The future of agriculture is important to BASF and that is why the company sponsors scholarships for young people along with both the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and the American Soybean Association (ASA). The NCGA program awards five $1,000 scholarships to college students studying agriculture, while the ASA program chooses one student to award $5,000. So, each year for …
CME Launches Open Markets
The CME Group has started a blog. The exchange launched Open Markets to communicate CME Group’s views and help spark a dialogue on a broad range of issues that affect a diverse, and increasingly interrelated, array of financial markets. In addition to the blog, content will include testimonies and speeches, white papers and features from CME Group Magazine, video clips …
A Tour of “Hard Work U”
There is a rare treasure nestled in the heart of the Ozarks in Southern Missouri – a college that offers students a degree in hard work. I’ve lived in Missouri for 18 years but never knew about the College of the Ozarks until this week when I joined the Missouri Beef Industry Council (MBIC) for a luncheon and tour at …
Corn Ethanol Still in Its Infancy
The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center (NCERC) is relatively new to Commodity Classic with this being their third year. You could tell when you talked with John Caupert, the director of NCERC, how excited he was to be there so I asked him why. “There’s energy, there’s enthusiasm back around around ethanol and biofuels. Some people believe that corn ethanol is …
Dow AgroSciences Develops SmartStax for Corn
A recent focus of Bill Hendrix, the Biology Team Leader, Insect Management Traits & Seeds Treatments for Dow AgroSciences, is developing the new SmartStax technology for corn with Monsanto. I spoke with Hendrix about the new SmartStax traits in more detail during Commodity Classic. The SmartStax technology brings eight traits in a package of corn. It received registration in 2009 …
Channel Brand Launches Genuity SmartStax Products
Commodity Classic was full of new products and technologies and two new product lines have come from the Channel Brand. The Channel Brand is under the Channel Bio company (launched in September 2009) which is a Monsanto company. I spoke with Stacy Markovich, Channel Brand Manager about Channel Bio and the new Channel Brand products. “Our mission is to serve …
Golden ARC Awards Are Back
Do you remember the Golden ARC Awards? I do. And they’re back. Are you one of the best in agricultural public relations? Do you contribute valuable professional communications to your position? Are you proud of your work? Since its inception in 1990, the Golden ARC Award came to represent the pinnacle of success in agricultural public relations. Now reintroduced after …
Future of Soybean International Marketing Efforts
International marketing was the focus of a press conference held by the United Soybean Board at Commodity Classic. First up on the podium was Phil Bradshaw, USB Chairman and a soybean farmer from Griggsville, IL. He spoke about future efforts to increase soybean exports as conducted by the USB. A record 1.56 billion bushels of soybeans were exported in the …
Cadet and Authority Assist Big Sellers for FMC
I had a chance to spend some time with Gail Stratman, the Midwest Technical Sales Lead for FMC, during Commodity Classic and I learned two things. First that Cadet and Authority Assist are big sellers, selling out the past two years, and second, why both products work so well. Cadet is a post emergence herbicide that was introduced about two …
Vermeer Launches Corn Cob Collector
As Project Liberty gets closer every day to completion (The POET project is set to be online no later than 2012), farm equipment manufactures, such as Vermeer, are developing corn cob harvesting technology. During Commodity Classic, I caught up with Jay Van Roekel, the product manager for Vermeer’s Ag Division to learn more about their biomass technologies. Van Roekel explained …