Total Grain and Fertilizer on Track

Cindy Zimmerman

Total Grain Marketing (TGM) handled 70 million bushels of grain at its 31 locations in Illinois last year and this year is likely to be even more.

During the recent GROWMARK media tour, we visited TGM and South Central FS in Casey (that’s pronounced Cay-zee) and learned about that facility in particular which was created when the two entities joined in 2010 as part of the GROWMARK and FS member companies partnership that was started in 2006.

“We have an 8 million bushel elevator, it is on the CSX railroad, we are a 90 car unit train express load shipper, and handle about 16 million bushels of grain a year,” South Central FS CEO Randy Handel said. That express loading process can rival a pit stop in the Indy Car Series. “We have 15 hours from when the train comes to load it, grade it and put the train back together and have it ready for the CSX to take,” he says, noting that they can load 1,000 bushels a minute – or 90 cars in six hours or less.

Randy says the venture between South Central and TGM has been very successful. “It’s been a win-win for our local grain producer in that it has helped enhance their margin, it’s been profitable for us as a company, but we’re a local cooperative so in turn it’s profitable for our owners and members,” he said. Most of the grain goes to the southeast to the poultry market and ADM and Bungee on the bean market.

We also got to visit the brand new GROWMARK-owned fertilizer facility on the same site. “It is a 25,000 ton dry fertilizer blend facility and a 10,000 ton solution facility and this is the first spring we are using it,” Randy said. The fertilizer facility also benefits from being right on the rail line. “It’s a very good location being on the CSX track and it’s good sharing the resources with our grain elevator and it’s a very strategic location.”

Listen to my interview with Randy Handel here: South Central FS CEO Randy Handel

See more photos from the TGM visit here: GROWMARK 2012 Media Day

Audio, Fertilizer, Grains, GROWMARK

McCormick Opens Indiana Office

Chuck Zimmerman

McCormick Company has opened a new office in central Indiana. Seated is Norm Cosand, VP/Group Director & Manager of the new office. I’m just wondering if Norm’s desk is always that clean!

Located at the Delaware Crossing I business complex on 10150 Lantern Road in Fishers, Ind., it is one of six McCormick offices in the United States, Canada and France.

“Opening an office in the Indianapolis area is a natural way to enhance our service to clients in Indiana and nearby states,” says Norm Cosand, vice president / group director and manager of McCormick’s new office. “Our locally based staff will partner with specialists in our other offices to bring smart thinking and metrics-based results. Ultimately, we’re building on McCormick’s 86-year reputation for helping clients grow through brand differentiation.”

Founded in 1926, McCormick Company is the 10th-oldest integrated marketing communications agency in the United States, according to the American Association of Advertising Agencies. Today, McCormick is an independent, employee-owned agency that provides strategic and creative expertise to help its clients grow. McCormick (www.mccormickcompany.com) has locations in Amarillo, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; Indianapolis, Ind.; and Kansas City, Mo.; as well as in Canada and France.

Agencies

MustangRed Communications Announced

Chuck Zimmerman

Our friend Sally has just announced her new business, MustangRed Communications. Go Like her on Facebook.

Greetings friends! I’m excited to announce the launch of my new company, MustangRED Communications! MustangRED consists of myself and my large network of agribusiness marketing communications specialists, including graphic designers, Web developers, media experts, trade show exhibit and materials vendors and many others.

MustangRED will offer a wide variety of marketing and communications services for agribusiness, including strategic planning, public and media relations, trade show and event marketing, crisis planning and management, issues management and social media monitoring, strategy and management.

The MustangRED network offers expertise in the areas of agricultural chemical, animal health (including swine, poultry, beef, equine and pet), agricultural equipment, fertilizer, seed/biotech and many other agricultural market segments.

In addition to a wide array of marketing communications services, MustangRED will also provide a robust selection of communications training courses, including:

Media relations and effective interview techniques
Optimizing trade show booth staff efficacy
Crisis management
Issues management
Social media policy development for business
Evaluating the ROI of social media

To learn more about the products and services that MustangRED Communications can provide, contact me at sally@mustangred.com or via telephone at (785) 218-9759. Or, if you’ll be at the National AgriMarketing Conference next week, say “Hi!” and I’ll be happy to tell you all about it!

Thank you for your support!
Sally Behringer
President and CEO
MustangRED Communications

Uncategorized

Monsanto Broadens Roundup Ready Plus Platform

Cindy Zimmerman

Monsanto has broadened its Roundup Ready PLUS™ platform to provide growers with additional post-emergence herbicide options this spring.

The company’s Weed Management Solutions platform now includes two more post-emergence herbicides for use in soybeans to handle those tough-to-control weeds, such as waterhemp and Palmer amaranth pigweed.

According to Dr. Rick Cole, Weed Management Technical Lead for Monsanto, Midwestern soybean growers are becoming increasingly aware of the threat of weed resistance to various herbicides, and the best way to manage weed resistance is to use residual herbicides this spring.

