50 Years and 5 Whiskies

Chuck Zimmerman

Past Presidents of IFAJYou have got to like an organization that has custom labelled bottles of a blend of 5 fine scotch whiskeys made to give to and honor their past presidents.

This is the 50 year anniversary of the IFAJ and the 5 whiskeys in the blend each represent a decade of the organization’s existence.

IFAJ

Some of the Canadians Attending IFAJ

Chuck Zimmerman

CanadiansI don’t have any of their names, but Owen Roberts, if you know feel free to post a comment and identify these Canadians attending the IFAJ Congress.

I had to post this because I’ll be in Ontario next month conducting an agriblogging and farm podcasting workshop at the University of Guelph. The two on the left are students there.

IFAJ

Green Tractors At This Dairy Farm

Chuck Zimmerman

John Deere In NorwayI thought this would make Barry Nelson happy at John Deere.

The Norwegian dairy farmer I interviewed today made a point of making sure I knew he exclusively uses John Deere tractors. He seemed pretty proud of that.

Agribusiness, Equipment, IFAJ, Tractor

Dairy Barn Fashion

Chuck Zimmerman

Cow InterviewIt’s been a long trip and sometimes you start to get a little goofy. I tried to interview old Betsy here but she wasn’t interested.

As you might expect, we had to suit up to go into the diary barn.

I wasn’t the only one thinking I looked pretty fashionable in my blue suit.

Dairy, IFAJ

Norwegian Cow Record System

Chuck Zimmerman

Torstein SteineOne of the companies helping sponsor the IFAJ Congress here in Norway is GENO Breeding and A.I. Association.

On our dairy tour today, Torstein Steine, Director of Breeding and Research, gave us an overview of the Norwegian Cow Record System. GENO is very involved in this project which has an immense amount of data online now.

Audio, Dairy, IFAJ

Robotic Dairy Expert

Chuck Zimmerman

Gunnar PetterssonBefore we got to go into the dairy barn on today’s IFAJ Congress tour we learned about automatic or robotic milking from the expert.

He’s Gunnar Pettersson, Swedish University of Agricultural Science. He used a power point presentation but I recorded him anyway and am providing an edited version of that talk.

Audio, Dairy, IFAJ

Robotic Milking At Smestad Farm

Chuck Zimmerman

SkallerudsToday I got to visit a dairy operation which is pretty big business in Norway. We toured the Smestad farm. Pictured here are our hosts, Ole Kristian and Randi Skallerud.

The interesting part of the dairy is that he’s using an automatic milking system. So before we event went into the barn we learned more about robotic milking.

Audio, Dairy, IFAJ, Video