Celebrating National Ag Day 2013 in Nebraska

Talia Goes

IMG_7082Besides the activities Chuck is covering in Washington, DC, this week there are localized events throughout the country. This morning, Nebraska kicked off Ag Day in Tecumseh, Omaha and Wayne. The crowds got to listen to some key Nebraska agriculture influencers and supporters such as Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson, State Department of Agriculture Director Greg Ibach, Agriculture Committee Chairman Sen. Ken Schliz, Lt. Governor Lavon Heidemann, and Nebraska State Governor Dave Heineman.

Listen to the Governor as he talks about Nebraska Agriculture.

What a great way to meet and mingle with some of the State representatives and area agriculturalists. The crowds that gathered in Nebraska for Ag Day consisted of FFA students, farmers, college students, agriculture media representatives and ag organizations. Governor Dave Heineman stressed that he is proud of Nebraska agriculture and all that it has done not only for our state but for the world.

Make sure you follow all Chuck’s coverage of National Ag Day activities in the nation’s Capitol. 2013 National Ag Day Activities Photo’s album.

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

USFRA Ag Day Educational Session

Chuck Zimmerman

USFRA Katie Pratt Ag DayThis morning the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance celebrated the 40th anniversary of National Agriculture Day with a breakfast on Capitol Hill and educational briefing on “The New Language of Food and Modern Agriculture.” More than 150 people — including Ag Day participants, members of the food industry, and Congressional staff — joined USFRA at the event to hear about new research on the relevance of modern agriculture and encourage sharing of personal stories of continual improvement on the farm and ranch. Our moderator was Chris Galen.

“On Ag Day, when we traditionally celebrate America’s farmers and ranchers, we wanted to use this opportunity to share some new research we have on the language of food and new perspective on agriculture,” Chris Galen, USFRA board member and Senior Vice President of Communications for the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), said.

“I think it is also fitting to be in this location, the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, home of the historic National Woman’s Party, that we have two female farmers here with us today. What a nice reflection of the diversity of modern agriculture,” he said.

We also had Katie Pratt (pictured at podium), USFRA Face of Farming and Ranching, share her farm story and talk about the importance of farmers and ranchers to share their personal stories. “This Ag Day – and every day – I encourage farmers and ranchers from across the country to be active, share their personal stories, and answer questions from their community about how food is grown and raised,” she said. Katie also live tweeted the event @USFRA. I have an interview with Katie to share with you later.

Also on the program was Erika Bowser-Poppelreiter, a Midwest farmer and farming/ranching expert with Ketchum. Erika presented the briefing, focusing on consumer messaging research and how the agriculture industry can work to restore relevance. The event featured a new perspective on food culture today led by farmers and ranchers.

You can listen to or download the education session here: USFRA Ag Day Educational Session

You might enjoy reading an editorial in today’s The Hill Congress Blog by USFRA Chairman, Bob Stallman, AFBF.

2013 National Ag Day Activities Photo Album

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

Meet the AgFanatics

Cindy Zimmerman

agfanatics-2We’ve been promoting the AgriVisor AgFanatics podcast for a couple of months now here on AgWired and I finally got a chance to get the two hosts of the show on the phone to find out more about them.

The AgFanatics are AgriVisor Account Manager Cory Winstead and AgriVisor Risk Management Specialist Nick Klump and they started the podcast back in December.

AgFanatic Cory Winstead

AgFanatic Cory Winstead

“It’s something I had been wanting to do and thought it was a good opportunity to share ag news in a fun and informative way and have a good time,” Cory said about starting the show, noting that they sit next to each other every day and talk about stuff so they wanted to show to be like that – just two people conversing about the markets, risk management, the weather, and whatever impacts agriculture.

AgFanatic Nick Klump

AgFanatic Nick Klump

Even though the podcast is barely three months old, AgFanatics has already established a very solid listener base. “It’s been good feedback so far, all positive,” Nick said.

The AgFanatics give a great deal of credit for the production of the show to Alan Jarand and RFD Radio Illinois who encouraged them from the start. “He said you guys can use my studio, I’ll help you,” Cory said. “Once we did it the first time, he said I’m holding you accountable to come down here and do this every week. If it weren’t for him we may have only done three shows and stopped because of the difficulty of it. He’s been a huge asset to have.”

Listen to my conversation with the AgFanatics here: Interview with AgFanatics

Audio, FS System, GROWMARK

Insider Look at 2013 for Food & Agriculture

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm to Fork PoliticsHow about some Farm to Fork Politics? That’s what we got to kick off 2013 National Ag Day activities in Washington, DC. Here are the panelists for the session that was sponsored by Agri-Pulse just prior to their annual reception. Seated l-r are Dr. Keith Collins, former USDA Chief Economist, B. Hudson Riehle, Senior VP of the Research & Information Services Division for the National Restaurant Association and Dr. J. B. Penn, John Deere. These gentlemen gave us opening remarks before taking questions from the audience.

