The first presentation of the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Swine Health Seminar focused on the control of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome which is better know as the PRRS virus. Dr. Laura Batista, DVM, Boehringer Ingelheim, provided a look at various projects to create area or regional control of the disease. She was also encouraging attendees to get involved or start …
BIVI Swine Health Seminar Overview
The emcee for the North Carolina Swine Health Seminar is David Gocken, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica North America National Sales Manager for the Swine Group. I spoke with him before we got started to get an overview of the program here. David says this is the 10th annual seminar that BIVI has conducted and although it has been in different places, …
BIVI Swine Health Seminar
The 10th annual Boehringer Ingelheim North Carolina Swine Health Seminar is in session. We’ve got a classroom full and an all day program. Topics today include Area/Regional Control of PRRS, Nursery/Finishing, Key Points of Production, Economics, Oral Fluid Diagnostics, Controlling Post Wean Scours and lots of time for Q&A. If you don’t know what all that means don’t worry. I’ll …
North Carolina Swine Health Sunset
The sunset over the Intracoastal from Wrightsville Beach, NC was pretty. This is just one of the scenes from the Boehringer Ingenheim Vetmedica, Inc. 10th annual North Carolina Swine Health Seminar. Cindy and I are here through the weekend and I’ll have a number of stories for you tomorrow. We had a nice rain shower which we could actually use …
No-till Cotton Provides Conservation Opportunity
During the Conservation in Action Tour one of our farm stops was the Carter Farm where we met Jon Black (pictured left). He gave us a presentation on no-till cotton which he is standing in. I caught up to him on the phone afterward since we didn’t have time for an interview there. Jon says continuous no-till farming is the …
Farm Podcaster Tool
With a name like Olympus LS-11PKG it must be a good gadget for the Farm Podcaster. I haven’t tried one but they’re on special now at BSW. The Olympus LS-11 handheld PCM recorder features two high-sensitivity microphones and 8GB of internal memory as well as up to 24-bit/96kHz linear PCM recording in multiple formats for better than CD audio quality. …
There Is Truth In Food
When it comes to food we all need a little bit of truth. Well, maybe a lot of truth. So TruthInFood.com sounds like a good idea. To learn more about this intriguing project I spoke with Mike Smith, Food Chain Communications. Mike and I had a great conversation about understanding why people from both production agriculture and the urban consuming …
Public Relations Etiquette
When I bring up PR etiquette in a conversation it usually generates a few chuckles. Now why would that be? Maybe I should refer to this as public relations professionalism. Whatever you want to call it the recent Ag Media Summit provided several opportunities to comment on it. During the event’s InfoExpo I had two situations that provide a real …
Social Networking and Blogs #1 Online Activity
This is no surprise to ZimmComm New Media but it may surprise many agrimarketers. According to a post on Nielsen Wire titled, “What Americans Do Online: Social Media And Games Dominate Activity,” social networks and blog dominate people’s web use. Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just …
AAEA and LPC Awards Lists
I’ve been meaning to link you to the listings of the awards presented by the American Agricultural Editors Association and Livestock Publications Council. These were announced at the Ag Media Summit. AAEA Awards List (pdf) LPC Awards List