CBOT and CME Merger

Chuck Zimmerman

Chicago Board of TradeI guess this is pretty big news. According to the announcement about, “with average daily volume approaching 9 million contracts per day and notional value of approximately $4.2 trillion per day based on recent results,” big. That’s big.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. and CBOT Holdings, Inc. today announced they have signed a definitive agreement to merge the two organizations to create the most extensive and diverse global derivatives Chicago Mercantile Exchangeexchange. The combined company, to be named CME Group Inc., a CME/Chicago Board of Trade Company, is expected to transform global derivatives markets, creating operational and cost efficiencies for customers and exchange members, while delivering significant benefits to shareholders. Corporate headquarters of the combined organization will remain in Chicago.

The transaction is expected to close by mid-year 2007, pending approvals by regulators, and shareholders of both companies and CBOT members, as well as completion of customary closing conditions.

Agribusiness

World Food Day 2006

Chuck Zimmerman

World Food Day PosterI almost let World Food Day go by without a post about it. Almost. Today is World Food Day which is celebrated by countries all over the world. The FAO holds a ceremony at its headquarters in Rome. The current FAO Director-General addressed the ceremony today along with other dignitaries.

“The theme for World Food Day this year is investing in agriculture for food security so that the whole world will profit,” said Dr. Diouf.

The FAO Director-General said that “in 2002, FAO estimated that the combined extra public cost of all investment to meet the 2015 World Food Summit target is around US$19 billion for agricultural growth and productivity enhancement in rural areas and US$5 billion for programmes which provide direct and immediate access to food for those in greatest need.” Read More

International

Milking For Votes

Chuck Zimmerman

Tommy IrvinSpeaking of Sunbelt Ag Expo. What do you do when you’re running for re-election as Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture? You throw a cow milking contest.

This is Tommy Irvin and he’s going to be battling other southeast ag commissioners for the title of Supreme Sunbelt Cow-Milking Champion.

He’ll be competing with Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson. All the commissioners have “considerable experience.” They’ll compete tomorrow at 2:30 p.m.

More than 200,000 visitors are expected to attend the 100-acre event that is considered the world’s largest farm show. The Tuesday through Thursday expo touts 1,200 exhibits coupled with field demonstrations.

Farm Shows

Internet Cloud Over Sunbelt Ag Expo

Chuck Zimmerman

CamveraI’ve been to many Sunbelt Ag Expos but not this year. It’s going on right now in Moultrie, GA. Thanks to Camvera Networks you can surf the web wirelessly anywhere on the site. This would sure come in handy at a lot of ag events around the country. Sounds like a business model to me.

Camvera Networks and technology partner, PreSoft Ag Solutions, will conduct demonstrations beginning Tuesday that showcase the benefits of Rural Broadband and how it integrates with automation devices and applications on the farm. In addition to technology benefiting Georgia’s farmers, Camvera will also highlight other services it will offer, including new educational and economic outlets to rural Georgia.

This year, for the first time, Sunbelt Agricultural Expo exhibitors and attendees will be able to access the Internet, wirelessly, from anywhere on the show grounds. Camvera has deployed a high-speed broadband Internet “cloud” that covers the entire Sunbelt Expo facility. This “cloud,” capable of covering entire cities, has now been tailored to fit the needs of rural farming communities of Georgia, providing new and more efficient ways to manage the day-to-day operations on a farm by using wireless high-speed Internet-based applications.

By the way, according to the company’s history page on their website it “became one of the first recipients of a USDA Rural Utilities Services loan. This massive program was backed by President George W. Bush to get high-speed Internet connectivity into rural areas of the U.S. as quickly as possible.” It looks like USDA made a good investment.

Farm Shows, Internet

Iraq Tomato Industry

Chuck Zimmerman

Iraq TomatoesHere’s the lastest story from Paul McKellips, US Department of State, Public Affairs GO Team on assignment in Iraq. In this one he talks about Iraq’s re-emerging tomato industry.

Tomatoes are one of the most important crops in both the northern and southern regions of Iraq. Climate and water resources provide favorable conditions for tomato cultivation. Despite these advantages, tomato production has been historically well below international standards. Eighty farmers in Iraq were selected to establish tomato production plots on about half a donum (“donum” is a Turkic word with Latin origins; 1 donum = .61 of an acre) in their fields. Approximately 100,000 seedlings were produced in off-site nurseries and then these 80 farmers were taught how to properly transplant the hybrids. Each farmer received modern cultivation training as well.

