Like the first speaker on our program today here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference, our second speaker, David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley, says we need to increase agricultural productivity. His talk was on the distributional effects of biofeuls and he had two conclusions. The first one is that biofuels make some people better off and some …
Is There a Biofuel To Food Price Link?
The first speaker here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference is Michael Wetzstein, University of Georgia. His talk deals with two issues. One is on price volatility and the other is on food and fuel. He’s one of 22 speakers on the program and all the talks are dealing with the biofuels issue. I’ll do my best to …
Learning The Impact of a Biofuels Transition
The Farm Foundation conference, “Transition To A Bio Economy, Risk, Infrastructure and Industry Evolution” is underway here in Berkeley, CA. We’ll be hearing from a lot of people including quite a few presenting University research on the whole biofuels business. This conference is part of a series of which this is part 3. The Transition to a Bioeconomy series is …
Help Flooded Farmers in the Midwest
Willie Nelson is sending out pleas for help. He’s calling for donations to help family farmers that are being devastated by severe weather and flooding in the Midwest. Severe weather in nine Midwestern states is devastating family farmers. Disastrous floods in Iowa and Wisconsin have hit farmers especially hard–more than 30 counties in Iowa alone have already been declared federal …
Take a Seat at Farm Technology Days
Wisconsin’s largest outdoor farm show now has ample seating for attendees. As part of a lesson in mass production, Wrightstown High School Tech produced 50 park benches in one day. The benches will be used at the 2008 Wisconsin Farm Technology Days held July 15-17, 2008, at Country Aire Farms. “These benches were hand made out of treated lumber – …
MobileDemand Outfits Dairy with Rugged Field PC
The technology behind farm machinery, such as tractors and sprayers, is continually becoming more streamlined with advances in computer and software innovation. So, why not livestock? MobileDemand is a rugged tablet PC manufacturer based out of Idaho and they’ve just put the power of the PC in the hands of the field staff at Wendell, Idaho’s Box Canyon Dairy. MobileDemand …
Transition To A Cooler Climate
Here’s the scene at the DoubleTree at Berkeley Marina where I’ll be posting from the Farm Foundation, Transition To A Bio Economy, conference. Berkeley is very pretty at sunset, especially if you’re on the water. It’s a lot cooler too. Right now it’s 53 degrees. That’s a big difference from the 86 degrees in KC, MO when I took off …
Osborn & Barr News
There have been some hirings and promotions at Osborn & Barr. Sarah Yancey brings her award-winning skills to her new role as account executive on the United Soybean Board and QUALISOY accounts. Rob Petrovich serves as a senior copywriter for accounts such as Michelin Ag Tires. Rob brings several years of experience to O&B having worked for agencies such as …
How an Iowa Corn Grower Feels – Optimistic
At the Iowa Speedway yesterday, the Iowa Corn Growers Association held an outdoor press conference. They used it to help educate media about corn usage by placing banners on the side of a grain trailer showing the relative percentages of corn used for different purposes like livestock feed and ethanol. I did a short interview with Gary Edwards, ICGA board …
RaboCasting
I really like the idea of Rabobank producing an audio podcast of their news releases. (If you’d like this done for your company or organization then give the ag experts at ZimmComm New Media a call.) Here’s what the latest RaboCast is about: Since 1937 June has been Dairy Month: an annual tradition to celebrate the dairy industry. A new …