CHB Names 2012 Distinguished Chef

Jamie Johansen

ChefRobbiJenkins[3]Certified Hereford Beef (CHB) announces the title of 2012 CHB Distinguished Chef and this year’s recipient is truly dedicated to the brand. Robbi Jenkins, executive chef of Three Fires Steakhouse, Prairie Band Casino & Resort, Mayetta, KS. has many years in the culinary industry and very deserving of the award.

Originally from Mississippi, Robbi, received her degree in English and pursued other career endeavors, although cooking ran in the family and was always close to heart. Later in life she finally took on her calling and entered the two-year program at Washburne Culinary Institute & French Pastry School in Chicago.

She began her culinary career a the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Chicago and later moved to Lawrence, KS. to be closer to family. She worked in multiple establishments in the Kansas City area before taking the head chef position with Prairie Band Casino & Resort.

“When they brought in the CHB steaks and grilled them up, they were fantastic,” Jenkins says. “The flavor, marbling and tenderness were wonderful. Having been a chef for many years, I have had the opportunity of working with many brands of beef products, and I now know Certified Hereford Beef is the beef product I can hang my reputation on. It has proven to be the most tender and consistent product each and every time.”

“My colleagues have started calling me the Hereford queen,” she says. “And I’m very proud of it, and of our restaurant. I’ve been a cheerleader for the CHB product, and I’m sure it will bring great recognition for the brand, as well as for our restaurant.”

The CHB product is used in Three Fires Steakhouse menu many times including the steakhouse burger, filet, prime rib, strip steak, ribeye and T-bone entrees. Servers are educated on the product and avidly promote it as CHB.

Fenton Barnard, Kansas City Protein LLC procurement manager, nominated Robbi for the award with numerous letters of recommendation, her acclaimed resume and the Three Fires Steakhouse menu.

Beef, Food

Congrats to the 2013 Golden ARC Winners

Jamie Johansen

golden-arc-awardsThe Agricultural Relations Council’s (ARC) 2013 Golden ARC Awards Contest were recently announced at the organizations annual professional development meeting in Oklahoma City, OK. 14 Golden ARC winners and 18 Merit winners were awarded to elite agricultural public relations professionals.

This year the Golden ARC de Excellence Award was awarded for the best all-around entry in the campaign division. Congratulations to the American Farm Bureau Federation for receiving the acclaimed award for their public relations campaign, public affairs entry “Estate Tax Campaign”.

Agency Charleston | Orwig took home the most awards with five Golden ARC Awards and three Merit awards for clients Novartis Animal Health, Illinois Soybean, Smithfield Foods Inc. and the AgChat Foundation. Right behind them were Osborn Barr and Farmer Lumpe + McClelland, each winning seven awards.

“This year’s contest included many strong, creative entries with impressive measurable results,” said Amy Keith McDonald, contest manager. “In its history, the Golden ARC Awards Contest has established a precedent of being the most prestigious agricultural PR awards program in the nation.”

“The Golden ARC Awards Contest is unique in that it is the only award competition directed to agricultural marketing communications professionals that is not judged by our peers in agriculture,” she continued. “The competition is judged by public relations professionals who are not directly or indirectly linked to the entries.”

Members of the Florida Public Relations Association served as judges focusing on audience analysis, creativity, execution and campaign results.

Here you can find a complete list of the 2013 Golden ARC Awards winners: 2013 Golden ARC Winner

Advertising, ARC

ARC Learns About Oklahoma Ag Priorities

Chuck Zimmerman

Truffle Media NetworksI was not able to attend this year’s Agricultural Relations Council meeting in Oklahoma City but have been following along some of the social media posts like in the Ag Relations Council Facebook Group.

Here’s one example of what you would find there thanks to John Blue, Truffle Media Networks.

Shawna McWaters-Khalousi of the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, highlights what Oklahoma as a state is doing about promoting and advancing agriculture as one of their top industries.

Listen to to the presentation here: Agriculture's Priority in Oklahoma

This is a good example of the type of programs you’ll enjoy if you join ARC today and attend our next meeting. Yes, I am a proud member of ARC!

