I don’t know about you but it can be hard to find good qualified young people who want to enter an agricultural field of any kind today. The folks that run AgCareers.com have introduced a new initiative to do something about it. They’re doing it with a little bit of help too (“a grant from Altria and matching funds from Pioneer Hi-Bred International. Texas A&M University provided the resources for the visual model of the virtual career guide.”).
Announcements From AMVAC
AMVAC Chemical Corporation is a subsidiary of American Vanguard Corporation and they had 2 big announcements this week. To start with they announced receipt of a registration from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Impact™, a new herbicide, for use in field corn, seed corn, sweet corn and popcorn. AMVAC expects to initiate sales of the herbicide to U.S. corn growers beginning in the spring of 2006. Additionally, they announced a partnership with Pioneer Hi-Bred for a marketing program for AMVAC’s SmartBox® closed-handling system. Pioneer® brand seed customers now have the opportunity to qualify for a discount on the purchase of a SmartBox system.
Cornstalk Baling Advice From Vermeer
The latest news from Vermeer Manufacturing Company was sent out today in the form of a Talking News Release. With all the increase in ethanol use there’s more pressure to bale cornstalks. So the company offers some ideas on how to handle the challenges this creates especially for equipment.
New D&PL Website
D&PL have announced a new website design. The work was done by Brighton Agency in St. Louis. It would be tempting to critique it here and I’m wondering if you’d like me to offer critques. Let me know by way of feedback.
Over 5,000 Convenience Stores In Shanghai
I always thought the corner convenience store was really just an American thing but after travelling in other countries you realize that’s not the case. I just came across a story on China Daily about the huge growth in convenience stores in Shanghai. According to the story there are now over 5,000 of them! That’s since they got started about 10 years ago.
AGCO & NASCAR Put Agriculture In High Gear
Actually their headline was that Challenger, Caterpillar and NASCAR Put . . . but my title space only has so much room.
Hot Topics Served Up By Valent
Valent was serving up “Hot Topics” at the recent Ag Media Summit. Like many exhibitors they weren’t there to make a major announcement but to build relationships with agricultural editors. Now I like hot sauce so they got my attention with the materials in their booth. For example, we received a CD that was labelled like a bottle of Tabasco sauce that contained recent news releases and personnell bios. I wish it had included images (logos, etc.) and some audio. Additionally they had questions and answers on little cards attached by a piece of ribbon to tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce.
BASF Enforcing Clearfield Agreements
What do you do when you expect some negative customer feedback? Send out a news release explaining your actions! That’s what BASF did to explain their pursuit of farmers using saved seed from their Clearfield agreements. In this case with a group of Arkansas rice growers. Although I only have the facts stated in the release I think most people would agree that if you enter into an agreement you ought to abide by it. At least that’s what I was always taught.
Gettin Figgy With It
How many of you remember “Ooee, gooey, rich and chewey inside . . . ?” When I was in high school we had a social club that used that as our theme song. We would even go to a grocery store together signing it while we all picked up a package of Fig Newtons and went through checkout in a line. Yes, we were weird.
Surveying Farm Direct Marketing & Agritourism
The North American Farmers’ Direct Marketing Association is attempting to get some major feedback from an industry wide survey. Association executive director Charlie Touchette says in his letter “The farm direct marketing and agritourism industry is perhaps the fastest growing sector related to agriculture today. Some of you have been on the cutting edge of this farm and ranch survival strategy for decades. Some are just entering this realm of diversification, and some new entry farmers and ranchers consider it to be the only feasible way to enter into agriculture at all.”