Washington Watch Wrap Up

Meghan Grebner

This week was the National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s Washington Watch meeting in our beautiful Nation’s Capitol.  It definitely was an interesting time to be in DC after the events of last weekend.

Washington Watch gives NAFB members an opportunity to sit down with folks inside the Beltway and get an update on some of the major issues of concern to agriculture.  After Monday’s meetings broadcaster’s had a chance to delve deeper into the hot topics during Issues Forum.

Tuesday we visited USDA where we heard from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.  He touched on topics from the lack of planting progress this spring to the heartbreaking Birds Point New Madrid levee.  I think one of the most important items addressed was the decision to allow crop insurance protections for those affected by the Birds Point New Madrid levee situation (see Cindy’s post earlier this week).  We wrapped up Tuesday with a luncheon at the National Press Club with Former Secretary of Agriculture and Former Representative Larry Combest.  Tuesday afternoon left time for some Hill visits.  I had the opportunity to chat with my Representative, Aaron Schock, and his staff.  It’s always a good feeling to leave discussions with the confidence that the agriculture industry is in good hands.  Wednesday morning concluded with visits from several of ag’s biggest supporters in the Longworth Building.

One of the most touched on topics in DC this past week was the issue of trade.  I had the chance to speak with American Farm Bureau Federation’s Trade Specialist Chris Garza about the current pending free trade agreements.

Garza thinks there is light at the end of the tunnel…

Garza on Trade
Audio, Trade

Supporting The Iowa Food and Family Project

Chuck Zimmerman

Aaron PutzeSoybeans came up on the program at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit in the form of Aaron Putze, Director External Relations, Iowa Soybean Association. He thinks it’s time to reflect on blessed we are in this country to have abundant food and thank the people who produce it. He gives a startling statistic that forty percent of the food produced in the United States is either spoiled or thrown away! That’s huge. And it’s why the Iowa Soybean Association supported the development of the Iowa Food and Family Project.

The Iowa Food & Family Project isn’t an organization. It’s a movement, one that celebrates the miracle of food and the men and women that provide it.

The Iowa Food & Family Project doesn’t consist of a board of directors. There are no officers or board of directors. It isn’t incorporated.

Instead, the Iowa Food & Family Project is an activity-led initiative that brings together Iowans from all walks of life. They include farmers and farm families, teachers, students, health professionals, food retailers, manufacturers, bankers and lenders, academia, geneticists, agronomists, transportation specialists and people of faith. All those who are involved in the Iowa Food & Family Project believe in the increasingly significant role Iowa plays in feeding and fueling our state, nation and the world. They want all farmers to prosper. They believe that food should be respected.

In my conversation with Aaron he mentioned that he’s on the board of the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance. He says USFRA is doing a lot of due diligence right now that includes research and “knowing how to engage in the social environment that exists today that then gives an opportunity to agriculture to become part of the fabric of the conversation.”

You can listen to my interview with Aaron here: Aaron Putze Interview

Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by NCBAAgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by United Soybean
Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Soybean

Telling A Dairy Story

Chuck Zimmerman

LuAnn TroxelDairy farmer LuAnn Troxel is one of the attendees here at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. She’s also President of the Indiana Professional Dairy Producers. This is LuAnn chatting with speaker, Frank Luntz, just before his presentation this morning.

LuAnn is one of my Twitter (@DairyLu) friends that I have had the pleasure to meet here. She is hungry for the kind of information being presented here about telling the story of agriculture. She wants to be completely open and honest in her presentation of dairy farming. The program has been fantastic according to LuAnn. She especially liked Dr. Frank Mitloehner’s presentation. When she gets home after getting her “catch up” work done, she hopes to maintain and build on connections she has made her.

You can listen to my interview with LuAnn here: LuAnn Troxel Interview

Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by NCBAAgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by United Soybean
Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Dairy

Some Truths About Sustainability

Chuck Zimmerman

Frank MitloehnerThe S word came up during the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit in a big way during a presentation by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, Agriculture Air Quality Center Director, University of California, Davis. That word is sustainability. He talked about research he conducted that debunked the “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report that was published by the FAO in 2006. That report had major errors with the biggest being miscalculations of data when comparing greenhouse gas emissions between livestock and human transportation.

I spoke with Frank to get an executive summary of his remarks. During his research he found a lot of interesting things and shares some in our interview. One that stuck out for me was his finding that in Mexico it takes 5 dairy cows to produce the same quantity of milk as one in the United States. Our dairies have become models of efficiency and it’s a great story to tell. You can find copies of Dr. Mitloehner’s research online.

You can listen to my interview with Frank here: Frank Mitloehner Interview

Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2011 Animal Agriculture Alliance Summit is sponsored by NCBAAgWired coverage of the 2011 Animal Agriculture Alliance Summit is sponsored by United Soybean
Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture, Audio, University

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

    BASF Stamina F3 Cereals Seed Treatment Receives EPA registration

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Stamina® F3 Cereals fungicide from BASF Crop Protection has received EPA registration for seed treatment use on small grains, including wheat, barley, rye, oats and triticale.

    basf“Stamina F3 Cereals arms our growers with an effective seed treatment for their small grain seedlings,” said Don Guy, Marketing Manager, BASF Cereals Portfolio. “As one of our SeedSolutions treatments in our cereals offering, Stamina F3 Cereals delivers excellent disease control, convenience of use and low-dusting application. Stamina F3 Cereals has a red colorant and its higher application rate makes it very suitable for on-farm applications. Stamina F3 Cereals also complements Stamina® F3 HL fungicide seed treatment, which is designed specifically for commercial application.”

