I hope you like an Irish accent because you’ll get one in this special edition ZimmCast. The president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists is David Markey. He’s CEO of IFP Media in Dublin, Ireland and he’s my guest in this interview program. He’s also presenting at the Agricultural Media Summit that gets underway this weekend. I caught up with him in his office and I think you’ll enjoy hearing him talk about IFAJ and why it’s good for us to get together and trade information from around the world.
AMS Final Schedule Available
The steering and planning committe of the Agricultural Media Summit just released the final schedule and related information about the conference. You can download the PDF file here: Schedule
New Dupont Advisory Board Member
When you’re an international company you should have an international advisory board shouldn’t you?
Can’t We All Just Get Along
The DG for the WTO is getting more serious about trying to push countries into a cooperative mode so something will be accomplished in Hong Kong. Can you do that with trade negotiators?
University of Minnesota Partners With PMN
It’s always good to partner with a university when you can.
Most Producers Approve Beef Checkoff
Eventhough 72% of producers approve of the Checkoff, even more (74%) believe it has contributed to the positive growth in demand for beef. I wonder what happened to those other 2%. They don’t like growth?
Rural Nebraska Is High Speed Internet Connected
Imagine that 100 % of the people in Nebraska have broadband internet access available to them! No way you say? You’re wrong. It’s here and in a state that I’d bet you wouldn’t think it. This is a long post but I think this is fascinating. To get to the 100 % you have to figure in satellite but without it this document says that 57 % of rural Nebraska has it. That’s up 15 % in just one year! This information was put out by University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension. I have to believe without doing some research that you’ll find initiatives like this across the country. It’s a “wired” world folks. By that I mean connected to the internet. Resistance is futile.
McGregor Company Wins Environmental Respect Award
This is the 15th year of the Evnironmental Respect Awards and it’s a very good way to recognize how well ag companies care for the environment. Let’s face it, if farmers and others in ag didn’t take care of the environment where would they make a living? It only makes sense and I think most of the general public knows it!
CAFTA-DR Passes House
Okay. Since you’re going to hear about this from everybody you may as well hear it here too. The House passed CAFTA-DR last night. Vote was 217-215. Does that not tell you how divided people are on this issue? Most ag groups seem to be for it so you’ll see and hear a lot of “congratulations” stories from them. Not all in ag are happy though and certainly not all politicians. For example, take the House Democrat Ag Committee. Here’s an excerpt from Collin Peterson: “Tonight’s House vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, was a tragedy for American agriculture and rural communities.”
U.S. Farm Report Gets New Host
It looks like Orion Samuelson and Max Armstrong are making a big career change! Wonder what they’re going to do?