What is the perception of farmers and ranchers? That’s the broader question that was being addressed by participants at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit according to Mary Kay Thatcher, American Farm Bureau Federation. She was one of the many people I had the pleasure to speak with. One of the things she got out of Frank Luntz’s presentation had …
Lessons From Europe
At the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit we got an international lesson from Jim Sumner, President, USA Poultry & Egg Export Council. Jim says we have to look out for our own government policies and regulations or “we’re going to end up as bad or worse off than our friends in the European Union.” Let’s face it, regulations have been …
Food Marketing Words – Convenient, Safer, Healthier, Cleaner
Safer, healthier, convenient and cleaner. Those are words that Frank Luntz, Luntz Global, wanted people to take away from his remarks at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. I was able to ask him one question afterward while he was signing books and that was what he hoped participants took away from his presentation. His answer, “I think it’s essential …
Supporting The Iowa Food and Family Project
Soybeans came up on the program at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit in the form of Aaron Putze, Director External Relations, Iowa Soybean Association. He thinks it’s time to reflect on blessed we are in this country to have abundant food and thank the people who produce it. He gives a startling statistic that forty percent of the food …
Telling A Dairy Story
Dairy farmer LuAnn Troxel is one of the attendees here at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. She’s also President of the Indiana Professional Dairy Producers. This is LuAnn chatting with speaker, Frank Luntz, just before his presentation this morning. LuAnn is one of my Twitter (@DairyLu) friends that I have had the pleasure to meet here. She is hungry …
Some Truths About Sustainability
The S word came up during the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit in a big way during a presentation by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, Agriculture Air Quality Center Director, University of California, Davis. That word is sustainability. He talked about research he conducted that debunked the “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report that was published by the FAO in 2006. That report had …
Full Day At Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit
Day one of the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit is coming to an end. We’ve got a reception with silent auction to support the organization’s intern program and I’m sure I’ll collect a couple more interviews. We’ll begin again in the morning so you can count on more from here then. In the meantime check out photos from today’s sessions: …
Cattle Farmer And Social Media Expert
Cattle rancher Debbie Lyons-Blythe talked social media at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. We follow each other on Twitter. Find her @DebbieLB. She was here to encourage people not to be afraid of social media and make some suggestions on how to use it to advocate for agriculture. She starting blogging and considers her blog, Life On a Kansas …
College Aggies Online Awards Announced
The winner of the College Aggies Online scholarship competition is Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, represented at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit by Jacob Nyhuis. In the photo Jacob is accepting the school’s $750 award. The award also included his costs to travel to the Summit. I interviewed him after the presentation and you can hear him talk about participating …
Nebraskans Believe Farmers Take Care of Animals
Protecting and growing agriculture amidst the activist conflict was the topic of the first panel discussion at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. Nebraska Senator Tom Carlson was a panelist and he made it very clear that animal rights activists are not welcome in his state. He says that when these groups come into a state, they don’t know the …