Here’s something you don’t see everyday. A group of agricultural journalists from many countries playing with some organic pigs. This is on the Asbergby Farm during the 2012 IFAJ Congress. We met Olle and Catharina Linder who are organic farmers raising pigs and cattle. You can see how they keep their pigs in the video. What do you think of …
USDA “Meatless Mondays” Uproar
An internal USDA Greening Update newsletter that promotes “Meatless Mondays” caused a bit of an uproar on Wednesday. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) sent out a news release linking to the newsletter and questioning USDA’s commitment to the livestock industry. The newsletter talked about various “greening” initiatives by the agency and suggested that “one simple way to reduce our …
Livestock Reports Not Sexy, Hard to Understand, and At Risk
For anyone who has ever done livestock market reports in the media, you know how complex and how intertwined they are. What happens in one market can greatly affect all of the others (including what goes on in the grain markets), and understanding these relationships is certainly not an easy task (doing markets for Chuck back during our days at …
Bailey Ballou 2012 LMA Champion Auctioneer
The 2012 Livestock Marketing Association’s (LMA) World Livestock Auctioneer Champion is Bailey Ballou of Elgin, OK. Bailey participated in a press conference call just now which I thought I’d share with you in case you couldn’t be on it or are interested in what Bailey had to say. The competition was held last Saturday in Turlock, CA. If you listen …
Locust Trace AgriScience Farm
Locust Trace AgriScience Farm is the newest career and technical high school in Lexington, Kentucky with energy and environmental being key factors in the facility design and agriculture being the educational focus. Locust Trace features spacious classrooms with adjoining labs, 6.5 acres for gardening, a state-of-the-art greenhouse with an aquaculture area for raising native fish, a soaring auditorium with a …
Animal Agriculture Alliance Summit Wrap-up
To get a wrap up of the 2012 Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit I spoke with President/CEO Kay Johnson Smith. Kay was given these beautiful flowers in recognition of her service during the organization’s celebration of its 25th anniversary. Kay says this year’s Summit was a little different than normal since it focused more on how to effectively communicate with …
Advocating For Animal Agriculture
The Chairman of the Animal Agriculture Alliance, Chris Ashworth, closed out the 2012 Stakeholder Summit after introducing our final speaker. I visited with him to learn how things are going with the organization. Chris talks about the fact that they are celebrating 25 years of advocating for animal agriculture representing all animal species. He says that this past year they’ve …
Becoming Authentically Agriculture
Let’s talk “Authentically Agriculture” with Michele Payn-Knoper, Cause Matters and founder of the weekly AgChat Twitter conversation. Michele was a presenter at the 2012 Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. Michele says her presentation title means “that agriculture really needs to do a better job of connecting on a human level.” She spoke about the values, validation and voice that’s needed …
Building Relationships With Consumers
The moderator for the 2012 Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit was Tom Steever, Brownfield, who is currently the President of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. Tom was also one of our presenters so it was interesting seeing him introduce himself, speak, thank himself and then present himself with the AAA coffee mug token of appreciation. It was also hilarious. …
Gaining Consumer Trust
If you need a speaker on the subject of social media and content marketing then you need Shelly Kramer, V3 Integrated Marketing. I met Shelly last year and she talks about what I do better than I do and I like that. I’m sharing a short excerpt from her comments at the 2012 Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit on blogging …