Entertainment By Josh Turner

Chuck Zimmerman

As you might have expected, Josh Turner was a big hit as the evening entertainment for the Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum.

We had a full afternoon of provocative speakers and lots of interviews were conducted. Then it was time for some good food and relaxation with our friends at Bayer and in the ag media. Then Josh Turner took the stage with his band and played for at least an hour. I don’t think any of us expected a full set and he was great, playing the songs the crowd wanted to hear like, “Long Black Train” and “Why Don’t We Just Dance.” There are some more photos of Josh in our event photo album.

2012 Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum Photo Album

Agribusiness, Bayer

We’ll Be Planting More This Year According To ZimmPoll

Chuck Zimmerman

In our latest ZimmPoll we asked, “What will be planted this year?” It’s that time and everyone seems to have their own idea about what it will be. 45% of respondents said More of both, 32% said More corn less soybeans and 12% each said More soybeans less corn and Less of both. USDA is estimating corn acreage will be higher this year and the highest since 1944 with soybean acres nearly the same as last year. What do you think?

Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, “Is our food system broken?” During the Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum one of our speakers was Gawain Kripke, Oxfam America. He told us “our food system is broken.” I think the statement was made out of frustration that we produce more food than we can eat in this country and a huge amount goes to waste. Since we don’t have a system to get waste food to those who need it they seem to believe the food system is broken. I think it’s a provocative statement and would love your thoughts.

ZimmPoll is sponsored by Rhea+Kaiser, a full-service advertising/public relations agency.

ZimmPoll

Commodity Classic Preview From NCGA President

Cindy Zimmerman

Getting to the Commodity Classic in Nashville a day early to attend the Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum, I was happy to find National Corn Growers Association President Garry Niemeyer of Illinois available to do some pre-convention interviews.

Garry is looking forward to a great, big Classic this year – with registration already at a record level. “We have 5,400 people showing up for this – the largest by almost 25% that we’ve ever had,” Garry told me. And that’s just pre-registration! Actual numbers will increase this week with on-site registrations.

Garry says NCGA will be setting policy this week at the meeting and among the main issues will be recommendations for a 2012 Farm Bill, assuming there is one this year. “We have adopted the Aggregate Risk and Revenue Management program that has been put forth by Senators Brown, Thune, Durbin and Dick Lugar. Hopefully, we’re going to move that policy forward because that makes the most sense to us,” Garry said.

Other issues of concern to corn growers include maintaining the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) and protecting against government over-regulation.

Listen to or download my interview with Garry here: Garry Niemeyer Interview

The Commodity Classic – which is the annual meeting of corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum producer organizations – officially kicks off on Thursday. Our coverage this year is once again sponsored by our good friends at BASF and New Holland.

Coverage of the 2012 Commodity Classic Show is sponsored by BASF and New Holland
Audio, BASF, Commodity Classic, Corn, NCGA, New Holland

The Growing Problem of Food Waste

Chuck Zimmerman

Food waste is a growing problem. That was the message from Kai Robertson, Director, Food, Beverage & Agriculture Practice, BSR, during the Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum. I visited with Kai right after her presentation. She startled many of us attending when she presented a statistic from EPA (estimate) that more than 67 billion pounds of food end up in a land fill each year. To put that into perspective, that’s enough food to feed four meals a day to all the 47 million people in the United States at or below poverty level for a year! Clearly there’s a need to do something about it.

Kai says there are a number of things we can do and pointed to the EPA “Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy” which can be thought of as the 3-R’s of food, “Reduce, Recycle, Reuse.” She says consumers can be more cognizant of what they do with food leftovers. In the food distribution chain there needs to be a system to collect perfectly edible food that’s leftover. She says it would also be helpful to have some regulatory policies set to address this situation.

You can listen to my interview with Kai here: Interview with Kai Robertson

2012 Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum Photo Album

Agribusiness, Audio, Bayer, Food

Welcome From Bayer CropScience

Chuck Zimmerman

One of our first speakers at the 2012 Ag Issues Forum is Dr. Mathias Kremer, Head of Global BioScience for Bayer CropScience. He says he wanted the takeaway message from his welcoming remarks to be an understanding of what Bayer CropScience stands for which is “an organization which sees itself as one of the solution providers to the global problems we have and food supply and problems for the farmers in the field. And everything is driven by innovation.” He says the products and innovation they have “have the right team and right spirit and passion behind it.” I asked him about worldwide acceptance of biotech crops and he says there are areas with large areas of adoption but he’s not optimistic the resistance in Europe will change soon.

You can listen to my interview with Dr. Kremer here: Interview with Dr. Mathias Kremer

2012 Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum Photo Album

Agribusiness, Audio, Bayer

Bayer CropScience Gathers Ag Journalists

Chuck Zimmerman

The Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum is underway. We’ve got a full house of agricultural journalists of all “types” here. This is my first time at the event and it is a very broad spectrum (sounds like a herbicide) “media” event. It’s always interesting to see the publication folks shooting video and the broadcast folks taking notes. Hmmm . . . I’ve seen a lot of interviews going on (photos in album below) so I expect this event will generate a lot of stories! I’ve got some interviews of my own coming up shortly.

