I have been an ag journalist for 25 years and never participated in an event quite like the global press conference for BASF here in Germany.
Michael Heinz, President of BASF’s Agricultural Products Division, and Dr. Klaus Welsch, head of the European Crop Protection business, were the headliners at the event and the main news was how BASF sees the global upswing in farming, highlighted by higher prices for farm products, as the start of a long term trend.
There were over 60 ag journalists speaking at least six different languages – English, German, French, Russian, Italian and Spanish or Portuguese (not sure which) – so they represented probably 10 different countries, because we had Americans, British and Irish journalists there. It was amazingly well done. We all had headsets to have the speeches, questions and answers translated – kinda like the United Nations! It was a very class act. Heinz and Welsch spoke in German while the interpreters had to translate the questioners from whatever language they spoke into whatever language we needed to hear.
The picture can give you an idea of what it looked like, and here’s a little sound bite to give you an idea of what it sounded like through the headsets:
basf-global-press.mp3