I’m in the opening general session here at Commodity Classic. Leon Corzine, President, NCGA, is speaking about re-energizing rural America and how important farmers are to that growth.

Next up is Neal Bredehoeft, President, ASA. Neal is now talking about accomplishments of the soybean industry and the Asian Soybean Rust problem facing growers this coming season.

Coming up soon is our new Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns. I’ll record his statement at his press conference later and provide a link to it by lunchtime.

This morning things kind of got started out with a press conference by Monsanto. They were there to talk about some new research that has found that a corn rootworm variant now has somehow adapted and learned that it can lay eggs in soybean plants since the field will be planted in corn the next year. So it kind of lies in wait. Pretty scary huh?

Next press conference was with John Deere who was presenting information from some research they did in South America about the most effective way to spray fungicide on soybean plants to treat Soybean rust.

As I’ve been typing Secretary Johanns was just introduced. He’s telling Nebraska jokes now and talking about his first political campaign.

Time to head back to the newsroom. If you want to know what Johanns comments are today come back later to listen to his press conference.