GROWMARK Essay Contest to Teach Ag, Writing Skills

John Davis

Agribusiness GROWMARK is once again sponsoring its annual essay contest with the goals of helping young people develop their writing skills, learning about current issues affecting agriculture, and understanding the unique role of cooperatives. In its 22nd year, the theme for the 2015 GROWMARK Essay Contest is: “Exploring Careers in Agriculture,” and it’s open to all high school FFA members …

Agribusiness, GROWMARK

Swine BioPortal Provides Flexibility to Data Evaluation

Jamie Johansen

The collection of data is important when it comes to monitoring the PRRS virus. But what do you do with all those numbers once you have them? Dr. Enrique Mondaca, Boehringer Ingelheim (BIVI), hit on that during BIVI’s session at the North American PRRS Symposium last week in Chicago. The Swine BioPortal is an answer to how veterinarians and producers …

Agribusiness, Animal Health, Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Swine

Gathering Data & Using It

Jamie Johansen

There are different tools producers and technicians can take advantage of when coordinating disease control. Dr. Erin Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim (BIVI), talked about a couple of these during the North American PRRS Symposium at BIVI’s breakout session. “One of our big data gap problems is we have a lot of data on the farm, but we don’t translate it very …

Agribusiness, Animal Health, Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Swine

Follow Your Management Rules to Tackle PRRS

Jamie Johansen

With over 20 years of research into PRRS, Dr. PH Rathjen with Boehringer Ingelheim (BIVI), is no stranger to the virus. As one of the speakers at the BIVI sponsored session at the North American PRRS Symposium he shared his experiences dealing with PRRS from his home in Denmark and how utilizing both Area Regional Control (ARC) and vaccines can …

Agribusiness, Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Swine

Iteris Announces ClearAg Prime

Chuck Zimmerman

Intelligence. It’s vitally important to national security and your crop’s security. Iteris has just released ClearAg Prime, which they call “Next Level of Intelligent Agriculture Decision Support.” To learn more about it I visited by phone with Tom Blair, Senior Vice President, Iteris. He says that ClearAg Prime is the latest in a series of API’s that customers can readily …

Agribusiness, Audio

Closing the PRRS Knowledge Gap

Jamie Johansen

The amount of research being done with PRRS is great, however the knowledge gap is large. Dr. Andres Perez, professor at the University of Minnesota, talked about PRRS research with goals to close some of our knowledge gaps and summarized results of and future plans for research on PRRS incidence, molecular epidemiology and modeling. All this took place during Boehringer …

Agribusiness, Animal Health, Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Swine

System Based PRRS Control

Jamie Johansen

As veterinarians and researchers gathered for the 20th North American PRRS Symposium they heard from many speakers who shared insights into the virus. One was Dr. John Kolb who is a professional services veterinarian working in the key account section of Boehringer Ingelheim. He talked about the application of a system-based PRRS control methodology which provides a systematic approach for …

Agribusiness, Animal Health, Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Swine

Samuelson Honored by American Agri-Women

John Davis

Award-winning ag broadcaster Orion Samuelson has been honored by the American Agri-Women (AAW) with its VERITAS award. This AAW news release says the group handed at the award at its 39th annual convention in Ohio. Its VERITAS award is the highest award given to a non-member. It is given annually to a person who has given public witness to “the …

Ag Groups, Agribusiness

2014 Census of Horticulture Underway

John Davis

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has started 2014 Census of Horticultural Specialties. This news release says the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is conducting the survey that will provide a comprehensive picture of the horticultural sector of the U.S. economy, along with offering detailed production and sales data for the U.S. floriculture, nursery and specialty crop industries, including greenhouse food …

Agribusiness, USDA

Simplot CEO Speaks at ASTA CSS

Leah Guffey

The opening session of the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) CSS and Seed Expo was highlighted by keynote speaker J.R. Simplot president and CEO Bill Whitacre. Since inventing the first viable frozen french fry the J.R. Simplot Company, has become one of North America’s largest, privately held food and agribusiness companies, with over $4.5 billion in annual sales. Simplot has …

Ag Groups, Agribusiness, ASTA, Audio, Seed