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  • Farm Market iD announced that the Farm Market iD Database has been updated with 2012 crop year data.
  • Smithfield Foods is on track to complete an industry-leading goal of phasing out individual gestation stalls in favor of group housing for pregnant sows at all company-owned sow farms by 2017.
  • DuPont and Pannar Seed Limited closed on a transaction in which DuPont Pioneer acquired majority ownership in Pannar, a South Africa-based seed company with operations throughout Africa and in other parts of the world.
  • Syngenta is set again to expand its Innovation Center in Research Triangle Park, N.C., USA.
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AgriVisor Helps Market Grain to Maximize Profitability

Cindy Zimmerman

Grain marketing in today’s world means diversification and minimizing risk to maximize profitability, and AgriVisor helps farmers do just that. Account manager Cory Winstead says there are several ways they work with farmers. “We work directly with brokerage services and then since 1973 AgriVisor has been putting out general advice with recommendations,” he said. They also work with elevators, offering different products and services that farmers can utilize.

Cory says the grain markets continue to be volatile. “Last year we had the drought which really created volatility in the market,” he said. “This year we still had weather issues like the wet spring … a weather market always creates a lot of volatility.”

The biggest rule for marketing grain is don’t put all your eggs in one basket. “Have a diversified plan,” said Cory. “Know your cost of production so you can make an educated sale at a profitable level.”

Check out the different products and services offered by AgriVisor on agrivisor.com and listen to my interview with Cory to find out more: Interview with Cory Winstead, AgriVisor

Audio, Farming, Grains, GROWMARK, Marketing

New Holland Dealer Training

Jamie Johansen

new-holland-ag-13-116-editedNew Holland Agriculture has spent a good part of the summer in the great state of Texas training their dealers from across North America. The training has taken place in Houston, where the temps are high and the humidity is even higher. But that hasn’t stop dealers from taking advantage of the two-day training opportunity.

The dealers rotate through six checkpoints where each new product line is announced. Details are given about changes and additions, but the most important part of the training is the chance for dealers to get behind the wheel and actually run the equipment themselves.

I spoke with Abe Hughes, Vice President of New Holland, North America, recently when they invited ag media to their training facilities in Houston, TX. Abe shared with me how growth, creating smart products and continuing partnerships are the three most important avenues New Holland has set out to accomplish.

“I’m just really excited to be sharing our seven product launches that we’ve got for the dairy and beef segments. It’s really exciting being here in Texas with you guys from the media so you can see them and hear from our experts. Then get in the field and use the equipment. We are also sharing this with all of our dealers. We have been here for five weeks training dealers and employees.”

“What I find amazing is 89 million cattle are actually out there being raised for beef and dairy. New Holland is probably providing feed for most of those cattle every single day. The more we can train people in making better hay, the better nutrition that forage is going to have for the farmer and that means better beef and dairy we are going to have on our table.”

Listen to my interview with Abe from here: Interview with Abe Hughes

2013 New Holland Ag Media Event Photo Album

Audio, Beef, Dairy, Hay, New Holland

GROWMARK FS Websites Get Updates

Cindy Zimmerman

fs-growmarkThe 35 FS member cooperatives of the GROWMARK system are getting updated websites to better serve their customers and farmer-owners.

“Technology’s changed so much we really wanted to be able to give our members as much of an advantage with their websites as possible,” said Jana Kiefer, GROWMARK Electronic Communications Coordinator, who noted that they have been in the website business with member co-ops for over 15 years now.

Jana says the new platform for the websites allows for both continuity and individuality for the cooperatives. “We like our members to have the same type of theme but at the same time to be able to individualize their sites to fit their customer base,” she said. “So with that we’ve developed templates that members can choose from to build their site.”

The websites will be retaining the important information they have had for the past decade, including weather and markets, while adding the latest social media components like Facebook and Twitter. “Many members have their own Facebook pages that they populate and some are tweeting,” said Jana. “It’s becoming more popular, it’s becoming easier.”

Gold Star FS and West Central FS have already gone live with their new sites and more are on the way.

Find out more about the GROWMARK FS website update in this interview with Jana: Interview with Jana Kiefer, GROWMARK

Agribusiness, Audio, Cooperatives, GROWMARK

New Multi-Channel Meredith Agrimedia Group

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meredithMeredith Corporation announced the creation of Meredith Agrimedia, an innovative new marketing and media service for the agricultural community. The new group encompasses popular existing brands, including Successful Farming magazine, Agriculture.com, Living the Country Life, the Successful Farming Machinery Show and Ageless Iron Almanac.

Meredith Agrimedia offers farmers and other agriculturalists expanded multimedia services tied to Meredith’s industry-leading distribution platforms. It will provide multi-channel engagement to help marketers better understand and reach their agricultural and rural lifestyle clients.

“The information needs of rural and farm families are diverse and changing,” said Scott Mortimer, Publisher and General Manager of Meredith Agrimedia. “Together, our portfolio of brands can fulfill those needs and provide our marketing clients with access to 4 million agricultural touch points.”

These brands enable Meredith Agrimedia to reach a wide range of consumers—from commercial farmers to people who live on an acreage. Most recently, Living the Country Life was integrated into the portfolio to provide marketers with a full spectrum of agricultural consumers.

