Celebrate June 10 With Ice Tea

Melissa Sandfort

WHAT:
100% Natural Lipton Iced Tea Celebrates National Iced Tea Day; Facebook Fans Receive Free Tea.

WHY:
100% Natural Lipton Iced Tea, a new line of beverages with a simple, all-natural ingredient list, is excited to celebrate National Iced Tea Day with free tea.

WHEN:
June 10, 2011

HOW:
1. “Like” Lipton Iced Tea on Facebook
2. Share free Iced Tea coupon with at least one friend.
3. Claim your free Iced Tea coupon.

New 100% Natural Lipton Iced Tea is available in four flavors: long-time fan favorites, Green Tea with Citrus and Iced Tea with Lemon, as well as two new flavors: Iced Tea with Blueberry Pomegranate and Green Tea with Passionfruit Mango.

To celebrate the new line and National Iced Tea Day, Lipton is treating tea drinkers to unplugged music programming. Check out “The Natural Side of Music” online videos featuring cuts and conversations with music artists. Stay tuned to Facebook.com/LiptonIcedTea.

Food

Growing Precision Farming at GROWMARK

Chuck Zimmerman

Here’s the latest installment of our “Getting To Know GROWMARK” series. Meet Sid Parks, Manager, Precision Farming. That means we talked about FS Green Plan Solutions, a broad area of products and services offered to local FS retailers.

The definition of precision farming is very broad and the technology is advancing at a fast pace. For this reason Sid says they offer a lot of educational and training opportunities for members. The support they provide really helps members and their farmer customers better understand and use the precision applications they are integrating into their farm operation. He says that there is a pretty wide variable of how much or what level of precision applications that are being used. I’m guessing that will be changing as the need to enhance productivity to improve profitability becomes more and more important. Sid says “I think we’re going to continue to see adoption of these technologies. Not every farm or every field is going to have some type of precision farming application or service done on it but I believe strongly in the eighty-twenty rule that most of the people that we are going to see actively farming and the people we do business with, there’s a lot more interest in these types of services.”

You can listen to my interview with Sid here and learn more about GROWMARK: Sid Parks Interview

Agribusiness, Audio, GROWMARK

World Pork Expo 2011

Chuck Zimmerman

It’s time for the World Pork Expo. This year both Cindy and I will be on location with coverage here on AgWired starting tomorrow morning.

If you’re attending Expo please use the official hashtag – #nppcwpx and follow along with the Expo Twitter account: @NPPCWPX. We’ve got a media reception this afternoon and then all kinds of activities get going tomorrow. We will be seeing you from there.

AgWired coverage of the 2011 World Pork Expo is sponsored by NOVUSAgWired coverage of the 2011 World Pork Expo is sponsored by boehringer-ingelheim
World Pork Expo

American Ethanol on the Kansas Speedway

Cindy Zimmerman

American Ethanol was prominently displayed at the Kansas Speedway on Sunday for the inaugural Sprint Cup Series STP 400 race.

The American Ethanol logo and paint scheme was on Clint Bowyer’s No. 33 Chevrolet and larger than life along the backstretch wall of the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway to spotlight the partnership between the National Corn Growers, ethanol and NASCAR, which switched to a 15% ethanol blend for fuel in all series this year.

About 1200 farmers and ethanol producers from all over the country were there to cheer on Bowyer, following his first place win Saturday in the Camping World Truck Series, including National Corn Growers Association president Bart Schott (right) of North Dakota and NCGA chairman Darrin Ihnen of South Dakota.

“This is the kick off and we’ve been waiting for it to come,” Bart said on Sunday. “NASCAR has an 80 million fan base that is getting some real positive messages on burning a higher blend of ethanol.”

Darrin says educating fans about agriculture and ethanol is the main goal of the corn growers involvement in NASCAR, especially how it is helping make the country less dependent on foreign oil. “The NASCAR fans, when they were polled, energy security is one of their major concerns,” said Ihnen.

I asked them how the planting season has been so far on their farms and Bart says he managed to plant more corn than he expected and is almost done with soybean. Darrin has been in delay mode thanks to excessive moisture, but he’s not worried. “It’s a long season,” Darrin said.

Listen to or download my interview with Bart and Darrin here: National Corn Growers at Kansas Speedway

This was my first NASCAR race ever and I made it through with only sore muscles and a pretty good sunburn. It was interesting – very loud and very hot! – but I really liked the challenge of taking photos of fast cars on a track and thanks to the National Corn Growers for really making it a great day at the races! There’s more stories from the race on Domestic Fuel and Corn Commentary.

See all the race photos here: American Ethanol at NASCAR Sprint Cup STP 400

Audio, Corn, Ethanol, NCGA

Irish Agricultural Journalism

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 307The ZimmCast takes an Irish turn this week. I visited with agricultural journalist, Damien O’Reilly. Damien works for the Irish National Television and Radio Broadcaster, RTE where he hosts a weekly show called, “Countrywide.” The show is the evolution of “Farmweek” which was very production agriculture focused. The change in the show allows for more rural lifestyle content while still including farm information. Damien is seen interviewing Mandi McLeod, System Insights, Ltd., New Zealand, at the Alltech International Symposium. You can hear my interview with Mandi on our World Dairy Diary website btw.

