NASCAR Driver “Blown Away” by FPS

Cindy Zimmerman

farm progress show 2011There were quite a few race cars mixed in with the tractors and combines this year at the 2011 Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois.

In addition to the American Ethanol NASCAR Sprint Series car at the Growth Energy exhibit, over at the Illinois Corn Growers exhibit, the Illinois Family Farmers NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Kenny Wallace was signing autographs and doing interviews.

farm progress show 2011Kenny said he was “blown away” by the Farm Progress Show. “This is like our Daytona 500! I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said in an interview with Chuck.

Kenny visited with lots of farmers during the three day show who made him feel very happy to be the Family Farmer American Ethanol spokesperson. “Farmers make me feel good,” he said. “They say thank you so much for putting up for us and that really humbles me,” he added.

Listen to Kenny’s interview here. NASCAR driver Kenny Wallace

The next big races for Wallace and all of NASCAR are coming up Chicagoland on September 16-18. Speedway president Scott Paddock says that triple header NASCAR weekend is a the first race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup – the first of ten ‘playoff’ style NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races in pursuit of the 2011 championship. “NASCAR was looking for a major media market and a big platform to kick off their playoffs and they chose Chicagoland and we’re honored to have that designation,” he said.

Scott says Illinois’ corn farmers will have a major presence at the Chicagoland event. “They’re going to have some combines and harvesters out there,” he said. “We’ll have over 100,000 fans out there that weekend so it’s a great way to get their message out about the important role farmers play in society.”

Listen to Chuck’s interview with Scott here. Chicagoland Raceway president Scott Paddock

The Fast Five 225 truck series will kick off the weekend on Friday, September 16. The Dollar General 300 Nationwide series, Kenny’s race, will be Saturday, Sept. 17 and the three day weekend will conclude on Sunday, Sept. 18 with the GEICO 400 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

2011 Farm Progress Show Photo Album

AgWired Coverage of the Farm Progress Show is sponsored by New Holland GROWMARK Trellis Growing Systems
Audio, Corn, Ethanol, Farm Progress Show

Early Registration Open For NAMA Trends in Agriculture

Chuck Zimmerman

Trends in Agriculture 2011 returns to Kansas City in November just before the National Association of Farm Broadcasting convention and I’ll be there. Looking forward to a great program again this year.

Get the dates on your calendar now and save on registration when you take advantage of the special early bird rate.

Progress through Productivity is this year’s theme, and you’ll have the opportunity to examine it from every angle as it pertains to American agriculture.

Here’s an at-a-glance look at conference topics:

Find out about the new technologies and policies needed to meet the growing demands for increased export and trade.
Discover the latest trends in the development of plant-based fuels.
Get the real story on consumers’ perceptions of the use of technology in food production.
Learn tips you can use right away to increase your productivity.
Reconnect with colleagues and expand your network.

Go to nama.org/trends for more information and full speaker line-up.

NAMA

QR Codes Add Mobile Info To Farm Shows

Chuck Zimmerman

See the funny looking black and white design in the picture? That’s a QR code. If your mobile device has a QR Code reader on it, just point it at that image and voila, you’ll be taken to the latest Boomer information on the web. It’s that simple. Got your device with you now? Give it a try. It even works right off your computer screen right now! I saw a lot of these around the Farm Progress Show last week.

You’ll notice that the picture also includes a New Holland Boomer. I can’t forget to mention the New Holland Boomer 555 Contest we’ve been helping promote. New Holland is giving away a five year lease on a new Boomer 30 with front end loader to eight regional winners. Here’s where you can enter. While at the Farm Progress Show I spoke with Abe Hughes, New Holland Agriculture Sales & Marketing Vice President about the contest.

Listen in to my conversation with Abe about the Boomer 555 Contest: Interview with Abe Hughes

2011 Farm Progress Show Photo Album

AgWired Coverage of the Farm Progress Show is sponsored by New Holland GROWMARK Trellis Growing Systems
Agribusiness, Audio, Farm Progress Show, New Holland, Tractor

USFRA Announces The Food Dialogues

Chuck Zimmerman

Are you ready to talk about food? The U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance is. On Sept. 22 they’re holding The Food Dialogues. During the event you’re encouraged to follow the Twitter hashtag: #FoodD and participate!

