The 2010 National Agri-Marketing Association Boot Camp is in full swing in KC, MO. This is the 7th annual event. Time flies when you’re having fun. Seems like just yesterday the first Boot Camp was held. The Chair for this year’s event is Melanie Acklin, Director of Marketing, SFP. I spoke with Melanie after the farm tour today that was …
GIPSA Rule Hot Topic At Next USDA/DOJ Workshop
The next USDA/DOJ public workshop on competition in the livestock industry is scheduled for next week in Ft. Collins, CO, and I will be attending. The session will be held on Friday and there will be a separate session the evening before hosted by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and National Pork Producers Council which I will also be attending. …
NAMA Boot Camp
It’s time for NAMA Boot Camp and yours truly will be checking in starting later this afternoon. I see that the official Twitter hashtag for the event is #10boot. There’s a tour going on today with MoKan NAMA and then a welcoming reception this afternoon. I will be seeing you from there!
Vote For AgChat Foundation Panel At SXSW
The AgChat Foundation is looking for your assistance. One of the larger music and interactive conferences of the year, South By Southwest (SXSW) has a proposed panel title, “Agvocacy 2.0: Adding a Human Voice to the Farm.” It would be great if this is on the program since agriculture is often under or mis-represented in public forums like this . …
BIVI Swine Health Seminar Concludes
You can’t have a swine health seminar without having a little pig on the menu and at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar we got it at our closing dinner which was a luau on the lawn. I have just updated the photo album with a lot of photos from yesterday’s events that include the dinner and entertainment. I …
Swine Health Seminar Take Aways
It’s always good to hear from the producers who attend a farm production meeting like the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar. I’ve posted interviews with all the presenters so let’s hear from a couple of the attendees. First up is Mark Daughtry, Prestage Farms. He actually has a contract farm with Prestage bu also works for them. He says …
Treating Post Weaning Scours
The last presentation at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar did not focus on PRRS. Instead we heard a presentation from Chad Stahl, North Carolina State University, on controlling post wean scours. Yeah, it’s as nasty as it sounds too. Chad was talking about post E. coli caused post weaning diarrhea and ways to mitigate it in your herd. …
Train Your Pig To Test Orally
We’ve heard about the oral testing of hogs for disease from Jeff Zimmerman, DVM, Iowa State University, before, here and here. But a guy with a last name of Zimmerman is worth hearing again! And that’s what we did at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar. Jeff has found in his work that there is a better way to …
Positive Swine Industry Economic Report
The participants at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar heard a positive economic report from Steve Meyer, Paragon Economics. Steve also modeled a new BIVI cap for us. He starts out saying the best news this year has been hog prices which recovered very nicely in the spring. Supplies have been reduced as a consequence of increased input costs …
Don’t Forget Swine Diseases Other Than PRRS
When it comes to hog production your veterinarian is one of the first sources of information and often considered a “team member.” At the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar Mike Elsenmenger, DVM, Swine Vet Center, talked to us about production. Mike wanted attendees to know that to have successful grow-finish pigs it starts at the sow farm and that …