Farm bill conference committee member Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) says they worked on the legislation during the holiday break and are making progress. “The conference committee is making steady progress,” Leahy said during a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday. “Chairwoman Stabenow, a Democrat, and Chairman Lucas, a Republican, deserve credit and our appreciation, for working closely together to bridge …
Agri Marketing & AgWired Top Tens
Happy New Year. Now let’s look back at 2013. In this week’s program I visit with Lynn Henderson, Agri Marketing Magazine. We’ve each put together our top ten story posts from AgriMarketing.com and AgWired.com based on the traffic from our respective audiences. We only had one story common to our lists. You can find the Agri Marketing list here and …
San Diego Site for Meeting Biodiesel Challenges
The National Biodiesel Conference & Expo is less than a month away, and the CEO of the National Biodiesel Board stresses that they need as many people involved in biodiesel as possible there, especially in light of the challenges facing the industry. “Congress, for the third time in five years, through its inaction, is going to allow the biodiesel tax …
Ethanol is a Win for Illinois, A Win for Agriculture
Illinois State Representative Donald Moffitt knows agriculture. He grew up on a family farm, on which his son still farms (and Don occasionally helps). This has been a huge asset for him in his role as state representative because agriculture is the number one industry in both his 74th District as well as the state of Illinois. Rep Moffitt was …
BASF Announces Plans for 2014
BASF recently announced plans to expand its services and initiatives for growers and agricultural professionals worldwide in 2014 through a significant investment in the development of new IT tools. “The initiatives that were announced reflect the very strong commitment by BASF to the agricultural industry to provide modern tools to help growers get the most out of every acre,” said …
Cow That Stole Christmas 10 Years Later
This week marks the tenth anniversary of the “cow that stole Christmas” – a day that will live in infamy for the U.S. cattle industry and one that Kendal Frazier with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association remembers well. Kendal recalls that NCBA received a phone call from USDA at 1:30 pm on December 23, 2003. “We immediately started to implement …
Ag Industry Dealt a Blow from EPA
The agriculture industry has been dealt a blow according to Adam Nielsen, director of legislation and policy development for the Illinois Farm Bureau. Nielsen, who spends a significant amount of time promoting the agricultural industry in Washington, D.C., said the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed 2014 reduction of the amount of corn ethanol blended as part of the Renewable Fuel …
Dow AgroSciences and John Deere Form Collaboration
Here’s a development that comes right out of the John Deere Developer’s Conference this year in which the company opened up it’s MyJohnDeere platform to other companies to develop applications that would integrate with all the data that the platform creates. Helping farmers get more value per acre through the expert analysis of production data is the goal of a …
AFBF Annual Convention Around the Corner
The 2014 American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Annual Convention is right around the corner in San Antonio, TX. January 12-15 marks the organizations 95th convention and the event is expected to attract 6,000 farmers and ranchers from across the country. Cindy caught up with AFBF’s Mace Thornton, Director of Communications, during the National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s Convention where he …
ASTA Takes Seed Theft Seriously
As the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) was concluding its annual seed research conference and trade show in Chicago last week, word came that arrests had been made in two separate conspiracies to steal seed and trade secrets of U.S. companies. ASTA president and CEO Andy LaVigne says they were pleased that the U.S. government took swift action on a …