s intent to make our new AF-Viewer II software available to our existing customers at no charge, as long as they register their AutoFarm steering systems with a product serial number. This adds great additional value for our existing customers.”

Another recent announcement was for their new FarmPRO GPS Steering & Application Control System.Read More

Agribusiness, Precision Agriculture

Agriblogging With AAEA

Chuck Zimmerman

Me Doing WebinarHello from ZimmComm World Headquarters in Holts Summit, MO. Right now I’m conducting a webinar along with John Phipps, John’s World, for the American Agricultural Editors Association.

Thanks to Linda Smith, Top Producer, for putting these professional development webinars together. This is just one in a series that the organization is conducting this year.

We’re talking about blogging and how blogs can benefit a publication. We’re also going over some of the ins and outs of feeding the blog monster.

If you didn’t get to participate you may still be able to if the webinar is recorded. I’ll update this post with more information if that’s the case.

In any event, I really enjoy having the opportunity to pass along a little of what I’ve learned from several years of agriblogging and I’m looking forward to hearing John’s thoughts.

ACN

Still More Than a Number at Wyffels Hybrids

Chuck Zimmerman

Wyffels HybridsContinuing the theme of their customers being “more than a number” Wyffels Hybrids was on display at Commodity Classic. With the help of Stewart Doan we got an interview with Kim Jones.

Kim says that the company is unique and independent offering a full range of traits in their hybrids, proprietary genetics packages and personal service. She says that because they service a smaller territory than some of the really big companies they can provide a level of personal service that just plain makes their customers “more than a number” to them.

She says that the company has had its own in-house genetics program for 35 years allowing them to produce unique hybrids that aren’t available anywhere else. She says they also have an agronomist staff to conduct a testing program for all their product lines.

You can listen to Stewart’s interview with Kim here: cc-08-jones.mp3

Agribusiness, Audio, Commodity Classic, Seed

Stoller USA Pushing Yield

Chuck Zimmerman

Stoller USAAt the Commodity Classic Cindy and I couldn’t make it to all the booths that we wanted to so we enlisted the help of Stewart Doan. Stewart did several interviews for us including this one with Dave Redmond, National Sales Manager for Stoller USA. We wanted to find out what was new with this company.

Dave tells Stewart that Stoller is providing growers with a management tool they can apply to their product that will allow the crop to realize its full yield potential. The main product they’re focusing on this year is Bio-Forge. This is a product he says helps plants manage stress from a variety of causes. This allows the plant to yield more. You can learn more about specific crops the product is labeled for as well as application information in the interview.

During this time of good crop prices he says growers are more willing to look at ways to push yield. He noticed at the show that the attitude of growers was very upbeat which he says is helpful for everyone in the industry.

You can listen to Stewart’s interview with Dave here: cc-08-redmond.mp3

Agribusiness, Audio, Commodity Classic

AG Day Essay Contest Winner

Chuck Zimmerman

Ag DayThe winner of the 2008 Ag Day Essay Contest coordinated by the Agriculture Council of America is Katlin Wiest.

ACA called upon seventh- to 12th-grade students nationwide to submit original essays of 450 words about the importance of agriculture in the United States. Under the theme “Agriculture – Bigger Than You Think,” students were encouraged to focus their essays on the broader scope of agriculture, showcasing the diversity of today’s American farms. Though row crops and livestock are still very much a part of the foundation of the industry, agriculture today has multiple touch points in our daily lives and many career opportunities.

Wiest, an eighth-grader at Upper Dauphin Middle School, Lykens, Pa., was named the national winner of the 2008 contest during the Ag Day event held at the USDA Whitten Building Patio. Wiest read her essay to industry representatives, members of Congress, federal agency representatives, media and others at the Celebration of Agriculture dinner in Washington, D.C. The following is an excerpt from her essay: Read More

Ag Groups