The Missouri Corn Growers Association held a seminar last week in conjunction with their annual meeting on “Profiting in the New Paradigm – Feed and Fuel Security.” The focus was on how corn growers and livestock producers can work together to produce ethanol and still feed cows and pigs and chickens at a reasonable price. One of the speakers was …
Covering the President
Covering the visit of President Bush to the Advancing Renewable Energy conference in St. Louis made for an interesting day. It was most amazing to me how incredibly tight security was, especially for the press. The general convention attendees had more freedom than the press. The “local media” were confined to a “pen” – that’s what they called it – …
Farm Media at the Renewable Fuels Conference
The Advancing Renewable Energy Conference this week in St. Louis is subtitled “An American Rural Renaissance” and the media here have gotten an eduation in the importance of agriculture to the future energy security of this nation. The farm media here, like Peter Shinn with Brownfield Network, already knew that. It’s been very gratifying to hear so much about agriculture …
Johanns at the ID INFO EXPO
Second day of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture ID INFO Expo was a busy one, between the Secretary of Agriculture and the protesters. A small but vocal group gathered outside the Westin in Kansas City with signs and umbrellas saying “No to NAIS.” I figured that about 99 percent of the people passing by on Grand Avenue had no …
The Place For NAIS
I have been here at the National Institute for Animal Agriculture ID INFO Expo in Kansas City working on their virutal press room. Pretty cool idea, actually. I sent out a document file to agricultural media yesterday with links to interviews I did with all the representatives of the Species Working Group for the National Animal Identification System, as well …
Tres Chic for Pig Posting
I had to pose for a picture in the ISU wet lab during the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc. PCVAD update meeting with my overalls and plastic booties to keep germs away from either me or the lab, not sure which. I admit to being a pretty big weenie when it comes to looking at guts, but I held up well …
CSI: Circovirus Swine Investigation
Pigs are dying. The question is why? Is it simply the presence of PCV2, which is found in virtually every swine herd worldwide? Or is it the co-factors? PRRS? Mycoplasma? Salmonella? What is their motive? That is what the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc. (BIVI) project known as MAGIC – or Monitoring Assignment for a Global Insight into Circovirus associated diseases …
Stalking a Killer
The swine industry has become increasingly alarmed just in the past year or two about the incidence of what has become known as PCV-AD, or Porcine Circovirus Associated Diseases. At a PCV-AD update meeting sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. last week, veterinarians and members of the media were updated on the latest information available about this emerging disease complex. …
Making MAGIC
Sometimes finding the right way to control diseases in animals just takes a little magic – so that is what Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. is using to figure out just what it will take to get a handle on PCV-AD – or Porcine Circovirus Associated Diseases. PCV is a virus that is actually present in virtually every swine herd in …
Meet “The Art of Dairy” Creator On This Week’s ZimmCast
You know that ZimmComm has created the World Dairy Expo Blog and when you visit you’ll see an image of a cow that’s in the process of being painted. If you go to the World Dairy Expo website you’ll see an opening flash animation of that cow being painted. In this week’s ZimmCast I interview Brad Nellis, Distillery Design Studio, who has worked on the theme images of the Expo for about 10 years. He’s the creative talent behind the campaigns, including this year’s “The Art of Dairy” theme.