The President of the IFAJ Congress 2008 is Franz Fischler, former Commissioner of Agriculture for the EU. Last year in Japan at the IFAJ Congress he promised us some fine Austrian wines. Tonight he made good on that with a toast at our dinner. Prior to the dinner I spoke to him and he said that attendance exceeded their expectations. …
Touring Downtown Graz, Austria
During the first day of the IFAJ Congress in Austria we went on group walking tours of Graz. Here’s Cindy and me in front of the clock tower on Schloßberg, a hill overlooking the city. Thanks to Harlan Persinger for taking our picture. There were about 20 of us in our group. I’ve got a video clip to share a …
Annual IFAJ Delegates Meeting
The IFAJ delegates business meeting is taking place now. It’s the organization’s annual opportunity for each country to hear from the executive committee and have a say in the business of the organization. It looks like we’ve got a good showing. You get a true flavor of the international makeup of IFAJ when you see all the country flags hanging …
IFAJ Congress Welcome
It’s the first day of IFAJ Congress 2008 activities and the good news is, our luggage arrived! This morning the Executive Committee is meeting and after lunch we’ll have an IFAJ delegates business meeting. I’m going to try to cover that. In the meantime, the welcome committee is greeting attendees in the lobby of our hotel. I spoke with one …
Checked In For IFAJ In Austria
All right. We’re here in Austria. Let the IFAJ games begin! After I get this post done I’m going to be taking a nap for a while. Cindy’s already there. Our flight out of St. Louis was 2 hours delayed yesterday and that meant we missed our flight out of Chicago. So we were re-routed via Frankfurt and when we …
The Progressive Farmer in January
You can now get more of The Progressive Farmer. The publication, owned by DTN, will start a January issue in 2009. “An added publication date allows The Progressive Farmer to improve its overall coverage of the commercial farm market by bringing more value to our readers as well as offering advertisers the opportunity to increase their reach with our 100 …
IFAJ Congress Kicks Off Wednesday
Cindy and I are on our way to Austria/Slovenia. This year’s IFAJ Congress is looking like it’s going to be a lot of fun. I just hope we get good internet access and have a little time to relax. Those were two issues we had trouble with last year. Here’s some of the activities on the agenda: Reception with typical …
Ready To Call It An AgNite
Cindy and I were so impressed with AgNite that we just had to talk about it on this week’s ZimmCast. Let’s face it. Get over 5,000 people together and have the whole thing hosted by ag companies and organizations that don’t always see eye to eye and I’d say you’ve accomplished something! This week’s program includes an AgNite wrap-up with …
Eat More Meat and Heat Things Up
I was wondering if there would be anything to post late on a Sunday and the animal rights activist wackos provided some fodder. Okay, to start with, there are still some people claiming something called global warming. Yeah, right. Tell that to all the farmers who haven’t received enough heat this year to grow a decent crop. Now we’ve got …
MOSES is Organic
MOSES is the Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service. At the Farm Progress Show, their outreach coordinator, Harriet Behar, visited the media tent. One of the first things I asked her was just what “organic” means. She says it’s a sustainable method of farming that uses on-farm produced inputs. “Only products that have met the organic regulations are allowed to …