After leaving the NAMA Trends in Agriculture conference I headed on down the agriblogging highway to another conference of importance to U.S. grain producers. This is the Export Exchange 2010 which got off to an official and social start this evening with welcoming remarks from U.S. Grains Council President/CEO Tom Dorr (left) and Renewable Fuels Association President/CEO Bob Dinneen. The …
Tell Good Stories
Joseph Rueter, Curation Station, talked to the NAMA Trends in Agriculture conference about effective digital brand communities. Actually, our scheduled presenter could not make it and Joseph was called in at the last minute. One of the things he did to prepare included tweeting his followers for their input for what he should tell this group of agrimarketers. How many …
Key Consumer Trends
The leader for the trends team within the consumer insights strategy group at General Mills is Carol Bagnoli. Carol was part of the Macro Food Trends Panel Discussion at the National Agri-Marketing Trends In Agriculture conference. She looks at consumer trends and how they’re shifting including consumer values, behavior shifts outside of food, food trends, health trends, sustainability and demographic …
Debut of Junior National Beef Ambassador Program
Eight youth participated in the inauguration of the Junior National Beef Ambassador Program in Rapid City, S.D. Funded in part by the beef checkoff, the objective of this new youth program is to promote a stronger interest and clearer understanding of the many aspects of the beef industry, its values and virtues, to youth 12 to 16 years old. While …
Food Trends
What are the trends in food facing a company like Hy-Vee? We found out at the NAMA Trends In Agriculture conference from Rose Mitchell, Senior VP, Governmental Relations. Rose says there are four key trends they are looking at that include health, safety, taste and how to cook. She says they listen to their customers to identify these trends and …
NAMA Professional Development Awards of Excellence Winners
This year the National Agri-Marketing Association presented Professional Development Awards of Excellence to four people. Pictured are (l-r) Marvin Kokes, NCBA (Sales), Sue Otten, AGCO (Public Relations), Scott McClure, Brighton Agency (Marketing Communications) and not pictured Elena Lindemann, Land O’Lakes Purina Feed (Product/Species Management). I spoke with Marvin, Sue and Scott about their award and how the theme for the …
Zimfo Bytes
The 2010 Minnesota Agri-Growth Council Annual Meeting is scheduled for Nov. 4 at the Minneapolis Convention Center and will focus on contemporary issues facing the food and agriculture industry while also looking back at the hurdles and successes this proud industry has experienced. The CR9060 combine manufactured by New Holland Brazil was awarded Gerdau’s Best of the Land Award Silver …
AgHaven Beta
It looks like agribusiness has a new social networking location. AgHaven is in beta mode. What do you think? Can a stand alone social network make it in ag? AgHaven, LLC is a collaboration of cutting edge search engine technology, social networking, agri- marketplace and agriculture industry expertise. This collaboration provides the agriculture industry with specific content for all stakeholders; …
Agvocate About Feeding The World
Capping off the first day of the NAMA Trends In Agriculture conference was Dr. Jay Lehr, The Heartland Institute. He started out his presentation on feeding the world with a video of him promoting agriculture and fertilizer to consumers on the streets of San Francisco. It was actually pretty funny to see people’s reactions from cab driver to old man …
World Outlook For Agriculture
Our kick-off speaker at the NAMA Trends In Agriculture conference this afternoon was Mark Pearson, Market To Market. Mark is a lot of things, including farmer and stockbroker in addition to his hosting of the tv show. He was here to talk about what he sees as trends in agribusiness which means looking forward but also backward. Mark looks at …