GROWMARK Reports Record Sales, 2nd Best Year

Cindy Zimmerman

growmark annual meeting 2011GROWMARK CEO Jeff Solberg had great news for the system’s stakeholders at the Annual Meeting in Chicago Friday.

“Our sales this year are $8.5 billion, which is a record level of sales for us,” Jeff said. “A lot of that is price inflation, we’re a commodity based business, but we also have a lot of volume growth there – higher plant food volumes, higher crop protection volumes, seed volumes are up and our energy volumes are up.”

Jeff says after tax income this fiscal year is $182 million. “That’s our second best year in history and we’re very, very proud of that,” he said. Patronage to members will amount to about $80 million.

That’s value-driven!

Listen to my interview with Jeff Solberg here. GROWMARK CEO Jeff Solberg

2011 GROWMARK Annual Meeting Photos

Audio, GROWMARK

Milk a Cow With Your iPhone

Chuck Zimmerman

Ever milked a cow? Probably most of you have not. Well now there’s an app for that.

In Milk the cow, you have one task… Milk the cow to death!

This is the simplest, most ridiculously funny game of 2009. Great for stress relief and surprisingly addictive!

Simply squeeze the cow’s breasts and see how many buckets of milk you can get in 30 seconds. Complete with high score!

Cow’s breasts? I wonder how many cows the creator of this app has milked.

Apps

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Merck announced the appointment of Richard R. DeLuca Jr. as executive vice president and president, Merck Animal Health, effective Sept. 15, 2011
  • FMC Corporation announced its Agricultural Products Group has entered into two exclusive agreements covering global development and supply of Chr. Hansen biological products for agricultural and ornamental markets.
  • Select Sires Inc. has hired Cami Collingwood as the beef program marketing coordinator.
  • Lessing-Flynn has welcomed Emily Beckmann aboard as its newest Project Manager.
Zimfo Bytes

Honoring Gene Hemphill at Farm Progress Show

Chuck Zimmerman

This week the Farm Progress Show held a preview day for the media. Our good friend Gene Hemphill sent along a photo.

With Gene in command again this year, New Holland is sponsoring the media tent and our coverage of the show on AgWired. Cindy and I will be arriving on Monday and we’re there for the duration. You should start seeing content from the show by Monday evening. We’re looking forward to seeing many friends and clients. In fact we’ve got a record number of sponsors for our coverage of the show this year for both AgWired and Precision Pays. More on that later.

Getting back to Gene, the FPS took him by “surprise by unveiling a poster recognizing me for my 25 years of service to the Farm Progress Publications for my work with the media. I think there were a few young journalists in the audience that might not have been born then — or a least they looked at me with questioning eyes when I mentioned the 15 typewriters we had at the first media tent. LOL.”

Thanks to Mike Wilson of Illinois Prairie Farmer, a Farm Progress publication, for taking the photo of Gene with FPS Show Manager Matt Jungmann (left) and Don Tourte, Farm Progress director of sales and national events (right).

Farm Progress Show, New Holland

BIVI’s New State of the Art Research Facility

Cindy Zimmerman

bivi sioux center iowaIt may not look like much on the outside, but the new Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (BIVI) livestock vaccine research facility in Sioux Center, Iowa is everything a pig could want on the inside.

“It’s a state of the art facility,” said Dr. Phil Hayes, BIVI Executive Director for Biologicals Development. “To demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of new vaccines, we must start with pigs that are healthy.”

bivi sioux center iowaTo keep the research pigs healthy, Phil says there is very limited access – which is why the dedication ceremony this week was held at the Ridge Golf Clubhouse down the road. “Shower in, shower out. The researchers who enter the facility gown as if they were entering a surgical operating room,” Phil explains. “The air that enters the facility is sterile-filtered. Anything that could interfere with the health of the pigs is excluded.”

Listen to my interview with Phil Hayes here. Dr. Phil Hayes at BIVI research facility dedication

BIVI Sioux Center Facility Dedication Photos

Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Swine

GROWMARK Annual Meeting is Value Driven

Cindy Zimmerman

growmark annual meeting 2011The theme of the 2011 GROWMARK Annual Meeting is Value Driven and there are over 1,000 stakeholders attending the meeting in Chicago this week.

I spent a few minutes with Dan Kelley, Chairman of the Board and President of GROWMARK, prior to the opening reception Thursday night about what value-driven means to GROWMARK. “The GROWMARK system has historically been recognized for having a high standard of ethics and we carry that into customer responsiveness and being able to satisfy our customers’ needs and hopefully exceed their expectations,” he said.

growmark annual meeting 2011Dan says it has been a very good year for GROWMARK and agriculture in general. “Agriculture has been one of the stellar industries in this economic downturn over the last 2-3 years,” he said. “We have now recorded our best seven years in the history of the GROWMARK system, which is 84 years.”

