Reach For a Green Star

Chuck Zimmerman

John Deere at NAFBAt the NAFB convention recently I spent some time in the John Deere booth. Pictured here are Seth Crawford (l), Leigh Ann Cleaver (BCS Communications) and Barry Nelson (r).

I interviewed Seth about John Deere’s new “Reach For The Stars” program they announced in conjunction with the American Soybean Association. This program is designed to provide U.S. soybean growers with opportunities to learn more about precision ag systems. It also has a contest portion in which selected growers will be able to choose from among “15 premium level precision ag systems, each with a suggested retail price of more than $20,000, for the entire 2007 U.S. growing season. After the program ends, qualified participants will be offered an opportunity to purchase the entire system, or just the components they want to own, at a greatly reduced price.”

Agribusiness, Audio, Equipment, Tractor

The AgSpeakerers

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast96 - The AgSpeakersAs I promised last week I’ve got an interview with Steve Hawkins, President of AgSpeak. This new company has been formed as the “first online agricultural market research cooperative.” They plan to attract farmer members who will agree to participate in online surveys and receive a portion of the profits at the end of the year.

Steve says that having farmers fill out surveys online saves them a lot of time and makes the survey process much quicker. They’re seeking farmer members and companies that want to have market research done. The company is based in Des Moines because that’s where other partners in the business are located. They all are involved with The Context Network.

Audio, Research, ZimmCast

Evan Slack is Online

Chuck Zimmerman

Evan Slack NetworkI guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. Evan Slack is advertising his new website here on AgWired and just sent out an announcement about it. Feel free to give him a little love and encouragement.

He included a personal message too. If you’re a radio man then use audio right? Right.

Message From Evan: evan-slack-announcement.mp3

Audio, Media

More Trees For Troops

Chuck Zimmerman

Trees For TroopsIt’s time once again for the Trees for Troops program to get in high gear. Trees are already on their way to our troops overseas. They’ll also be delivered to troops stationed here at home over the next several weeks.

Ag Groups, Audio

Pioneer Announces Shipments of Bio-PDO

Chuck Zimmerman

If you had asked me a week ago what Bio-PDO is I wouldn’t have a clue. However, after helping distribute a news release for Pioneer this morning I now know that it’s a bio product made from corn and like a lot of biotechnology, it’s helping us reduce our dependence on oil while helping American farmers. Commercial production of Bio-PDO™ …

Agribusiness, Audio, Biotech, Corn

PERC Yourself Up

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast95 - All About PERCIt’s back to work after a very nice Thanksgiving weekend. So let’s jump right into it with this week’s program. One of the interviews I did at the recent NAFB Convention was with Mark Leitman, Director, Agriculture Programs, Propane Education & Research Council (PERC). Thanks to Sarah Robinett, Osborn & Barr Communications for helping set me up!

There’s a lot of familiarity with checkoff programs like beef or pork but not as much with some others. PERC is funded through a federally mandated law which provides some significant funding which is used for research and promotion programs. I interviewed Mark to learn more about how his organization is structured and what they do with all that money.

Ag Groups, Audio, ZimmCast

Finding The Good News In Iraq

Chuck Zimmerman

Hopefully you’re familiar with Paul McKellips and his reports on the good news of what’s happening in Iraq, especially as it relates to agriculture. If not, then I suggest you listen to this week’s ZimmCast to hear from the man himself. I was very happy to get to meet Paul in Kansas City last week and we sat down for …

Audio, International, USDA, ZimmCast

Healthy Sandwich Contest & Podcast

Chuck Zimmerman

Tracey McCaugheySandwiches are about my favorite way to eat. For one thing you can be creative and there’s no end to what you can put between two slices of bread. The Grain Foods Foundation partnered with celebrity chef Dave Lieberman to search for the country’s healthiest and best-tasting sandwich with the America’s Healthy Sandwich Showdown. One of the cool things about it was that Lieberman did podcasts while the contest was running. You can hear his last one here.

Audio, Food

The Future is Bright For Agribusiness

Chuck Zimmerman

Sano ShimodaThe NAMA Agribusiness Forum is over and it’s NAFB Convention time. I’m getting ready to head over to today’s Trade Talk session after this post. You can see and hear more from the Forum though over on the NAMA blog.

The last presentation at the Agribusiness Forum yesterday was given by Sano Shimoda, BioScience Securities.

Audio, NAMA