Renewable Fuels Association Senior Vice President Geoff Cooper was recognized with the ethanol industry’s “High Octane Award” during the 2017 Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Minneapolis Tuesday. The award, established in 2000 by BBI International, recognizes a person “who has helped the ethanol industry mature and progress over the years” and “whose passion and unstoppable pursuits have significantly benefited the ethanol …
2017 World Pork Expo: The Highlights
More than 20,000 pork producers and ag professionals from throughout the world attended the 29th World Pork Expo, June 7-9, in Des Moines. Presented by the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), the 2017 Expo hosted more than 1,000 international guests from nearly 40 countries. We spent the days mainly in the media room covering the latest from the pork community. …
SMART Farmer US Poultry
In this edition of the SMART Farmer podcast we head south to learn a little bit about poultry production and how it has gotten smarter, more efficient and more sustainable over the years. Monty Henderson started as a broiler service manager with Tyson Foods and later with Campbell Soup Company. He served as president of Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation and in …
NCGA Urging Innovators To Consider Corn
The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and innovation facilitator NineSigma recently announced the launch of The Consider Corn Challenge, a global competition to identify new and innovative uses for field corn as a renewable feedstock for making sustainable chemicals with significant market demand. Corn production in the United States has increased from 105.5 million metric tons in 1970 to 345.5 …
Volvo Trucks Improve Sugar-Cane Harvest
Volvo’s new self-steering truck is changing the Brazilian sugar-cane harvest with precision steering through the fields to avoid damage to young plants that will grow into next year’s crop. Currently, growers face a four percent loss each season as plants are run over by vehicles, meaning each of these trucks has the potential to save tens of thousands of U.S. …
RFS Impacts: By the Numbers
Twelve years since the original Renewable Fuel Standard was passed in 2005 and 10 years after it was expanded in 2007, the numbers tell an objective story of how successful the legislation has been in a new analysis by the Renewable Fuels Association “RFS Impacts: By the Numbers”. RFA Senior Vice President Geoff Cooper says EPA is expected to issue …
ASTA Annual Meeting is Next Week
The 2017 American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) Annual Convention is coming up next week, June 21-24 in Minneapolis with a theme of Voyage to Better Seed. “This year we’ve got a lot of topics in front of us with a new administration, a farm bill out there, all the issues within the farm bill, and how do we develop policy …
ZimmCast on Risk Management Solutions
In this week’s program I’m sharing a conversation with Chip Whalen, Commodity & Ingredient Hedging (CIH). The topic is uncertainty requiring flexibility. Think about how commodity prices are affected by weather, trade, exchange rates and more competition. There are more factors too. So, how do farmers manage risk with the uncertainty we’re seeing in the trade today? That’s where Chip’s …
Pork Pleased with Pruitt and EPA Reform
The Trump administration has certainly shaken things up, and nowhere is that more evident than in regards to environmental issues. Kraig Westerbeek, National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) Board & VP of Environment and Support Operations for Murphy Brown spoke about top environmental priorities at the recent World Pork Expo, outlining the steps recently taken toward regulatory reform. The Waters of …
Disrupt, Don’t Fear New Ideas in Beef Production
ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference was all about causing a disruption in all forms of our life and of course in agriculture. And this includes the beef community. There was no better person to chat with when it comes to research in the beef industry than Dr. Vaughn Holder, Research Project Manager, Beef Nutrition, Alltech. A Head-Out-of-the-Sand approach, was the …