During the 2012 NAFB Convention I spoke with Dan Kurdys, Asgrow Brand Manager. In a challenging year he says they had great harvest results with a greater than four bushel advantage over their competition. He attributes that to their “diverse germplasm pool, Genuity Roundup Ready trait and defensive and agronomic traits that are available to purchase.” Dan says they’ve developed …
BASF Builds on Becker Underwood History
In 1982, two friends named Roger Underwood and Jeff Becker started a little company that bore their names with a single product. Several acquisitions and 30 years later, Becker Underwood is a global leader in the development and commercialization of seed-applied biological products and is now part of the BASF Crop Protection family. “It’s been quite a ride particularly over …
Get Your MBA and Promote Beef Today
The Missouri Cattlemen’s Convention kicked off the morning with the popular Cattlemen’s College. NCBA’s Executive Director of Communications, Daren Williams, presented to the group on defending animal agriculture. We seem to always be fighting an up hill battle in the agriculture industry, so defending our passion and livelihood is vitally important. Beef has recently been under the spotlight and it …
Merck Says Lookout for BRD in Cattle
Now that winter is upon us it’s time for cattle producers to take note of BRD (Bovine Respiratory Disease). At the recent NAFB convention I spoke with Dr. Eric Moore, Merck Animal Health, about this subject. He says this disease has plagued the industry since the beginning. “It’s one of the most costly conditions we have within our industry.” There …
A Worldly Discussion on Beef
A highlight for my first trip to Alltech’s Global 500 was the discussion dinners. Being a beef producer myself, I was excited to attend one on the beef industry. How often do you get the chance to discuss and share ideas about farming with people from around the world. After an intimate steak dinner with about 40 Global 500 attendees …
BASF on Becker Underwood Acquisition
The acquisition of Becker Underwood by BASF brings together two market leaders in the areas of innovation, crop protection, seed and biological technology, which means a broader range of products for growers to increase yields. BASF VP US Crop Protection Paul Rea says Becker Underwood technology is complementary to BASF’s existing product portfolio and raises the bar for plant health …
Bayer Announces Bee Care Center at ASTA
The seed may be first, but bees are still important when it comes to agricultural production and Bayer CropScience was pleased to announce plans for a new North American Bee Care Center during last week’s American Seed Trade Association expo. The company plans to break ground in February 2013 on the center which will serve as a gathering place for …
CBB – Doing More With Less
In 2011 beef checkoff dollars funded the National Beef Quality Audit and identified that producers needed to do a better job of telling their story. During the recent National Association of Farm Broadcaster’s annual Trade Talk the Cattlemen’s Beef Board shared what programs they are funding to help producers do just that. Chuck talked with Kim Brackett, Secretary/Treasurer for CBB, …
Social Media – Listen. Talk. Ask.
To help wrap up Alltech’s Global 500 last week Billy Frey, Senior Vice President of the Alltech Ag Network, and David Butler, Alltech’s Web Marketing Manager, discussed the future of communication. What does the future hold in terms of communication? Well, if you ask these guys the answer is social media. People don’t turn to magazines, newspapers or even television …
Syngenta & ASTA Help Feed Chicago Kids
We talk a lot in agriculture about feeding a growing world population but Syngenta and the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) brought that broad message home during this week’s CSS 2012 and Seed Expo in Chicago. “We tend to think about hunger as being something that happens somewhere else, but it happens in our own backyard – it happens here …