Hello from IFAJ Congress 2005 in Thun, Switzerland! What a day. Sorry I don’t have more up yet but our flight out of New York was delayed almost 4 hours. Then when we got here we had to take off for the first activities of the event. I have lots of material that I’ll be putting up tomorrow. It’s after 11pm here now and I’m using a press room computer that’s not set up for the standard english person like me. That means some keys are in different places and hard to find at this time of night if you know what I mean.
New Website For MachineryLink
Another company announces a website revamp. I am not on high speed here in the airport so I only got a short time to look at the new MachineryLink website. It looks pretty simple and “clean.” By clean I mean uncluttered with too many images and other stuff. I like the fact that you can listen to interviews in the news section!! They ought to consider an RSS feed of their releases though. Ag communications people need to listen up on this! If you wonder what I mean just give me a call and I can even set it up for you.
NE Fair Farm Forums
The folks at the Brownfield Network have been working overtime to bring great radio to the web. I guess that makes it webradio? Anyway, you can see/hear some of their latest new stuff from the Nebraska State Fair. Use this link: Brownfield Farm Forums: Nebraska State Fair Their coverage was sponsored by the Nebraska Corn Growers Association and Nebraska Corn Board.
IFAJ With Greg Lamp
This might be my last post before heading to the airport on the way to the IFAJ Congress. To get you in the mood I’ve got my interview in the form of a special ZimmCast with Greg Lamp, editor of Corn & Soybean Digest. Greg will be on the trip and is on the IFAJ executive committee, representing the United States.
A John Deere New Equipment Onslaught
Wow! When John Deere comes out with some new equipment they don’t mess around. I have about 16 news releases on new products introduced at the just-completed product launch in Ft. Worth, TX. In the interest of time we’ll kind of provide an overview. Remember each of these has it’s own release and you can find out more on their website. First we have the Frontier Equipment announcements.
Let’s Get This Ethanol Thing Right
In this week’s CornTalk, National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman discusses last week’s Ethanol Energy Balance forum at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The forum was organized to settle the debate over the net energy balance provided by ethanol. Much of that debate was created by a recent re-release of a questionable research study that suggests that that support for this form of energy is not worth it.
The ABC’s Of School Nutrition
School’s back in session so it’s time to think nutrition for children. In this week’s MBIC Report, Alane Lidolph, director of consumer information for the Missouri Beef Industry Council, talks about the ABC’s of back to school nutrition.
Web Check AgForLife
I don’t know about you but it can be hard to find good qualified young people who want to enter an agricultural field of any kind today. The folks that run AgCareers.com have introduced a new initiative to do something about it. They’re doing it with a little bit of help too (“a grant from Altria and matching funds from Pioneer Hi-Bred International. Texas A&M University provided the resources for the visual model of the virtual career guide.”).
Weather Channel Blog
This is just a little out of the ordinary for AgWired. Well, maybe not too out of the ordinary. As I was looking at The Weather Channel online to find out the latest about Hurricane Katrina, I noticed they have their own blog! It’s really not too bad and is a good example of what you can do with one. You can meet their bloggers here. And of course you can use this link to subscribe.
Onward To Switzerland
Apparently Thun, Switzerland didn’t look this serene last week as the rain was falling. Little did we know that there was serious flooding until getting an email from the IFAJ organizing committee that our hotels aren’t affected.