“Farmers need to be proactive in taking steps now to manage establishment of tough-to-control weeds, including those resistant to glyphosate or other types of herbicide chemistries,” Cole says. “This is true whether they have experienced weed resistance or not.”

The additional post-emergence herbicides for Roundup Ready PLUS in 2012 include Cobra® and Flexstar®. Cobra is an excellent fit for northern states due to its activity on waterhemp, while Flexstar will be offered for use in the Mid-South region of Arkansas, Mississippi and west Tennessee because of its efficacy against Palmer amaranth pigweed.

“We listened to our customers, who were concerned about what options farmers might have to fall back on if there wasn’t sufficient rain to activate our lineup of pre-plant and pre-emergence residual herbicides,” Cole says. “In the event of dry conditions, growers will now have more post-emergence residual herbicide options in soybeans.”

Read more from Monsanto here.

Soybean

Just Say NO to No HFCS

Cindy Zimmerman

The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) is urging the food industry to stop the anti-high fructose corn syrup marketing “scam.”

In recent letters to food marketers, NCGA called on them to stop marketing products as not containing high fructose corn syrup, implying there is something especially unhealthy or unnatural about corn sugar.

“Such innuendos are not scientifically supportable and they are offensive to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. consumers that grow corn as well as the many others in rural communities,” NCGA CEO Rick Tolman wrote in letters to the chief marketing officers at Welch Foods and Dean Foods, producers respectively of Welch’s Natural Spreads and TruMoo Chocolate Milk, just two examples of anti-HFCS marketing. “Your focus on health and nutrition are commendable and supportable. Those points can all be well made without the reference to HFCS.”

While the March 21 letters did lead to a dialog with Dean Foods, their response to-date has been unsatisfactory, Tolman noted in a follow-up letter.

“As you pointed out, you are a significant user of HFCS in other products and are familiar with the science supporting the manufacturing, safety, and functional properties of HFCS. Therefore, you know there is no scientific basis for the preference you see from consumers. It is a misperception. A big part of that problem is that the type of advertising you are doing with respect to HFCS perpetuates this misperception. That is our concern. You are using a misperception to differentiate your product and therefore helping to perpetuate that misperception.”

Read the letters here.

Corn, Food, NCGA

From Arkansas Farm to BASF Weed Control Expert

Cindy Zimmerman

We have interviewed Dr. Dan Westberg many times over the past several years about BASF Crop Protection products, particularly his work with Kixor herbicide technology. But, we took a few minutes to get to know dapper “Dr. Dan” a little better at this year’s Commodity Classic.

Dan’s interest in weeds goes back to his roots. “I grew up on a small farm in northwest Arkansas and I started to work when I was in college at the (University of Arkansas) Altheimer lab with the weed science group,” Dan said. “So I got very interested in weed science and controlling weeds in row crops and helping growers solve the problems that they had.” He got his Masters in Weed Science at Arkansas and his PhD from North Carolina State University and then took a field position with Sandoz.

He joined BASF 21 years ago when the company bought the Sandoz corn business, and that allowed young Dr. Westberg to see the world. “For the first couple of years I got to travel internationally to develop markets outside of the U.S.,” he said. “It was a great opportunity to visit Brazil, Argentina, virtually every country in Europe, particularly France and Germany.”

In 2002, Dan became responsible for the global development of Kixor herbicide technology and was able to play a role in its launch. “You don’t get the opportunity more than once in a career to work from start to finish with an active ingredient, so it’s been really rewarding,” he said.

Now the weed control expert’s big focus is on helping farmers fight glyphosate resistant weeds. “Glyphosate-resistant Palmer Ameranth has really taken over the mid-south and the southeast to the point that growers are losing some of their fields to this weed,” he said. “And this last year in 2011 was a tipping point for waterhemp in many areas of the Midwest. Certainly the southern third to half of Illinois and Missouri are probably already there with the level of problems that they have with waterhemp and it’s something that we need to start dealing with proactively.”

BASF has a number of tools in its herbicide portfolio to deal with problem weeds. “It actually represents ten different sites of action that we can bring to bear on these weed populations. It’s the most that anybody has in the country,” Dan says, noting that they can tailor specific programs to different areas of the country. BASF’s pre- and post-emergence products include Verdict, Status, Op-Till Pro, and Armezon – among others.

Learn more about Dr. Dan Westberg and BASF herbicides in this interview: BASF's Dr. Dan Westberg

Audio, BASF

Domestic Wine and Sweet Tea Vodka

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 345Just wanting to get back to the land was a desire that led Ann and Jim Irvin to a piece of property near Charleston, SC that is now home to Irvin~House Vineyard and the Firefly Distillery. This was one of the tour stops for the Agricultural Relations Council annual meeting crew. We spent several enjoyable hours there doing some wine tasting as well as sampling some Firefly.

I visited with Ann Irvin to learn how they got this beautiful place started. Ann says she grew up on a farm and wanted to get back to that lifestyle. At first they were just interested in having a place to go and have a garden. But they found a larger piece of property and after a drive through central Florida where they stopped at a winery they got the idea to start their own winery. They grow their own grapes and have learned along the way.