Photos are online for your viewing pleasure of course: 2012 Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum Photo Album

Agribusiness, Audio, Bayer

Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum

Chuck Zimmerman

The Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum starts today in advance of Commodity Classic. Cindy and I are on the agriblogging highway and this will be our first stop today upon arrival in Nashville.

Topics for the forum include: Food Waste: A Growing Problem; The State of Ag: Domestic and Global Trends; Global Food Security: Thinking Beyond Yield Growth; Feet on the Ground: Sustainability in Action; The Weeds Are Getting Smarter: A Problem Nobody Wants and Hands in the Dirt: First-hand Grower Experiences. It will be interesting to how our speakers define sustainability and if they have a common definition.

Follow the tweets from this event with this hashtag: #AgIssues12

Agribusiness, Bayer

NAMA Announces 2012 Leadership Award Winners

Chuck Zimmerman

National Agri-Marketing AssociationThe National Agri-Marketing Association has announced this year’s Leadership Award winners.

2012 Agribusiness Leader of the Year

The National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) has named John Becherer, CEO of the United Soybean Board, as the 2012 Agribusiness Leader of the Year. This award, which is NAMA’s highest honor, will be presented at the Opening General Session of the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference, “Acres of Innovation,” April 19, 2012, in Kansas City, Missouri.

The award honors outstanding leaders in agribusiness, education, government service or other agribusiness-related areas who exemplify excellence in agribusiness by their significant contributions to the industry.

For nearly 18 years, John Becherer has guided the Board of more than 60 volunteer U.S. soybean farmer-directors through times of growth and change as it evolved from its inception in 1991 to 2011, when the Board marked its 20th anniversary. Soybeans have seen a 140% increase in global demand for the two decades of USB’s existence and Becherer helped build this growth at a pace that has outperformed global demand for any other major U.S. row crop. For example, soybean prices set an all-time record in 2008 and have remained strong ever since, despite the downturn in some of the other U.S. agricultural sectors and the general global economy.

2012 NAMA Marketer of the Year

Greg Guse, President, Paulsen Marketing, has been named the 2012 NAMA Marketer of the Year. The NAMA Marketer award will be presented during the Second General Session of the 2012 Agri-Marketing Conference, “Acres of Innovation” on Thursday, April 19 at 11:00 a.m. in Kansas City, Missouri and is sponsored by Agri Marketing magazine.

Greg Guse’s many accomplishments span a 35-year career that has always focused on agriculture; from his early days as a communications assistant at GTA Feeds, as a young account guy at Martin Williams, starting his own agency, Gregory Scott Communications, and his fortuitous arrival at Paulsen Marketing in 1995.

Beginning in 2009, Guse’s leadership steered Paulsen to move beyond traditional agency roles to create a consistent ag marketing research program. The result is a number of thought papers and articles released to the industry including: interviews with producers, research in farm communities and outreach to ag companies. These papers generate significant discussion within the industry including numerous requests to present research findings to industry associations, clients and more.

NAMA

Trading Grain Via Pioneer DPP

Chuck Zimmerman

During the Pioneer Media Event Chet Hollingshead visited with Tonia Carpenter, Pioneer Sr. Marketing Manager and Jason Tatge, CEO, Farms Technology.

Tonia says they have a new program to add value to growers, DPP grain desk. She says that after talking with growers the focus always goes back to grain marketing and finding a way to “jump on the volatility of the markets.” That has been accomplished in conjunction with Farms Technology. Tonia says grower adoption of this electronic trading platform has been good. She says once the first sale is made it gets easy and more acceptable. The DPP grain desk (formerly MarketPoint® resource) is an enhanced electronic grain marketing platform that can help growers maximize their profitability in today’s volatile markets.

Jason says one example of how growers can connect with buyers is to visit the website of a participating ethanol plant and the information on how to access the DPP will be front and center. You basically create an account that you can then manage via a mobile app.

You can listen to Chet’s interview with Tonia and Jason here: Interview with Tonia Carpenter & Jason Tatge

Agribusiness, Audio, Pioneer

First USDA Planting Guess

Cindy Zimmerman

Our ZimmPoll question this week is about what you think will be planted this year (just for corn and soybeans, with our apologies to the wheat and cotton growers), and USDA’s Chief Economist gave his answer at the 2012 Agricultural Outlook Forum last week.

“We’re estimating corn plantings at about 94 million acres, the largest plantings since 1944,” said Joe Glauber at the forum. “We’re projecting soybean area at 75 million acres. That’s very similar to last year’s levels.” Last year, actual planted acres totaled 92.3 million for corn and 75.2 for soybeans, so if Glauber were voting in the ZimmPoll, his answer would be “more corn, less soybeans.”

USDA is also predicting wheat acres to increase 3.6 million acres to 58 million and cotton lower at 13 million acres.

This is just USDA’s guesstimate at this point. The planting intentions survey of farmers is being done now and results will be released at the end of March. What do you think the answer will be? Vote in the ZimmPoll and let us know!

Corn, Cotton, Soybean, USDA, Wheat, ZimmPoll