You can listen to the session here: Farm to Fork Politics Session

Before we got started I spoke with each of our panelists to ask them to tell me what they planned to tell us.

Dr. J.B. PennLet’s start with Dr. J.B. Penn. He had a “generally positive” message but chose to look back at recent years as a guideline for the outlook for the future. So he looks back at the last ten years to see how we “got here today.” He mentions something that is a common thread of the comments of all our panelists and that is uncertainty and volatile markets.

You can listen to my interview with Dr. Penn here: Interview with Dr. J.B. Penn

B. Hudson RiehleNext up is Hudson Riehle. He says that “despite a host of challenges the restaurant industry will post record sales this year of $660 billion dollars.” That’s up 3.8% over 2012. He says it’s the fourth straight year of sales growth but that the increase this year is much more modest than it has been.

You can listen to my interview with Hudson here: Interview with B. Hudson Riehle

Dr. Keith CollinsWe also heard from Dr. Keith Collins who said his first focus would be on three things, liquidity, solvency and economic growth. Then his second focus is corn because it accounts for so much of the value of crop production. He says we’re very dependent on having a good crop in 2013. Finally, he talks about where the farm bill may be headed. When it comes to the current Congress Dr. Collins is on the one hand depressed about what he see in politics but at on the other hand seeing that the glass is half full.

You can listen to my interview with Dr. Collins here: Interview with Dr. Keith Collins

2013 National Ag Day Activities Photo Album

Coverage of the National AgDay Activities is sponsored by the BCS think tank and American Seed Trade Association
Ag Day, Ag Groups, Agri-Pulse, Audio, Farm Policy, John Deere

Colorful Way Shows How BASF Herbicide Works

Cindy Zimmerman

basf-classic13-infaredDuring the recent “Science Behind BASF” event, Senior Biologist Dr. Chad Brommer gave an infrared imaging demonstration to assess Engenia™ herbicide, a technologically advanced dicamba formulation developed by BASF.

Chad explains that they wanted a quantitative way to measure the safety and effectiveness of Engenia. “What we see with the camera is often things we can’t see with the human eye and that’s whether the plant is physiologically functioning the same way,” Chad said. The idea is to make sure that Engenia only kills the weeds and does no harm whatsoever to the plant.

The infrared technology allows them to see whether the crop is taking up any of the dicamba through secondary loss, even if it shows no visible signs of damage, basically by taking the temperature of the plant. Comparing existing dicamba formulations with Engenia, they found about a 10 degree difference in temperature. “That doesn’t seem like much, but that’s a real indication that plant has taken up some of the dicamba through secondary loss and it’s not functioning properly,” Chad said, noting that the infrared showed no difference between the Engenia-treated and untreated control.

You might remember that we shot a little video with Chad about Engenia last year at Commodity Classic. BASF anticipates the commercial launch of Engenia herbicide in the U.S. in 2014, in a complimentary time frame with the commercialization of dicamba-tolerant soybeans. BASF expects Engenia herbicide use on cotton in 2015 following the commercialization of dicamba-tolerant cotton.

Listen to my interview with Chad here: Chad Brommer interview

Check out more photos from the Science Behind BASF here

Agribusiness, Audio, BASF, Soybean

Farm to Fork Politics

Chuck Zimmerman

Agri-Pulse Ag DayThe first in the series of 2013 National Ag Day activities is an Agri-Pulse sponsored session titled, “Farm to Fork Politics: An Insider’s look at the year ahead for food and agriculture”

Join us for this panel discussion moderated by Sara Wyant of Agri-Pulse and featuring J.B. Penn of John Deere, former USDA Chief Economist, Dr. Keith Collins and B. Hudson Riehle, the Senior Vice President of the Research and Information Services Division for the National Restaurant Association.

I spoke with Sara before we got started tonight and asked about her perspective of what the year ahead will hold. Sara is very optimistic about agriculture and food. She sees heightened interest in these subjects here on Capitol Hill. She says it’s a time of fiscal austerity with budget cutting and a need to figure out what’s best to maintain a sustainable ag industry and work to feed a growing population.

We’ve got a big crowd here tonight. There were over 330 pre-registered and we’re expecting House and Senate leadership to join us for the reception following this session.

You can listen to my interview with Sara here: Interview with Sara Wyant

I’ll be saving a lot of photos to my online photo album: 2013 National Ag Day Activities Photo Album

Coverage of the National AgDay Activities is sponsored by the BCS think tank and American Seed Trade Association
Ag Day, Ag Groups, Agri-Pulse, Audio, Farm Policy

Media Bias in Animal Ag Story

Cindy Zimmerman

media-biasFox News loves to point out media bias in mainstream reporting on politics in particular, but probably not when it comes to agriculture.

