There’s a new ag policy group in town. Welcome to AGree. Today eight of the world’s leading foundations launched AGree, a new initiative that will tackle long-term food and agriculture policy issues confronting the nation and the world as the population continues to grow and resources become ever-more constrained. AGree is launching at a pivotal moment for food and agriculture …
United We Eat
I’m getting ready for the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. It’s time to head back out on the agriblogging highway. The Animal Agriculture Alliance will host its tenth annual Stakeholders Summit May 5-6, 2011 in Arlington, Virginia. The Summit will bring together food and farm industry leaders to reflect on the challenges of the past decade and new opportunities to …
An App That’s United And Fresh
The United Fresh App is now available just in time for the United Fresh Produce Association conference taking place this week in New Orleans. It will be on my iPhone at the next iTunes sync. The United Fresh app is available for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone users and can be downloaded free of charge at www.UnitedFresh.org/apps. The apps feature United …
Vidalia Onion Museum Opens
The Vidalia Onion Festival has just concluded but that doesn’t mean you can’t find out all you want to know about these world famous onions. The event also marked the opening of the Vidalia Onion Museum. The Vidalia Onion Museum provides guests with an interactive, historical experience. The museum is filled with educational exhibits that highlight the sweet onion’s economic, …
Essex, It’s What’s for Ketchum
Congratulations to Kim Essex who we’ve known as the NCBA consumer marketing guru. Ketchum, one of the world’s leading public relations agencies, named Kim Essex as senior vice president and senior client director for the Ketchum Midwest Brand and Food Practice. In addition to leading brand work on key Ketchum accounts, Essex will serve as a senior strategist to clients …
Farmers Speaking Out On Social Media
You should know by now that the AgChat Foundation has turned one year old this week and the weekly AgChat Twitter conversation is two years old. I’ll bet even Michele Payn-Knoper (founder) would not have predicted that! So the baby is growing up and there’s lots of interesting things going on as this farmer led organization continues to plough new …
American Ethanol Racing In Texas
Another way farming will be showcased on the race track this weekend is when American Ethanol heads to Texas this weekend for the NASCAR Nationwide Series race, the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at the Texas Motor Speedway on April 8th beginning at 8:30 pm EST on ESPN2. While the ethanol logo is on all the race cars, keep your eye …
The Sorghum Checkoff Continues
It’s official. The Sorghum Checkoff (officially the Sorghum Promotion, Research and Information Order) will continue as announced by USDA today. “We are pleased to announce that this Checkoff program will continue, and I am confident that this program will further its goal of strengthening the industry and expanding marketing opportunities for sorghum producers and importers,” said USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service …
First Certified Biobased Labels Announced
The United Soybean Board held a Biobased Products Stakeholders’ Workshop today at Hoover, Inc. Our featured speaker was Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan who announced the first 11 companies whose products have been certified to feature USDA’s new BioPreferred Label. “The USDA BioPreferred label assures the consumer that a product or package contains a verified amount of renewable biological ingredients.” …
USFRA Picks Ketchum
Ketchum has been chosen by the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance to be its primary communications agency. The announcement represents the next strategic step driving the USFRA mission to strengthen the image of agriculture and enhance public trust in today’s best production practices. The Alliance, currently composed of more than 30 of the nation’s foremost farmer- and rancher-led agricultural organizations, …