During the Farm Progress Show last week USFRA held a press conference to announce the upcoming event. In the photo is General Manager, Hugh Whaley (left) and USFRA Secretary Bart Schott. You can listen to or download a portion of the press conference remarks and Q&A here: USFRA Press Conference
Americans have a lot of questions about how our food is raised, the impact on our health and the health of the planet. Today it seems there are more questions than answers. Join us, journalist moderator Claire Shipman and Chef John Besh right here on September 22 for The Food Dialogues – the launch of a new effort to bring together different viewpoints on farming and ranching and the future of food to solve our most challenging problems. This Town Hall-style discussion will take place in Washington, D.C., California, New York and the Midwest, and virtually – to connect Americans interested in a dialogue about their food.

The Food Dialogues will be held in four locations:

The Newseum in Washington, D.C.
Chelsea Studios in New York City
UC-Davis Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science in California
Fair Oaks Farm in Fair Oaks, Indiana

You can participate in The Food Dialogues remotely through our webcast on this site and on our Facebook page.

2011 Farm Progress Show Photo Album

AgWired Coverage of the Farm Progress Show is sponsored by New Holland GROWMARK Trellis Growing Systems
Ag Groups, Food, USFRA

Richard Childress Races Green, Farms Blue

Cindy Zimmerman

farm progress show 2011NASCAR team owner and former racer Richard Childress was at the 2011 Farm Progress Show last week to talk about the partnership between the racing series and American Ethanol, but he also put in a plug for the New Holland equipment he uses in his farming operation.

“I been over to the New Holland booth,” Richard said during a press availability with Growth Energy and the National Corn Growers Association. “That’s what we run on our farm, our vineyards. They have special tractors and it really works out great.”

Listen to Richard sing the praises of blue tractors in this sound bite, courtesy of Dave Russell, Brownfield Ag News (Thanks, Dave!)
Richard Childress likes New Holland

Richard says he has had a cattle operation since the 1980s and is growing some soybeans this year in addition to his vineyard. “I got about 100 acres of grapes at home that we make some good North Carolina wine out of,” he told me.

The agriculture connection is what made Richard want to be a part of the American Ethanol NASCAR partnership when the series started using a 15% ethanol blend this year. Richard says it has been great. “I’m a huge supporter of everything we do in America, from our farmers to our military,” he said. “This country has to quit depending on so much foreign energy and resources. We gotta do better.”

He says that NASCAR has had no problems making the transition to 15% ethanol fuel and next year they will go to fuel injection. “The fuel injection and the American Ethanol is really going to work out great,” Richard says.

Listen to or download my interview with Richard here. Richard Childress and American Ethanol

2011 Farm Progress Show Photo Album

AgWired Coverage of the Farm Progress Show is sponsored by New Holland GROWMARK Trellis Growing Systems
Audio, Ethanol, Farm Progress Show, NASCAR

PrecisionEarth Soil Sampling For iPad

Chuck Zimmerman

You might remember PrecisionEarth being introduced at InfoAg this summer. Well it’s now available for your iPad (or other iOS device)!

PrecisionEarth makes Soil Sampling Simple, Faster, with less mistakes, and with less paper. Build up the Grower, Farmer, Field information as well as collect new boundaries, grids, and samples all inside PrecisionEarth, even when 3G/WiFi is not available. When complete export your sample results as vectors for use in other applications and backup your information to the included WebConnect Cloud Storage Account.

Already Have Source Data?

PrecisionEarth comes with Localconnect to automatically re-project and format vector and raster/imagery information. These can be vectors for boundaries and directed sampling locations, and images/rasters of your fields.

All of this comes for a one time fee of $250 USD in the Apple App Store.