Fox carried an AP story over the weekend about state bills seeking to make it more difficult for animal rights activists to go undercover at agricultural operations to get video of abuse and sometimes hold it for weeks or months before alerting authorities. Reasonable enough, unless you are the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) which is vehemently opposed to such legislation.

The media bias in the story was clearly on the side of HSUS, quoting three different HSUS spokespersons and only one agricultural organization person. Two other quotes supporting such legislation were from a California assembly staffer and a spokesperson for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a state level public policy organization.

There was one interesting item in the story that raised a question in my mind about USDA’s plans to furlough meat inspectors under the sequester. According to the story, last year USDA created “24 new positions in the Food Safety Inspection Service were dedicated to humane handling.” Now, the quote was attributed to a “high-ranking food safety official not authorized to speak publicly” – which makes one question its accuracy – but if it is true, you have to wonder if the sequester will impact those positions as well. Just sayin’.

Animal Activists, Animal Agriculture, Meat, Media, USDA

2013 National Ag Day Activities

Chuck Zimmerman

National Ag DayIt is time for National Ag Day and activities to celebrate it will kick off today in Washington, DC. National Ag Day is a project of the Agriculture Council of America.

My coverage of this year’s activities is being sponsored once again by the American Seed Trade Association along with BCS Communications. I talked with Andy Lavigne, President/CEO, ASTA, about this year’s theme of Generations Nourishing Generations. It evokes a great image of the family and most people need to know that it is mainly family farmers who are providing the food on their table. Hopefully we’ll be able to get that message out so people who are far removed from the farm will better understand it and not fall into the trap of believing very erroneous messages being spread by organizations and people with an agenda that is very detrimental to today’s sustainable farming practices.

Andy urges all agribusiness companies and farm organizations to support National Ag Day and the activities that take place each year.

Listen to my interview with Andy here: Interview with Andy Lavigne
March 19th is National Ag Day, a time when producers, agricultural associations, corporations, universities, government agencies and countless others across America gather to recognize and celebrate the abundance provided by American agriculture.
As the world population soars, there is even greater demand for the food, fiber and renewable resources produced in the United States.
 Read More

Ag Day, Ag Groups, ASTA, Audio

Innovations in Every Corner

Jamie Johansen

classic-13-jamie-86-editedI had so much fun talking with Dr. Jennifer Holland in the BASF booth during Commodity Classic because the passion she has for her job simply radiates through. Jennifer is the Technical Marketing Specialist with the Row Crop Fungicide Team at BASF.

She had a wealth of knowledge to share with me and more importantly to growers about their proven products and what we can see from BASF in the near future.

“In 2012 we launched Priaxor to much acclaim and a lot of challenges in the marketplace with the drought of 2012. And one of the things we were able to do was get 60 on-farm trials looking at Priaxor compared to Headline. What we were able to see was Priaxor actually out performed Headline with a 2 bushel better increase in yield. Which really delivers significant value for growers. We believe that yield is underpinned by all the plant health benefits we’ve researched and we can offer with Priaxor. For us those plant health benefits really fall under three buckets. First and foremost, is disease control, which we know is very important with fungicide, but also with growth efficiency in maximizing photosynthesis and nutrient utilization. And finally stress tolerance, which of course the drought of 2012 falls into that bucket.”

“In 2013 we’re really excited because we are looking to continue the integration process with Becker Underwood. Both of us have very strong innovative pipelines and I think growers are going to see new, exciting innovations from from us as we move forward with that process. And one of the things BASF has always prided itself on is it’s commitment to the agricultural industry and to innovation. In fact, in 2015 we will of launched 33 new products, which really speaks to our commitment. In terms of research and development, we spend approximately $2 million a day, and that’s Monday – Friday and weekends, making sure we are bringing the most innovative solutions to growers.”

Listen to my interview with Jennifer from here: Interview with Jennifer Holland

2013 Commodity Classic Photo Album

Audio, BASF, Research

Zimfo Bytes

Talia Goes

    Zimfo Bytes

  • American Royal’s annual meeting included an update on plans to replace Kemper Arena with a new Agricultural Events Center and officer elections.
  • S&W Seed Company announced that it has agreed to purchase 100% of Seed Genetics International Pty Ltd, subject to due diligence and other customary conditions.
  • As a steadfast supporter of open markets and free trade, Cargill welcomes Japan’s decision to enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
  • A new state-by-state audit funded by the United Soybean Board aims to support poultry and livestock farmers by helping them keep track of environmental rules and regulations.
Zimfo Bytes