    Stamina F3 Cereals delivers the benefits of three active ingredients that work together to provide broad-spectrum seed and seedling disease control in small grains. These three active ingredients, F500® (the same active ingredient in Stamina and Stamina F3 HL fungicide seed treatments, Headline® fungicide and TwinLine® fungicide), triticonazole (active ingredient in Charter® fungicide and Charter® F2 fungicide seed treatments) and metalaxyl (active ingredient in Acquire® fungicide seed treatment) have proven performance as shown in BASF’s current Crop Protection Solutions and SeedSolutions offerings. Seed treatment application with Stamina F3 Cereals has been associated with more rapid and increased emergence of seedlings under certain cold conditions.

    BASF, Seed, Wheat

    His Royal Highness, Prince of Sustainability

    Cindy Zimmerman

    In addition to meeting with President Obama, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales gave the keynote address at “The Future of Food” conference at Georgetown University, sponsored by the Washington Post.

    Since the prince has “tried to farm as sustainably as possible for some twenty-six years” he was about the closest to an actual farmer that the conference had on the agenda (see Chuck’s previous post). On the Royal Website, there is a page about the Prince’s farm which is “a completely organic system” he developed “to demonstrate the environmental and commercial benefits.” Among the farm’s produce is organic mutton. “The Prince is enthusiastic about restoring mutton (meat from a two-year-old sheep), to the dinner tables of the nation after speaking to struggling sheep farmers who found they could no longer get a decent price for older ewes. To this end, The Prince launched the Mutton Renaissance campaign.” I am not making that up.

    So, HRH believes that we can feed nine billion people on this planet with a food system that is “not dependent upon the use of chemical pesticides, fungicides and insecticides; nor, for that matter, upon artificial fertilizers and growth-promoters or G.M.” and he provided His Royal Vision of a “sustainable food production” system during his address in Georgetown.

    “For me, it has to be a form of agriculture that does not exceed the carrying capacity of its local ecosystem and which recognizes that the soil is the planet’s most vital renewable resource,” he said, adding that “genuinely sustainable farming maintains the resilience of the entire ecosystem by encouraging a rich level of biodiversity in the soil, in its water supply and in the wildlife – the birds, insects and bees that maintain the health of the whole system. Sustainable farming also recognizes the importance to the soil of planting trees; of protecting and enhancing water-catchment systems; of mitigating, rather than adding to, climate change. To do this it must be a mixed approach. One where animal waste is recycled and organic waste is composted to build the soil’s fertility. One where antibiotics are only used on animals to treat illnesses, not deployed in prophylactic doses to prevent them; and where those animals are fed on grass-based regimes as Nature intended.”

    Read the whole speech here.

    Environment, Sustainability, Wackos

    Full Day At Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders SummitDay one of the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit is coming to an end. We’ve got a reception with silent auction to support the organization’s intern program and I’m sure I’ll collect a couple more interviews. We’ll begin again in the morning so you can count on more from here then.

    In the meantime check out photos from today’s sessions: Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

    AgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by NCBAAgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by United Soybean
    Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture

    Cattle Farmer And Social Media Expert

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Debbie Lyons-BlytheCattle rancher Debbie Lyons-Blythe talked social media at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit. We follow each other on Twitter. Find her @DebbieLB. She was here to encourage people not to be afraid of social media and make some suggestions on how to use it to advocate for agriculture. She starting blogging and considers her blog, Life On a Kansas Cattle Ranch, the center of her social media universe with Facebook and Twitter being some of the planets revolving around that center. She does think there is fear out in the country to use these mechanisms but believes more and more farmers are starting to use social media.

    You can listen to my interview with Debbie here: Debbie Lyons-Blythe Interview

    Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

    AgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by NCBAAgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by United Soybean
    Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Social Networking

    College Aggies Online Awards Announced

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Jacob NyhuisThe winner of the College Aggies Online scholarship competition is Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, represented at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit by Jacob Nyhuis. In the photo Jacob is accepting the school’s $750 award. The award also included his costs to travel to the Summit. I interviewed him after the presentation and you can hear him talk about participating in the program below.

    College Aggies Online is a joint program between the Animal Agriculture Alliance and the American National CattleWomen, Inc. The goal is to help college students utilize social media tools to share agriculture’s story. The program was started last fall and has attracted 600 college students from more than 50 universities

    Members have earned points by posting blogs, photos and videos related to agriculture and by participating in Aggie Homework agriculture advocacy challenges via Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail.

    With 765 total points, the individual high score went to Jessie McClellan of the Casper College Ag Club in Wyoming. She will receive a $250 scholarship. Jacob Nyguis of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Georgia came in second place with 655 points and will be awarded $100.

    Members of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College’s Cattlemen’s Club formed the top-scoring club with 3,030 points. The group will receive a $750 scholarship and a trip to Washington, D.C. for one representative to attend the Alliance’s Stakeholders Summit in April. Casper College’s Ag Club came in second place with 2,525 points and will receive $300. Other high-scoring schools included Pennsylvania State University, Western Kentucky University, and the University of Missouri.

    You can listen to my interview with Jacob here: Jacob Nyhuis Interview

    Animal Ag Alliance Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

    AgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by NCBAAgWired coverage of the 2011 Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by United Soybean
    Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Social Networking