It was a chilly day to be out golfing yesterday but the ABEF golf tournament still went on. First place golfers included Les Kahl, AdFarm; Roger Reierson, AdFarm; and Bill Vaughn, Merck.
We’ve got 1,248 agrimarketers and students from across the country forging new frontiers within the agricultural industry. This is the highest attended conference since 2000!
2013 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album
A number of past presidents of the National Agri-Marketing Association attended a dinner last night with the current president and executive committee. This is a fine looking group of NAMA royalty that includes our current President isn’t it? Know who they are? The first person to correctly identify them will win a prize from the ZimmComm stash of stuff. Just post in comments.
Today things really kick in gear as the student NAMA marketing competition gets underway. Many students have been seen wandering the hallways mumbling to themselves. It may look a little strange to some people but they’re just practicing. Also on tap today is a NAMA leader workshop, board meeting, Best of NAMA awards and opening of the Connection Point trade show. I think that’s enough for one day!
Our photos will be adding up online and can be found here: 2013 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album
The new senior Agricultural Counselor to the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator held a conference call Tuesday to discuss her background and her role as an advisor at EPA on ways environmental policy may impact growers and the greater agriculture community. Sarah Bittleman accepted the new position with EPA in February after serving Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack as USDA Senior Advisor on energy policy.
“The position of ag counselor helps ensure that the EPA administrator and senior agency staff are advised on ways in which complex environmental issues impact growers and the greater agricultural community,” she said.
Bittleman admits that there is a problem of trust when it comes to farmers and ranchers and the EPA. “My job is to restore some of that trust,” she said, noting that it might be improved by working more closely with USDA, conservation districts and state departments of agriculture that have a better relationship with producers. “By partnering with these other folks who work so closely with agriculture, we can little by little grow a base of increased and better trust relationships.”
Bittleman says her goal as EPA advisor is to serve rural America.
Listen to or download call here: Sarah Bittleman, EPA Ag Counselor
There are already a number of events taking place here in Kansas City, MO in advance of the 2013 Agri-Marketing Conference. Student NAMA members are hard at work practicing their marketing competition presentations and industry related organizations like AAEA are holding meetings.
I’m in the National Agri-Marketing Association Executive Committee mtg. right now. We’ve heard the good news that NAMA is at its highest membership level since 2002! Great news. NAMA is in good shape in every way measurable. Our committee will be making some recommendations to the full board of directors tomorrow. If significant decisions are made I’ll make sure you know about them.
Registration is now open for AgGateway’s 2013 Mid-Year Meeting, to be held June 17-20 at the John Deere Financial Facility in Johnston, Iowa. At the meeting, AgGateway councils, committees and working groups will move forward on valuable efforts to promote, enable and expand eBusiness in agriculture. These efforts are helping companies to implement supply chain efficiencies in such sectors as precision agriculture, seed, grain, feed, crop nutrition and crop protection, as well as for ag retail companies.
There is no registration fee for the Mid-Year Meeting, which makes it a great opportunity for those who have been curious about eBusiness and the organization to see AgGateway in action, and to join in networking events and educational sessions.
AgGateway has seen significant growth due to the success of member collaborations on eConnectivity projects. Membership has grown from 141 to 170 member companies in the past year alone.
On June 18 at the Chamber of Commerce Board Room in historic Union Station, The Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City will honor two of the region’s leading business figures who have been civic champions for agriculture in separate but very key issue areas in our region.
The 2013 Award for Agricultural Leadership and Excellence, named in honor of the late Jay B. Dillingham, will be awarded to Harry Cleberg, Farmland Industries (retired) and Tom Waters, Missouri River Levee and Drainage District Association.
The June 18 event will be hosted at the Chamber of Commerce Board Room in Union Station (30 W Pershing Rd in Kansas City, MO) at 11:30 a.m. for networking and noon for lunch.
Tickets are $75 per person or $600 for a table of eight. Reservations can be made by contacting Erica Venancio at Erica.Venancio@agbizkc.com or by going to www.agbizkc.com.
The Agricultural Relations Council is pleased to announce two new inductees into the Agricultural Public Relations Hall of Fame: John Harvey and Paul S. Weller, Jr. The two longtime friends and colleagues were inducted at a ceremony held during the 2013 ARC Annual Meeting. The program is sponsored by the Agricultural Relations Council and AgriMarketing magazine.