Irvin~House Vineyards is the only domestic winery in Charleston, SC. We grow the grapes, harvest them, make the wine, and bottle our wines on the property.

There is nothing quite like a stroll through our vineyards and the surrounding property. A large pond stocked with fish. Walking trails. Abundant birds and wildlife scampering about. Old oak trees with Spanish Moss shading the property. This is the true character of South Carolina’s Lowcountry hertitage.

Even the grapes we grow have Southern roots. Our wines are hand-crafted from the humble muscadine grape . This sweet grape with a fruity aroma grows practically everywhere in the South. People tell us how the taste of muscadines transport them back to their childhood.

In addition to the winery, the Irvins also work with a local tea plantation to make the first ever hand-crafted sweet tea flavored vodka called Firefly.

The Firefly Distillery is located on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina, 30 miles south of Charleston. We don’t have the bright lights of the big cities. The pace is a little slower down here. We have plantations, hundred-year-old oak trees and dirt roads. Everyone is your neighbor and folks enjoy relaxing on the front porch swing, on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It’s where you can hear the crickets chirping at night and you can still see the fireflies light up the sky. It was this wonderful environment and the special ingredients found right in our own backyard that inspired us to created handcrafted vodkas unlike those made anywhere else.

Listen to this week’s ZimmCast here: The Irvin~House Vineyard

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsor, GROWMARK, locally owned, globally strong, 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.

Ag Groups, ARC, Audio, Farming, ZimmCast

Save the Date for Classic 2013

Cindy Zimmerman

Not too early to start thinking ahead to the 2013 Commodity Classic – especially since this year was such a record-setter!

commodity classicBuilding upon record-breaking numbers in 2012, next year’s event, scheduled for February 28 through March 2 in sunny Kissimmee, Florida, promises to be a winner.

“There is already a great buzz building for next year’s trade show,” said 2013 Commodity Classic Co-Chair Mark Schwiebert. “Last week, our committee traveled to Kissimmee to tour the facilities, which I can guarantee are top-notch. With another broad offering of learning opportunities, a continually evolving tradeshow and the incredible Florida weather, we are on track for another year of helping farmers find the technologies, acquire the knowledge and build the relationships that will kick off another successful year.”

The 2012 Commodity Classic surpassed all previous turnout records with a total of 6,014 attendees, representing a 25 percent increase from last year’s record of 4,826 attendees. Once again, farm families comprised more than half of the participants, with 3,505 growers, spouses and children attending.

“We broke records in every category,” said immediate past Commodity Classic Co-Chair Martin Barbre. “However, the most exciting number was beating last year’s record of first-time attendees by 48 percent. It was very gratifying to see that Commodity Classic’s appeal continues to grow, and I look forward to seeing it continue this tradition of excellence in Kissimmee next year.”

Commodity Classic is presented annually by the National Corn Growers Association, the American Soybean Association, the National Association of Wheat Growers and the National Sorghum Producers.

Commodity Classic

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

Zimfo Bytes

BASF and NAAA Support Operation S.A.F.E Again

Cindy Zimmerman

BASF and the National Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA) are teaming up again for another year of Operation S.A.F.E. (Self-regulating Application and Flight Efficiency).

Through this partnership, BASF provides financial support for participating aerial applicators through sponsorship of fly-ins throughout the country. NAAA members also qualify for application equipment rebates as part of Operation S.A.F.E., which provides aerial applicators an opportunity to increase equipment performance, applicator knowledge and help ensure safety.

“We’ve had more than 1,250 aerial applicators participate in nearly 150 fly-ins throughout the country during the three years our Operation S.A.F.E. incentive program has been in effect,” said Tony Goede, Aerial Manager, BASF. “BASF continues this partnership with NAAA to help the aerial application industry continue to be safe, efficient and effective.”

Any operator or pilot can participate in an Operation S.A.F.E. fly-in clinic. Those who are NAAA members can take advantage of the BASF Equipment and NAAA Membership Rebate Program. NAAA member participants wishing to collect the rebate are required to partake in a calibration clinic, and subsequently complete the BASF and NAAA Operation S.A.F.E. Incentive Program application form. After completing these steps, the operator or pilot can be reimbursed for some of their 2012 membership dues or submit receipts to receive rebates for nozzles and/or tips purchased for their aircraft.

“BASF is steadfast in its commitment to help grow the ag aviation industry, as demonstrated by their generous support of NAAA once again,” said Andrew Moore, Executive Director of NAAA. “We’re grateful for their partnership and for making these incentives available to encourage the most effective, targeted application and increased safety.”

More information about Operation S.A.F.E., including dates of fly-ins as they are scheduled, is available on the NAAA website. Visit BASF’s plant-health-pilots.com for a variety of resources BASF provides aerial applicators, including an “Ask the Expert” section for your toughest aerial application questions.

BASF, NAAA