The group also specializes in research on consumer behavior to help farmers and marketers act on trends in food production and demand. Meredith Agrimedia connects with Meredith’s database of 100 million American consumers to share farmers’ stories. For example, Successful Farming recently paired with Midwest Living to create “Our Farm to Your Table,” a celebration of farm families.

Advertising, Agribusiness, Media

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New Online Resource About GMOs

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site_logoThe agricultural biotechnology companies that develop genetically modified seeds (GMO) are coming together to launch a broad, new initiative to provide accurate information and answer the toughest questions about GMOs and how our food is grown. GMO Answers is a new conversation, public Q&A, and central online resource for information on GMOs, their background, use in agriculture, and research and data in one easy-to-access public resource for the first time.

As the public discussion on GMOs continues, the scientists who develop biotech seeds along with farmers who grow them want to make information about GMOs easier to find and understand.

GMO Answers is produced by the members of The Council for Biotechnology Information, which includes BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences LLC, DuPont, Monsanto Company and Syngenta. Together, their commitment to openness and access to information is outlined in the GMO Answers five core principles.

Agribusiness, BASF, Bayer, GMO, Syngenta

Southeastern States Hire New Advertising Sales Rep.

Talia Goes

19The Livestock Advertising Network (LAN) has been named the new national advertising representative for state cattlemen’s associations across the Southeast. LAN will currently be representing the Alabama Cattleman, Carolina Cattle Connection, Georgia Cattlemen, Cow Country News (Kentucky), and Tennessee Cattle Business. These 6 states will represent a circulation of over 37,400 producers.

The Livestock Advertising Network will be coordinating all of the national advertising sales for these publications. LAN is owned by the Southeastern Livestock Network, a joint venture of 11 southeastern states who came together in 2002. The states have worked extensively over the years on legislative issues, cattle source and age verification and they are looking forward to working together on other projects like this.

This will create an advertising outlet to reach organizations representing approximately 160,000 beef cattle farmers raising almost seven million head of cattle across 6 of the southeastern states. Not to mention create an even tighter bond among these state organizations.

The Livestock Advertising Network will be managed by Carey Brown, who has over 10 years of experience with the Kentucky Cattlemen’s Association. Visit LAN online at livestockadvertisingnetwork.org.

Advertising, Agribusiness, Livestock

AgEagle Tractor Tuff Robotic Aircraft

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 405Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast.

AgEagle LogoIn this week’s program we’re going to learn about a new term for UAV’s or unmanned aerial vehicles. I had a conversation with Bret Chilcott, AgEagle, who refers to them as “robotic aircraft” which are tractor tuff.

Here’s a photo of an AgEagle robotic aircraft product which is a fixed wing device. As you’ll hear Bret say in the program, they chose that design on purpose.

WELCOME TO AGEAGLE LLC

We help growers increase yields.

AgEagle Robotic AircraftOur “tractor tuff” ™ robotic aircraft captures images from 400 feet above the ground of crops giving growers a cost effective method to identify areas of concern early. Near real time images provides rapid information so important decisions can be made to enhance plant growth.

Images can be captured in normal light as well as NDVI or vegetation index (plant stress) using near infrared light.

Our robust system is designed specifically for agricultural use. The robotic aircraft is robust and built “tractor tuff!” The AgEagle system can capture images of 620 acres in as little as 20 minutes.

AgEagle aerial imaging systems will be available in the spring / summer of 2012.

If you would like to learn more about how the AgEagle can help increase the yield of your crops, please drop us a note under the contact us tab.

Thank you.

Team AgEagle LLC

Neodesha, KS

Listen to this week’s ZimmCast here: AgEagle Robotic Aircraft

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsors, GROWMARK, locally owned, globally strong and Monsanto, Roundup Ready Plus, for their support.

Agribusiness, Audio, ZimmCast

Panera Bread’s Lazy Response to Offensive Promotional Campaign

Chuck Zimmerman

Panera EZChickenIt looks like Panera Bread has heard from the countryside. However, to date, their response has been lazy at best. Earlier this week Carrie Mess brought to our attention the Panera Bread campaign all about the EZChicken which implies that farmers raising chickens and using antibiotics are lazy. It has launched a grassroots campaign on Facebook and Twitter. Just follow #PluckEZChicken. So what is Panera’s response? Here’s one they’ve put on Facebook:

We truly didn’t mean to offend the farming community with the posts and apologize for how the campaign was received. We have incredibly strong and personal relationships with our farmers and we could not be the company we are today without their hard work. We appreciate the feedback on how EZ Chicken was received and are removing all references to it from our posts on Facebook and Twitter.

You’ll also be interested to read about Carrie’s phone call with Michael Simon, Chief Marketing Officer for Panera.

So, what do you think? Just because they deleted the Twitter EZChicken account and took down some images doesn’t seem to be much of a response. The website still has the pill capsule EZChicken with inflammatory language. I’d like to see a blind taste test to see if antibiotic free chicken tastes better like Panera claims. How about you? Do you know of any such research?

I visited with the manager of my local Panera this afternoon. I asked him if he was aware of the new Panera EZChicken campaign. He said that he thought he’d seen something about it on the internet. I asked him if chicken raised antibiotic free tastes better than chicken that might have been treated with antibiotics. He said that he had no idea and that the chicken they serve has always tasted the same to him. So, I guess there’s not much communication at the store manager level on things like this.

Animal Activists, Food, Wackos