Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast, a podcast started in 2004 to focus on agricultural marketing and what is new in the world of agribusiness. Happy New Year to y’all. Here at ZimmComm we’ve been living in the virtual world of communications for almost 17 years. We started out distributing news releases with pre-recorded sound bites and interviews before jumping …
AWIS Celebrates 25 Years with Expanding Services
One of the nation’s premiere agricultural weather services is celebrating 25 years in 2021 as the founders continue to provide accurate and detailed weather information to clients around the nation in a variety of industries. AWIS was founded in 1996 as the Agricultural Weather Information Service after the National Weather Service (NWS) began to downsize and decrease its emphasis on …
IBM Expands Global Agriculture Platform
IBM is forging into the global agriculture industry, using predictive technology to provide solutions for farmers in various geographies. IBM announced the global expansion of Watson Decision Platform for Agriculture, with AI technology tailored for new crops and specific regions to help feed a growing population. For the first time, IBM is providing a global agriculture solution that combines predictive …
Stay Strong Nebraska Helping Farmers and Ranchers Rebuild
The flood waters may be receding, but the damage from them still remains and Nebraska farmers and ranchers will need help for some time yet to rebuild. “Stay Strong Nebraska” is an initiative created to do just that, providing easy access to the Nebraska Farm Bureau Disaster Relief Fund and Nebraska Cattlemen Disaster Relief Fund with all donations remaining in …
Nebraska Strong Working to Rebuild
It was ironic that the Water for Food Conference this week was held in a state that is still drowning in water from the disastrous weather events in March. Nebraska Farm Bureau president Steve Nelson gave an update on the situation at the conference. He says damage is estimated at about $1.4 billion – including crop land and livestock losses …
Nation Seeing #NebraskaStrong
The images of dead and dying cattle and calves as a result of the blizzard and flooding in Nebraska are hard for people in the livestock industry to see. As USDA Under Secretary Greg Ibach said last week at the Agri-Pulse Policy Summit, “It’s almost like losing family.” Ibach is former Nebraska Director of Agriculture who says he is, “first …
Weather Causes Early End to FPS18 Day One
There’s always something new at Farm Progress Show and this year a big storm caused something that has never happened before – an evacuation and shut down of the show before noon. Rain had been in the forecast for the day, but everyone was hoping it would either miss us or not be too bad. However, when the storm was …
Florida & Georgia Cattle Country Hit by Irma
Hurricane Irma traveled straight through Florida and Georgia cattle country. An assessment of damaged areas is still being tallied. Florida dairies are running on generators, still struggling to keep cows milked and forced to dump tons of milk for various reasons. Less impacted appears to be the beef cattle industry, as most fences remained intact and kept cattle from getting …
Ag Secretary Heads Home to Survey Irma Damage
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue will travel to Georgia today to see first-hand the damage the Hurricane Irma caused to crops in his home state. “We’ve been in constant contact with Secretary Perdue,” said Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black in an interview this week with Southeast AgNet’s Randall Weiseman. “We swapped some texts and within minutes had confirmation that ‘yes, …
Florida Citrus Starting to Assess Irma Damage
As Floridians continue to dig out from the damage and debris caused by Hurricane Irma, the extent of damage to agriculture is starting to be assessed. Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam took an aerial tour yesterday to survey areas impacted by Hurricane Irma, including citrus groves in Central and Southwest Florida. “It’s still too early to know the full …