Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show is underway in Woodstock, Ontario. I had the opportunity to attend it last year in conjunction with the 2011 IFAJ Congress. It’s a great show and a great place to shop, especially if you’re a dairy farmer! When you are in the mood to shop, the most efficient and effective method is to have all the …
Farm Foundation Workshop to Focus on Free Trade
Free trade agreements between the United States and South Korea, Colombia and Panama could mean big growth for U.S. animal products. To help you better understand implications of these agreements, our friends at Farm Foundation are hosting a two-day workshop, Sept. 27-28, 2012, entitled “Emerging Issues in Global Animal Product Trade: Assessing the Effects of Free Trade Agreements on Global …
Learning about DeLaval
How much do you know about DeLaval? Want to learn more? Then sit in on this press interview with President/CEO, Joakim Rosengren. For you ag journalists out there, this is another example of they type of opportunity that comes from participating in an annual IFAJ Congress. We conducted this interview during this year’s Congress while visiting the DeLaval Hamra Farm. …
IFAJ Master Class
Want more reasons to support IFAJ? How about the annual Master Class held prior to the IFAJ Congress? The Master Class started this year with a ‘Getting Familiar Evening’ followed by peer-to-peer workshops on Monday and Tuesday. The agricultural journalists represent nine countries. They are: Burkina Faso: Inoussa Maiga Burundi: Jean de Dieu (John) Ininahazwe Congo: Roger Vutsoro Gambia: Sang …
IFAJ Boot Camp for Young Leaders
Here’s a reason why I support the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists. It is because of programs like the IFAJ-Alltech Young Leaders in Agricultural Journalism awards. These winners attend a pre-Congress Boot Camp. The winners participate in a two-day boot camp to develop their professional skills in agricultural journalism and get a broader global perspective in agricultural communication. The first …
Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show
Woodstock, ON is known as the Dairy Capital of Canada but is also home of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show – the nation’s largest agricultural trade show. As Cindy and I gear up for a big one here in the USA it’s time to look ahead to the big show in Canada! From September 11 to 13, thousands of farmers flock …
Wine Making in Sweden
Wine making in Sweden? You betcha. During the 2012 IFAJ Congress some of us toured Blaxsta Vineyard. We also sampled a merlot while we were there. The grapes for this particular wine came from Canadian vineyards of French stock. Blaxsta Vineyard is located near Stockholm and is about as far north as you can grow grapes to make some good …
Swedish Beef Cattle Farm – Stenhammar Estate
During the 2012 IFAJ Congress we split up into eight different tour groups. My group (Meat Wagon) visited Stenhammar Estate, a beef cattle farm run by the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf. He was not available but his farm manager, Anders Frederiksson was. Anders gave us a tour around the old and new barns and talked about the farm. I …
IFAJ Awards
Awards have been presented at the 2012 IFAJ Congress. Here’s the first place winner of the IFAJ-Yara Award for Sustainable Agriculture Reporting, Kerry Staight, Australia. Other awards were presented during our dinner last night that included the Star Prize for Broadcast Journalism, First Place – Online Video -Eric Poulsen, Denmark; Television – Kerry Staight, Australia; Radio – Damien O’Reilly, Ireland. …
Sweden Minister of Rural Affairs
The Sweden Minister of Rural Affairs is Eskil Erlandsson. He was on our morning program here at the 2012 IFAJ Congress. After the morning session was completed he held a press conference which I recorded and have posted below. One of the questions that I thought was interesting pertained to Sweden’s use of biofuels and making use of ethanol by-products …