Listen to his report:

iraq-tomatoes.mp3
Audio, International

Missouri Beef Blogging

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast89 - Beef Blogging With John KleiboekerI know you’re familiar with the Missouri Beef Industry Council because they’ve been a new media pioneer in the agricultural community. Earlier today I spent some time with their new Executive Director, John Kleiboeker, who I believe is going to be a great agriblogger. He’ll be getting started after his first board meeting as a staff member later this week. In fact, he’s been to many board meetings because he used to be a board member!

In this week’s ZimmCast John talks about why MBIC is blogging in addition to having a well-developed consumer targeted website. He describes what he plans to use the blog site for.

Download this week’s program: Listen To ZimmCastZimmCast 89 (12 min MP3)

Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:

zimmcast89-10-16-06.mp3

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.

Audio, ZimmCast

Beef Blog Training

Chuck Zimmerman

John Kleiboeker & Ada GallupSay hello to John Kleiboeker and Ada Gallup from the Missouri Beef Industry Council. They just completed a blogging lesson in John’s office in Columbia.

You can find the MBIC blog at www.missouribeefcouncil.com. John’s test post is gone but by the end of the week he promises to have his first official post and then he’s off and running in the blogosphere.

I interviewed John for this week’s ZimmCast which I’ll post later today after I get back to the office.

Beef

New Look For AgWired

Chuck Zimmerman

For those of you subscribing with a news reader please visit the site to see our new look and let me know what you think. I’ve still got a few items to finalize but it’s getting there. For example, I’m working on a system to better manage and archive all the pictures I take and make them more easily available to you. You’ll find more pictures showing up on each and every page of the website. Right now the homepage is showing pictures from my Farm Progress Show photo set.

I’ve also got some display advertising which will begin by the end of the month and the new theme makes incorporating and managing that much easier. Let me know if you’d like to be one of the first companies to show off your brand to our large and growing audience.

I hope you like it.

Uncategorized

Significant Farmer New Media Usage

Chuck Zimmerman

National Association of Farm BroadcastingI was very excited to see the “Selected Media Use By Commercial Producers: A Qualitative Research Summary” report that came in the mail last week. Try to say that title 5 times real fast.

It’s a new NAFB report on the “effectiveness of farm radio.” I guess they gave up on TV a long time ago. Anyway, this is basically research from 12 corn belt states, so it’s not a national survey. Here’s some results that I find fascinating:

1. It says that 26% of farmers with income $40k to $100k use the web as a daily farming information source. That number goes up to 42% for farmers with income of $250K+. Wow. That has got to be eye opening to some people who are looking for some real numbers about the whole farmer use of the internet concept.

2. Here’s one I like. It says that 4.3% of farmers in the $250k category download to an iPod or media player and that another 9.2% use audio streaming. That’s 13.5 percent of the most desirable farmers for agribusiness. If you don’t think that’s significant, consider that just 2 years ago there were probably no farmers using these new media tools!

3. Here’s the kicker for me. It says that 16.3% of the the $250k+ farmers view blogs. Holy Moly. Most people don’t even know they’re on a blog. If 16.3% actually know that they are you can only imagine how many more are. Even if you look at the “all” category, the number is 12.4%!!

Of course the study shows that farmers listen to farm radio. Of course they do. That is, where they can. New media is making it possible for them to hear and obtain the news and information they need even when the local broadcast outlet no longer carries farm programming.

The report I received says there are now 136 farm broadcasters. That’s a big decline from just a few years ago and that’s sad if you think that they have to depend on radio stations to deliver their programs. New media allows them an avenue to deliver content without that restriction. I’m sure we’ll see more and more of them make the transition. What do you think?

NAFB

Resume Blogging

Chuck Zimmerman

I have suggested to several people looking for a job that they start a blog. So far only 2 people have done so. The first one got a job right away. The second one is my friend John Davis. I hired John to be a farm broadcaster for the Brownfield Network in early 2000. He was an Air Force broadcaster who impressed me and he did a great job. He soon moved to the company’s state news network in Missouri.

He’s now looking for a new gig and is blogging his way along.

Imagine that you’re applying for a job and you call a prospective employer. They say, “Send me a resume.” I think it would be cool to say, “Why don’t you download it from my website.” That’s what John can do. He can also say, “Want to see/listen to some examples of my work?” Instead of making your prospective employer wait for your resume or a “tape” of your work, let them have instant access even while you’re on the phone with them.

I know it would impress me, while showing me that you’ve got some initiative that will set you apart from the pack.

Uncategorized