Apps, Precision Agriculture

Hand To Harvest App From Farm Family

Chuck Zimmerman

If you’ve wondered how you can incorporate an app into your marketing strategy then take a look at Harvest to Hand. This is a unique, functional tool that a lot of people will appreciate. How do you think that makes them feel about the Farm Family Insurance Company that produced it? This screenshot is from my current location on my iPhone searching for events.

Harvest to Hand is a Labor of Love from Farm Family, part of the American National Family of Companies, providing insurance protection for farms, families, individuals and small businesses in rural and suburban areas for over 50 years.

We are committed to supporting agriculture through a knowledgeable agency force and a full range of insurance products that can address a diversity of needs. We help to educate our local farms and family generations on safety and risk mitigation with the focus on prevention and sustainability. Harvest to Hand is just another way Farm Family can support our agricultural communities and help connect locally produced agriculture with consumers across the USA.

We are proud of our own agricultural roots and happy to introduce you to Harvest to Hand. We encourage you to download and visit this app often as the listings continue to grow. And most importantly we hope you will remember to BUY LOCAL!

Apps, Food

It’s All About Shoes

Melissa Sandfort

I have a number of idiosyncrasies. One is cleaning up while I cook. When mom and I were in the kitchen together, she’d turn to me and ask, “Where is that spoon I was using?”, and the answer was always, “In the dishwasher.” (Where else would it be – it was dirty!)

Another might be hanging up shirts in the closet a certain direction. That one I get from my husband.

Another habit of mine is keeping shoes long past their expiration date. When we moved to a new house in Denver, I counted pairs of shoes as I stashed them in trash bags and it was somewhere around 76, not counting flip flops (those aren’t really shoes in my book). Some of them had loose soles or were worn down so low if I would’ve stepped on a nail I would’ve been making a trip to the doc for another tetanus shot.

I resigned myself to the fact that they weren’t even donation material and threw them out. It was heart-breaking.

I quickly recovered with a few sessions on Zappos.

This is an antique cast iron shoe last, used by cobblers for fixing and re-soling shoes. Hey, if I would’ve had this, maybe I could’ve gotten another two years out of those shoes!

Until we walk again …

Uncategorized

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Illinois agriculture organizations announced a new, collaborative program to promote, implement and track the rate of adoption of enhanced nutrient stewardship practices by Illinois agricultural producers.
  • POET is now selling certified antibiotic-free dried distillers grains with soluble.
  • CAST is announcing its release of a paper detailing concerns about livestock production and air issues.
  • John Deere Horicon Works, Horicon, Wisc., is celebrating its 100th year of manufacturing for the company.
    Zimfo Bytes

    Illinois Keep it for the Crop 2025 Program Announced

    Chuck Zimmerman

    The Illinois Corn Growers tent was the location for a press announcement for the “Keep it for the Crop by 2025” program.

    Illinois agriculture organizations announced today a new, collaborative program to promote, implement and track the rate of adoption of enhanced nutrient stewardship practices by Illinois agricultural producers. “Keep it for the Crop by 2025” will focus on the 4R’s of Nutrient Stewardship: Right Source, Right Rate, Right Time, Right Place.

    The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) has identified six priority watersheds for nutrient reductions including Lake Bloomington, Lake Vermilion, Lake Decatur, Vermilion River (Illinois Basin), Salt Fork Vermilion River (Wabash Basin) and Lake Mauvaisse Terra. Marcia Wilhite, IEPA’s Bureau of Water Chief, said “The lakes and rivers in these watersheds have water quality problems due to too much nitrogen or phosphorus, or both. Illinois EPA strongly endorses efforts to promote voluntary action by producers to adopt nutrient stewardship practices in their watersheds.

    Start-up funding for the program is being provided by the Illinois Corn Marketing Board, the Illinois Soybean Association and IFCA fertilizer manufacturer members Agrium, CF Industries, Koch Fertilizer, The Mosaic Company and Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan.

    You can listen to or download the press conference here: Illinois KIC Press Conference

    2011 Farm Progress Show Photo Album

    AgWired Coverage of the Farm Progress Show is sponsored by New Holland GROWMARK Trellis Growing Systems
    Ag Groups, Audio, Farm Progress Show