Both inductees were on hand to accept the honor and offer their words of wisdom to the professionals gathered to discuss communication challenges facing agriculture today. Congratulatory letters sent to the inductees highlighted their impressive professional achievements but the one accomplishment recognized by all was their impact as mentors to up-and-coming agricultural public relations professionals.
Common waterhemp, Palmer amaranth, giant and common ragweed, Italian ryegrass and marestail are all part of a growing group of yield-reducing “watch-out” weeds in the United States. With confirmed resistance to multiple herbicides, these species are top of mind for farmers this season.
According to the Weed Science Society of America, weeds cause more yield loss and add more to farmers’ production costs than insects, diseases, rodents, birds, and grazers, such as deer. Experts recommend farmers carefully manage any weeds – resistant or not – with herbicides that offer multiple sites of action, ensuring they don’t turn into the next crop of “watch-out” weeds.
“To keep ‘watch-out’ weeds in check, farmers should plan to use a herbicide program that effectively targets the weeds using herbicides with different sites of action,” said Luke Bozeman, Technical Market Manager, BASF (pictured left).
As an industry leader, BASF is dedicated to providing solutions, technical support and educational tools to help growers implement a weed resistance management program based on herbicide best practices. The BASF portfolio of solutions consists of herbicides targeting 12 different sites of action, more than any other company in the industry, for effective control of resistant weeds. This extensive line of herbicides also provides a multi-year rotational plan that allows growers to apply herbicides throughout the growing season to deliver the management flexibility today’s farmers need to drive success.
FarmFootage.com is a stock video supplier specializing in high-definition, broadcast quality, royalty-free agricultural video footage. The high-definition footage is made available by REL Productions along with a network of consigning owners of agricultural footage.
Currently, the National Pork Board and other groups are using FarmFootage.com to share their video footage and broadcast video packages with the media and industry partners. FarmFootage.com is continuously expanding the selection of footage available on the site and welcomes interest from new contributors as well as footage requests.
My “Face of Climate Change” says, “Why all the hysteria?” At least that’s what I would be thinking if you took a picture of me after mentioning the theme of this year’s Earth Day. I’m a skeptic when it comes to man made global warming or that man can and should try to change it. I’m not a skeptic of the fact that climate changes and that it can cause havoc in areas where man has decided to live or work.
I have a real problem with organizations that are raking in huge amounts of money by creating fear on the part of a not very well educated public and calling for immediate and drastic social change which of course includes big governmental tax increases and added costs to do business or impacts how you choose to live your life. I know that the folks who have imbibed the climate change kool-aid can cite “research” that seems to give their ideas credence. However, there are plenty of other studies pointing the exact opposite direction. All of them are making predictions based on models that don’t all agree. But even more foolish than thinking that science is not questionable is buying into the fact that just because we have a drought here or a cold weather event there we are facing armageddon (watched too many end of the world movies?). Last year’s midwest U.S. drought was a very real and severe event but even though climate activists want to point to it as proof of their assertions it just isn’t so. I’m pretty sure that supporters of organizations like the Earth Day Network or the FAO would dismiss this.
There’s no doubt that as civilization continues to grow we will also continue to manage it more and more efficiently and sustainably. We don’t need hysteria and monumental government change for it to happen. Since any credible definition of sustainability has to contain a financial element you can rest assured that businesses will continue R&D to operate more efficiently and produce products that are better for the environment. We see this happening all over in agriculture today. Biotechnology like that produced by our seed companies is just one example. Drought tolerant crops will become important in areas that either have new drought patterns or have always had them.
This Earth Day let’s get positive and FarmOn by raising #FarmVoices. Farmers are a great place to look if you want to see positive ways we can take care of our land and natural resources. We need to give them more credit than the activists seem to want to do. I’m pretty sure most climate activists are sustaining their bodies by eating the fruits of the land produced by the original environmental activists!
I’m sure many people will disagree with my outlook. Your comments are welcome as long as they stay on topic and offer something new.
Below is the Earth Day Network video. I like the FarmOn video much better.