Damien is just one of the many agricultural journalists I’ve had the pleasure to get to know through my involvement with the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ). I thought it might be interesting to talk with him about what he does and get his perspective on the technology changes in communications today, especially since he’s in the broadcasting business. He shares a good anecdote about an Irish farmer who had an impact on the food discussion in the country all because of one tweet on his Twitter account! He says that there is always a revolution in the media business and a need to keep up with new technology and that is always a challenge. I couldn’t agree more.

Listen in and learn more about agricultural journalism in Ireland: Irish Ag Journalism

You can listen to archived Countrywide shows that Damien has hosted on the RTE Radio 1 website.

This week’s program ends with some music from Music Alley. It’s called “Racing Heart” by Joe Tunon.

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.

Audio, IFAJ, Media, ZimmCast

Customer Videos From John Deere Drive Green Challenge

Chuck Zimmerman

You’ve probably wondered what I was doing at various John Deere dealers this past couple months. Well, now you can see it in action. It is a series of customer video clips for the John Deere Drive Green Challenge promotion that is taking place around the country.

John Deere selected several dealership promotion days and I showed up to collect some video and ask them what they thought about the new compact and subcompact tractors they drove. It has been a very enjoyable experience because I got to meet some very interesting people.

If you’re interested to see if a John Deere Drive Green Challenge event is coming to your area you can search on the Dealer Events Map.

John Deere, Tractor, Video

Put a little *umpf* into it!

Melissa Sandfort

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this before, but another household chore I absolutely adore is vacuuming. I could do it every day and be happy, if only the trade-off were that I never had to dust. Ever. Now, I’m not one of those who has to have perfectly symmetrical lines, and I don’t actually vacuum every day, but at the very least, once a week.

Now let me tell you what I wouldn’t enjoy. Having to roll up my sitting room carpet every spring, lug it outside, hang it on a clothesline and hammer the dirt out of it with this carpet beater. Yes, that’s what they did in the early 20th century before vacuum cleaners became affordable.

Carpets, rugs, clothes, cushions and bedding were all cleaned with a carpet beater. I guess it might come in handy for getting gravel out of car floor mats or sand out of beach towels before running them through the washer. But carpet? It’s heavy!

I guess women back in the day had a little extra *umpf* in them. They did the wash by hand, canned, ironed everything in sight, beat carpet and cooked homemade meals that would put meat on anyone’s bones. And they probably did this with a baby on their hip. Today, I’ve got a Dyson ball vacuum, riding lawn mower, Walmart and washing machine with 10 cycles. Oh, and a daycare lady I cannot live without.

I feel a little guilty pleasure in my vacuuming now.

Until we walk again …

Uncategorized

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

    STP 300 Winner Justin Aligaier

    Chuck Zimmerman

    The inaugural STP 300 Nationwide Series race is in the books. The winner is Justin Aligaier, Brandt Racing, in the #31 car. He actually ran out of fuel right after crossing the finish line. These guys plan it right down to the end!

    The Family Farmer/Marquis Energy car driven by Kenny Wallace finished 7th. And since all these cars are running on a fifteen percent blend of ethanol I think farmers win and ethanol producers win. Actually the American public wins with this clean burning fuel. Hopefully the efforts being taken by organizations like American Ethanol, National Corn Growers Association and my sponsor for this event coverage, the Illinois Corn Marketing Board, are paying off with better understanding by the public of the benefits and value of home grown fuel.

    After victory lane activities Justin came into the media room and gave a great shout out to America’s farmers. Of course Brandt Racing has some real ties to agriculture!

    Justin Aligaier On Ethanol and Farmers

    I’m going to upload some more photos and hit the road. More interviews will be posted in the next couple days.

    STP 300 Nationwide Series NASCAR Weekend Photos

    Audio, Ethanol, NASCAR

    Master AgVocate Kenny Wallace

    Chuck Zimmerman

    I finally caught up to NASCAR driver Kenny Wallace today during the hospitality event for Illinois corn and soybean growers. Here’s Kenny revving up the crowd before afternoon qualifying.

    I’ve been following some race car advocates for clean burning ethanol for a while but I think Kenny has them all beat. I wish I had recorded his remarks to the crowd of farmers gathered here today for the Nationwide Series STP 300. It was awesome baby. I especially liked his message to America’s Family Farmers that what they do is important and that they are loved and appreciated regardless of any critics out there. Amen to that! They are feeding and fueling America and I’d rather burn ethanol than imported oil based fuel from countries and people who don’t like us!

    Kenny Wallace Interview

    STP 300 Nationwide Series NASCAR Weekend Photos

    Audio, Ethanol, NASCAR