Ag Groups, ARC, Audio, Public Relations

New Monsanto – Dupont Pioneer Licensing Agreement

Chuck Zimmerman

MonsantoMonsanto and Dupont Pioneer announced today “a series of technology licensing agreements.” These agreements will expand the range of seed products they can offer farmers. The agreements include a multi-year, royalty-bearing license for Monsanto’s next-generation soybean technologies in the United States and Canada.

I spoke with Lisa Safarian, Monsanto, US Row Crops lead, to get some details.

Dupont PioneerSome of the details include:

Through these agreements, DuPont Pioneer will be able to offer Genuity® Roundup Ready 2 Yield® soybeans as early as 2014, and Genuity® Roundup Ready 2 Xtend™ glyphosate and dicamba tolerant soybeans as early as 2015, pending regulatory approvals.

DuPont Pioneer also will receive regulatory data rights for the soybean and corn traits previously licensed from Monsanto, enabling it to create a wide array of stacked trait combinations using traits or genetics from DuPont Pioneer or others. Monsanto will receive access to certain DuPont Pioneer disease resistance and corn defoliation patents.

There are quite a few dollars involved in the agreement that include four annual fixed royalty payments from 2014 to 2017 totaling $802 million for trait technology, associated data, and soybean lines to support commercial introduction. Additionally, beginning in 2018, DuPont Pioneer will pay royalties on a per unit basis of Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Yield® and Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Xtend™ for the life of the agreement for continued technology access, subject to annual minimum payments through 2023 totaling $950 million.

Additionally, the companies agreed to dismiss their respective antitrust and first-generation Roundup Ready® soybean patent lawsuits pending in U.S. federal court in St. Louis.

You can listen to my interview with Lisa here: Interview with Lisa Safarian

Agribusiness, Audio, Pioneer, Seed, Soybean

Smart Machine Technology Growing Bigger Farms

Chuck Zimmerman

Dr. Terry KastensDr. Terry Kastens is an Emeritus Professor from Kansas State University. He’s back to farming now and spoke during a Learning Center Session at Commodity Classic sponsored by John Deere. The session topic was “Better Data, Better Decisions: the ROI of Smart Machine Technology.

One of the first points Dr. Karstens makes is that every new technology requires an investment. That provides an opportunity for larger farms who can spread their investment out over more acres, or units of production. It’s the age old economy of scale thing. So, for this reason you would expect larger farms to adopt new technology quicker than smaller farms. That is in fact the case and he says that we can expect to see more consolidation in row crop farms analogous to what we’ve seen in the livestock industry.

Another point made in the presentation was that some technologies are adopted at a rapid rate and others at a much slower rate. In the precision ag sector an example of quick adoption is the use of yield monitors. But he says that making sense out of yield monitor data and actually varying rates of fertilizer as one example are being adopted much slower.

Listen to my interview with Dr. Kastens to hear more of his comments on this: Interview with Dr. Terry Kastens

Agribusiness, Audio, Commodity Classic, John Deere, Precision Agriculture, Technology

Got Meat Processing Sense

Chuck Zimmerman

Aggie Meat ClassHere’s a class I would love to attend. It’s the Aggie Processed Meat School Program. This program is not just for people who do meat processing but also those involved in quality control, business management, public relations and marketing. Here what you will learn if you attend.


By attending the Aggie Processed Meat School you will discover both the science and the art of making processed meat products. The first day will focus what you should consider when choosing the meat products and other ingredients to include in the processed meat item. That afternoon the participants will learn the art of making sausage. Then the next day experts will demonstration the production of whole-muscle processed meat items. Finally, participants will learn about ways to evaluate the finished product for quality and safety. Participants will be lead through a product evaluation much in the same way that is done in several of the product show competitions around the country.

Click here to register then type in Meat in the keyword search. The deadline to register is April 19th and enrollment will be capped at 60 people.

Education, Food, Meat, University

BASF Promotes Comprehensive Pest Management

Cindy Zimmerman

basf-science-ajBehind every successful grower is science and strategy – both of which come together in a comprehensive pest management program, as BASF Technical Crop Production Specialist AJ Woodyard helped explain during the recent BASF Science Behind event. The program also featured farmers Randy Dowdy of Georgia and Kip Cullers of Missouri.