Dan operates a grain farm in partnership with his two brothers and son, and he says it has been a challenging growing season for the Midwest, so every bushel counts. “I’ve heard yields from almost zero, in the low 40s, to as high as 240,” and that’s just in McLean County, where Dan farms in Normal and where GROWMARK headquarters are located in Bloomington.

Listen to my interview with Dan Kelley here. GROWMARK President Dan Kelley

2011 GROWMARK Annual Meeting Photos

Audio, Farming, GROWMARK

NCBA’s Forrest Roberts Wraps It Up

Joanna Schroeder

Within all discussions, the core question always asked is, “How do we get more people to eat more beef?” This question was the center of all the business decisions made during the 2011 Cattle Industry’s Summer Conference, explained National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) CEO Forrest Roberts.

The purpose of the conference, said Roberts, was to come together and make business decisions that drive action over the next six months when the group will reconvene in Nashville for its winter conference. “So as we wrap up our fiscal year in the next few months and head into our new fiscal year on October 1 this is the opportunity to bring all those plans together and where the final business decisions are made. So it’s a very roll-up your sleeves kind of meeting where everyone gets down to work,” said Roberts.

One area they really focused on was the relationship with both the beef industry as well as with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Board. Roberts said the industry expects that to be one of a partnership and that is exactly one that he feels has been demonstrated during the week.

I asked him what the most pressing policy discussions were and he noted that the EPA is a big area of discussion as is trade – both free trade agreements that are pending as well as how to gain access to new markets. Another big issue is GIPSA. The last two months certified Angus beef had the highest volume month on record in history, and that particular proposed rule, said Roberts, would have a detrimental impact on what the beef industry has done in adding value back into the beef industry.

You can learn much more about how the Cattle Summer Industry Conference went by listening to my interview with Forrest Roberts here: NCBA's Forrest Roberts Wraps It Up

Photos from the conference are posted to this photo album: 2011 Cattle Industry Summer Conference Photo Album.

Ag Groups, Audio, Beef, Cattle Industry Conference, NCBA

John Deere Introduces Machine Sync

Chuck Zimmerman

John Deere unveiled a product that you couldn’t see on the show floor at this week’s product launch. It’s called Machine Sync. This new technology provides “timely, critical information on equipment location, operational status and automates equipment during harvest.”

“Having real-time data is critical for equipment operators during harvest,” says Holli Brokaw, AMS product manager for John Deere. “Our new Machine Sync and Machine Communication Radio provide the accurate, in-field information producers need to maximize efficiencies during the hectic harvest season.”
The Machine Communication Radio is the first radio on the market that can create an in-field, high-speed wireless network to facilitate machine-to-machine communication. The radio is designed to enable up to 10 vehicles in a single network to distribute data between one another when operating within a three-mile radius.

The radio, which is easy to set up and use, teams up with the Machine Sync activation and GreenStar™ 3 2630 Display and StarFire Receiver to create the in-field network to share logistics information.
Machine Sync is a John Deere exclusive system that takes harvest automation to the next level and the first application that uses the Machine Communication Radio hardware.

We got a field demonstration of how Machine Sync work from John Deere’s Bob Dyer. This was a simulated corn harvest demonstration where the combine and tractor/grain cart were “in sync.” I asked Bob to describe how the system works and you can also see the demonstration in the video.

You can listen to my interview with Bob here: Interview with Bob Dyer

2011 John Deere Product Launch Photo Album

Audio, Equipment, John Deere, Video

BIVI Research Facility Meets VTI Vision

Cindy Zimmerman

bivi sioux center iowaBoehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica’s (BIVI) new livestock vaccine research facility in Sioux Center, Iowa meets the company’s vision of Value Through Innovation, or VTI, according to Dr. Edward Robb, vice president of research and development for BIVI.

“The facility really allows us to test novel vaccine concepts to really see if these ideas can have an impact on the welfare of pigs and cattle,” he said. “To do and fund innovative research you have to work on ideas that will really change the way we do things.”

Robb says the new facility is also a good fit with their other locations in Iowa and St. Joseph, Missouri.

Listen to my interview with Dr. Robb here. Dr. Edward Robb at BIVI research facility dedication

BIVI Sioux Center Facility Dedication Photos

Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim

John Deere Product Launch Overview

Chuck Zimmerman

The S Series Combines introduced this week by John Deere got a lot of attention during the floor show last night.

I spoke with Barry Nelson, John Deere Manager, Media Relations, to get an overview of all the products being launched. He says it is the largest product launch in the company’s history. John Deere will be 175 years old next year! The equipment unveiled here will be on display at next week’s Farm Progress Show. Get a “picture” of the whole lineup in our interview.

You can listen to my interview with Barry here: Interview with Barry Nelson

2011 John Deere Product Launch Photo Album

Audio, John Deere