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 …
A Dire Future Without Major Societal Changes
Our opening speaker at the 2012 IFAJ Congress immediately dove into the deep end on the theme of “Solutions for a Green Future.” He is Johan Rockstrom, Executive Director of the Stockholm Resilience Center. As he opened his remarks he pointed to what he calls the most significant news of our age which was announced yesterday. He was referring to …
Preview of 2012 IFAJ Congress
The 2012 International Federation of Agricultural Journalists is about to kick off in Sweden. We’re somewhere to the west of Stockholm at the moment with farm tours coming up later this week. To get my coverage started I spoke with soon to be past IFAJ President Mike Wilson, Farm Futures, during the IFAJ leadership dinner this evening. Mike has been …
New Swiss Agricultural Journalists Board
The Swiss Agricultural Journalists (SAJ) recently elected Roland Wyss president during their general meeting in Geneva. Here’s a photo of the board including, Alain Douard, President Roland Wyss, David Eppenberger, Clair Muller, and Adrian Krebs. Thank you Marcus Rediger for the photo! Outgoing SAJ president, Adrian Krebs, said, “The past nine years in no small part thanks to the agricultural …
Precision Tech Detects Citrus Greening Disease
A disease causing some real problems for citrus growers in the U.S. is citrus greening disease, also called Huanglongbing or HBL. The bacterial disease poses no threat to humans, but its effect on the trees can be devastating. Discovered in Florida in September 2005, HBL is being closely monitored. But that monitoring can be quite labor intensive and costly. At …
Newbies to Precision Ag Credit Pioneers for Success
Getting more out of your fields… that’s the name of the game in agriculture these days, and precision techniques are helping farmers optimize those yields to their fullest potentials. Success by some pioneers in the field is helping more new companies also offer more products. At the recent International Conference on Precision Agriculture, Chuck caught up with Nick Koshnick (on …
Int’l Attendees Take Info Back Home from ICPA
With 45 countries in attendance, the International Conference on Precision Agriculture truly had an international feel to it. And many are hoping to take what they learn back home to apply to their agricultural operations. “We’re trying to promote farmers to work as scientists to help themselves,” said Rachel Nwakwasi, a poster presenter from the Federal University of Technology Owerri …
Raven Offers Solutions for Farmers Worldwide
Raven Industries is helping farmers all over the world be more productive and efficient with precision agriculture solutions. At this week’s Raven Innovation Summit, I talked with Karl Erichsen of Effective Farming Solutions in Middleburg, South Africa who has been a distributor for 12 years. Karl says precision farming is very important in South Africa because of the wide variety …