AJ emphasized that each farmers challenges are different, leading to each needing a different solution. The most important part is identifying the areas that need help and seeking an individualized solution.

basf-aj-head“It’s always fun to do these events and work with guys like Kip Cullers and Randy Dowdy who are here at this event because they’ve got so many unique ideas and they think outside the box. I think that’s one of the things we always have to think about. Changing, thats another thing that I keep hearing coming up. We got to be willing to change. That’s something I challenge growers to think about. We can talk about what Kip and Randy do or what BASF is looking at but really what it comes down to is what are you looking at on your farm. What strategies are you implementing to get a feel for what’s working and what’s not working”

“What we like to do is take a look at a lot of different aspects of the production system. Coming off 2012 we all know the challenge and we all know what water means for crop production. There are a lot of other factors that we can manage to help mitigate against the stresses like a 2012. We look at fertility programs, genetics, nitrogen programs, cultural practices and then we focus a lot on the crop protection and overall plant health.”

BASF's AJ Woodyard at Science Behind
Audio, BASF, Commodity Classic, Farming

Zimfo Bytes

Talia Goes

Zimfo Bytes

Agvocating on Ag Day

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 389There were lots of agvocates in Washington, DC last week for National Ag Day activities. They included some great young people and we’ll hear from a few of them in this week’s program.

Troy and Bobbie UglemLet’s start with Troy and Bobbie Uglem, North Dakota. They are 2012 National Outstanding Young Farmers. During the lunch program on Ag Day Troy addressed those attending. One of his main messages was, “It’s not just a U.S. economy, it’s a world economy and the demand and the increase in population we have. We have some things to look forward to in the future to feed the population as it increases.” He says there a lot of challenges and encourages everyone to work together to promote agriculture. Bobbie has a background in education and uses what she’s learned to help educate other Moms about agriculture and food and says that kids love to visit farms and learn more about agriculture today.

Teresa ScanlanAlso with us during Ag Day activities was the 2011 Miss America, Teresa Scanlan. Agriculture is very important to her due to growing up in Nebraska and having a good awareness of how food is produced. She says it is important to educate children about agriculture but also adults who just “have no clue.”

Teresa has recently partnered with The Great American Wheat Harvest film documentary project. This is the project that we are sponsors of. At the end of her presentation during last week’s Ag Day banquet she played the trailer for the film and encouraged everyone to support it. You can hear her presentation in this week’s program.

Ag Day agvocates in this week’s ZimmCast: Ag Day Agvocates

2013 National Ag Day Activities Photo Album

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

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our Subscribe page.

Coverage of the National AgDay Activities is sponsored by the BCS think tank and American Seed Trade Association
Ag Day, Ag Groups, Audio, ZimmCast

Fuel Quality Management for Spring

Cindy Zimmerman

gmk-dehnerOne of the biggest investments in any farm system can be the fuel. And as gas and diesel prices continue what seems to be a steady climb upwards, making sure that investment is protected just makes sense. That’s where our friends at GROWMARK come in. Marketing manager of refined and renewable fuels for GROWMARK, Mark Dehner, explains that sometimes that fuel can be stored longer than originally intended in tanks that are quite old, and unwanted particulates can form.

“The new engine technology of today, the tolerances, are very much tighter,” with a difference of just a few microns; no room for any kind of foreign material, Mark says. “It’s very, very important that the fuel is particulate-free,” whether it’s fuel oxidization, the deterioration of the fuel itself, or rust or corrosion particles.

Mark goes on to say that it’s not a necessarily sophisticated process and sometimes boils down to just checking the fuel and tank periodically for a water bottom and any debris or sludge that forms over time. GROWMARK even has a fuel tank cleaning process. “We call it polishing the fuel,” and the method for cleaning the diesel uses a two-filter system to remove particulates and make the fuel ready for customers to use.

“Not only do we want to be the supplier of the fuel gallon to our farm customers and fleets, but we want to make sure we’re good stewards of their investment. It’s just part of the offering we have throughout the FS System.”

Listen to Cindy’s interview with Mark here: Interview with Mark Dehner, GROWMARK Fuel Quality Management

Audio, GROWMARK