Brilliant, well-spoken and pretty as a doll, Dr. Charity Kawira Mutegi was everyone’s darling at the World Food Prize symposium last week. The 38-year-old researcher from Kenya received the 2013 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation, in recognition of her efforts to find the cause and a solution to a deadly outbreak of …
Australian Farmer on TATT Roundtable
Australian farmer Andrew Weidemann along with his wife and youngest son attended the Wold Food Prize with Truth About Trade and Technologies (TATT) Global Farmer Roundtable. While chatting with Andrew outside of his roundtable role, I learned more about life on his farm in Victoria. He and his brother are in a partnership along with their families. They are also …
USDA Farm to School Census
So more schools are buying local farm products to serve in their cafeterias according to a USDA survey. That’s a good thing I guess. As a parent I’m more concerned that my kids eat good healthy food. I know this USDA program is part of their efforts to help fight child obesity and hunger. I just don’t see that being …
American Soybean Association Names New Managers
The American Soybean Association (ASA) adds two new agriculture professionals to their team. Help welcome Michelle Hummel and Jordan Lanham to the agriculture community. Michelle Hummel joins the ASA as industry and stakeholder relations manager. Before joining the team at ASA, Michelle served as the vice president of marketing and communications at the Agricultural Retailers Association. She has almost 10 …
Zimfo Bytes
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Board of Directors voted at its annual meeting to elect Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) Secretary Mike Hancock as the association’s president. BASF has opened a new facility in the Ghent region, one of the leading centers for European plant biotechnology research. Farm Journal Media announced that Andy Weber, CEO of the …
Understanding Agriburbia
Have you heard of the term agriburbia? If not then this panel discussion that took place during the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation Conference will be helpful. The panel was titled, “Fraser Valley: is there room for big agriculture in a small setting?” This tied in with the theme of the conference. Our panelists were Dr. Lenore Newman, Canada Research Chair …
Genscape’s New Corn Forecast: 13.3B Bushels
Using NASA satellite data, Genscape has released an updated October corn yield forecast of 13.3 billion bushels. The company has noted that other analysts, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), have wide gaps in their predictions ranging from 13.2 billion bushels of corn produced during the 2013 growing season, to 14.2 billion bushels of corn. Genscape said a unique …
Two Glasses of Milk Can #Feedthe9
Last year at the World Food Prize symposium, Elanco president Jeff Simmons talked about eggs. This year, it was milk. Simmons, who received the 2013 Borlaug CAST Communication Award last week, says milk is “one of the greatest food gaps we currently have” since there is currently 14% less milk per person globally than there was in 1961, despite the …
Meet Some of the TATT Global Farmers
It was a fascinating experience for me to spend three days watching and listening to the 16 Truth About Trade and Technologies (TATT) Global Farmer Roundtable farmers as they shared with each other and became friends. They were from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Ghana, India, Kenya, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Ukraine, Uruguay, Zimbabwe and the US – yet they were …
Humorous Words of Wisdom at O.H. Kruse
Keynote speaker and comedian, Damian Mason, graced attendees of O.H. Kruse Grand Opportunity event with his quick humor and motivational words. Chuck has had the chance to speak with Damian before, but wanted to capture the take home message for those not able to hear his inspiring and comical words of wisdom. “For these people at O.H. Kruse they obviously …