BASF Agricultural Products set up a nice visit for ag journalists here in Brussels at a great time to get some real news for the farmers back home. It was announced just yesterday that the European Commission was proposing to eliminate the mandatory ten percent set aside to help increase production for the coming crop year, and possibly permanently. We …
US Ag Journalists Meet With Top BASF Officials
The agricultural journalists on this week’s media event in Germany had the honor of being able to personally interview some of the top corporate executives of BASF Agricultural Products. You have to admit, this is a darn good looking group. We do clean up well. Along with myself, the seven other journalists on the trip and our BASF communications manager …
Interview with BASF Ag Products President
BASF Agricultural Products division president Michael Heinz is in a good mood because prices for farm products are higher and farmers are spending more money on their input costs to increase production. “It makes us very excited because when the farmer is in a good mood, in general, we are in a good mood,” Heinz says. This optimism was the …
Global Press Conference
I have been an ag journalist for 25 years and never participated in an event quite like the global press conference for BASF here in Germany. Michael Heinz, President of BASF’s Agricultural Products Division, and Dr. Klaus Welsch, head of the European Crop Protection business, were the headliners at the event and the main news was how BASF sees the …
BASF Wine Tasting
BASF is into just about everything, including wine. We toured the compnay’s Weinfachgeschaft, which handles about a million bottles of wine a year – about 2,000 different labels. Most are German wines, but they also handle a nice selection from around Europe and some other countries as well. BASF even has its own private label wines. So, this was part …
Willkommen to Germany
Hello from Germany. I am here in a cute little hotel in Speyer, feeling much better today after feeling pretty horrible last night. A long, delayed trip got me here just as everyone was ready to leave on the first leg of BASF visit, so I barely had time to change before heading out to see the BASF welcome center …
Off to Deutschland
While Laura is heading back from Chicagoland, I am heading off to Deutschland – Germany, that is. Just getting in the mood. I mean, who calls it Deutschland anyway, except the people who live there? The trip is a ag media tour of BASF with about six other American ag journalists. We will be flying in to Frankfort and visiting …
ID/INFO Expo ’07
Traceability is the main theme at the National Institute for Animal Agriculture ID/INFO EXPO in Kansas City this year and the recent outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in the UK has made it very timely. One of the most interesting presentations was by Ray Brown, a dairy producer from Cheshire, England. Ray spoke on the impact of FMD …
EPIC at NAMA Boot Camp
“Marketing at Top Speed” was the lesson presented to agrimarketers at the NAMA Boot Camp Thursday in Kansas City by Ethanol Promotion and Information Council Executive Director Tom Slunecka. He educated the participants to become “ethanol evangelists” because of the important role ethanol is playing today in the entire agricultural industry. EPIC is one of ZimmComm’s dearest clients (we love …
Consumers Love Beef Tender
Would you pay $345.95 for four 12 oz. strip steaks – raw steaks, mind you, not cooked. That’s the price on-line for “Kobe-style” strip steaks, as marketed by Allen Brothers – a company some Rush Limbaugh listeners might recognize. That compares to $159.95 for the same quantity of U.S. Prime, dry-aged strip steaks – or just $104.95 for U.S. Prime, …