USPOULTRY and the USPOULTRY Foundation have approved a total of $277,914 for five new research grants at five institutions. Founder of Funk Seed, West Lafayette, IN, Bill Funk, is using a new business model to combat the mass confusion growers go through when purchasing seed corn. Under a development agreement between the Ankeny, Iowa, City Council and John Deere Des …
Animal Welfare & Animal Rights Not the Same
Our latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “Is there a difference between animal welfare and animal rights?” Per the dictionary definition, animal welfare is the physical and psychological well-being of animals; animal rights is the idea that some or all nonhuman animals are entitled to the possession of their own lives, and that their most basic interests – such as an …
MyJohnDeere.com Changing the Skyscape
We were welcomed to the John Deere API Integrator Conference today in the beautiful World Food Prize building which will be very busy next week for the annual WFP event. To get a preview of what John Deere is doing here by bringing in representatives from 50 companies from 8 countries and 3 continents I spoke with Chuck Schleusner. Chuck …
Opening up at MyJohnDeere.com
Hello from Des Moines and the John Deere API Integrators Conference. Doesn’t that sound exciting? Well, to an agnerd it is. Today I’ll be learning about how John Deere is working with software and app developers as they continue to develop their MyJohnDeere.com system that includes allowing companies to integrate their applications with the system. So, during the day I’ll …
Sampling Farm House Natural Cheeses
George Boyes and Debra Amrein-Boyes, owners of The Farm House Natural Cheeses hosted the farm bikers during our Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation tour. Debra welcomed us with a presentation about the farm their milk and delicious cheeses. We sampled a couple of those cheeses. None was left on the plate or in the bowl! The Farm House Natural Cheeses is …
BASF is Big on Farming
“Farming, the Biggest Job on Earth” is the tag line of a campaign for agriculture by BASF Corporation which is hitting the United States now on Facebook and YouTube with the new video “Growing Today for Tomorrow.” The Facebook campaign urges people to watch the three minute video to learn more about how farmers are growing more with less land …
Biking to Canadian Hazelnut
The farm bikers at the 2013 Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation Conference went off road through a hazelnut orchard before arriving at the largest organic hazelnut farm in Canada – Canadian Hazelnut. We were met by Shelley Krahn who talked to us about the farm and answered questions. You can watch in the video below. There are eight thousand trees on …
FMC Builds Platform for Biological Crop Protection
FMC Corporation announced the creation of a world-class platform to serve the fast-growing biological crop protection market through two strategic transactions. The first transaction is an agreement with Chr.Hansen, a biosciences company specializing in cultures, enzymes and fermentation, to develop and commercialize biological crop protection products. They also announced the acquisition of the Center for Agricultural and Environmental Biosolutions (CAEB), …
USDA Confirms No Reports on Friday
The USDA website is down, no Twitter or Facebook, so the only official word that the big reports due out this week comes by email to those who ask. “USDA will not issue a WASDE report this week due to the lapse in federal funding,” said agency media contact Courtney Rowe by email in response to an email asking for …
Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation Awards
The concluding banquet at the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation Conference included the annual Writers and Broadcasters Awards. There are fourteen categories with Gold/Silver/Bronze winners in each. The categories ranged from Television and Radio Reporting to News Release, Website and Feature and News Photographs. Here is the group of winners or those who were accepting for a winner not attending the …