Getting to the Commodity Classic in Nashville a day early to attend the Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum, I was happy to find National Corn Growers Association President Garry Niemeyer of Illinois available to do some pre-convention interviews. Garry is looking forward to a great, big Classic this year – with registration already at a record level. “We have 5,400 …
The Growing Problem of Food Waste
Food waste is a growing problem. That was the message from Kai Robertson, Director, Food, Beverage & Agriculture Practice, BSR, during the Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum. I visited with Kai right after her presentation. She startled many of us attending when she presented a statistic from EPA (estimate) that more than 67 billion pounds of food end up in …
Welcome From Bayer CropScience
One of our first speakers at the 2012 Ag Issues Forum is Dr. Mathias Kremer, Head of Global BioScience for Bayer CropScience. He says he wanted the takeaway message from his welcoming remarks to be an understanding of what Bayer CropScience stands for which is “an organization which sees itself as one of the solution providers to the global problems …
Bayer CropScience Gathers Ag Journalists
The Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum is underway. We’ve got a full house of agricultural journalists of all “types” here. This is my first time at the event and it is a very broad spectrum (sounds like a herbicide) “media” event. It’s always interesting to see the publication folks shooting video and the broadcast folks taking notes. Hmmm . . …
Trading Grain Via Pioneer DPP
During the Pioneer Media Event Chet Hollingshead visited with Tonia Carpenter, Pioneer Sr. Marketing Manager and Jason Tatge, CEO, Farms Technology. Tonia says they have a new program to add value to growers, DPP grain desk. She says that after talking with growers the focus always goes back to grain marketing and finding a way to “jump on the volatility …
Historic Gathering of Agriculture Secretaries
This is one Agricultural Outlook Forum I really wish I could have attended just to see most of the past and present Secretaries of Agriculture gathered on one stage together to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Pictured here are the eight secretaries who took part in a panel at the forum last Thursday moderated by …
The Farm Industry News FinOvation Awards
Since I was just posting about a FinOvation Award I thought it was a good time to share more information about these annual awards presented by Farm Industry News. To help explain them I spoke with Jodie Wehrspann, Senior Editor at Farm Industry News. She’s pictured here presenting one of the awards to Brian Deverman, Pioneer Hi-Bred, for their Plenish, …
OmniRow Planter Control Wins FinOvation Award
One of the FinOvation Award winners this year and presented at the 2012 National Farm Machinery Show was Raven Industries, sponsor of the AgWired App (got it yet?). Pictured is Doug Prairie, Product Manager, receiving his award from Jodie Wehrspann, Farm Industry News. I spoke with Doug about their award for the OmniRow planter control system. He says it’s one …
Visiting With Abilene Machine
One of the companies I visited with at the 2012 National Farm Machinery Show was Abilene Machine, Ag Replacement Parts. I didn’t know much about this company until I spoke with Andrew Roelofsen and Jay Russell. Andrew says they’re sporting a new company logo and re-positioning the company in the minds of their customers. Of course we always ask “What’s …
Sec. Vilsack Applauds Ethanol Producers
This morning Ag Secretary Vilsack spoke to the 2012 National Ethanol Conference. I’m sharing Cindy’s story that is also posted over on our sister site, Domestic Fuel: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack expressed his personal strong support and gratitude for the ethanol industry during an address at the National Ethanol Conference on Friday. “We owe ethanol producers in this country a …