Bayer CropScience Agrees to Purchase Hornbeck Seed Company

Chuck Zimmerman

Yesterday Bayer CropScience held a press conference via web and phone to announce its agreement to purchase Hornbeck Seed Company Inc., a privately-held company headquartered in DeWitt, Arkansas, USA. The seed company supplies soybean, rice and wheat varieties to the southern U.S. market. I was dialed in to the call and am sharing it below for your listening pleasure and use.

Bayer CropScience will acquire the seed businesses and gain access to quality soybean germplasm for future variety and trait development. Financial details were not disclosed.

Since its founding in the early 1980s, Hornbeck has grown into one of the Mid-South’s most reputable seed suppliers. The company is known for providing high-quality seed and excellent service to customers across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

For Bayer CropScience, the acquisition is a logical step in a series of investment decisions addressing the needs of southern growers, and in particular soybean growers. Further milestones were the Stoneville Pedigreed Seed acquisition in 2007, the M.S. Technologies collaboration in soybeans in 2007, the launch of LibertyLink® soybeans in 2009 and the Athenix Corp. acquisition in 2009.

You can listen to or download the press conference here: Bayer-Hornbeck Press Conference

Agribusiness, Audio, Bayer, Seed

Living The Country Life On An iPad

Chuck Zimmerman

Living The Country Life magazine is now available by subscription for the iPad! The cost is currently $7.95 for four issues.

Ideas and inspiration for your place in the country.

Living the Country Life magazine is America’s leading rural lifestyle magazine designed to provide ideas and inspiration to people who enjoy living in the country. Readers are passionate about their place in the country. Each issue features a beautiful place in the country and covers a wide variety of topics.

As an iPad person I am all for publishers making content available for our favorite consumption device. What do you think about the concept? The price? Would you like to see more ag publishers make their magazines available this way?

Post Update:

Sister publication Successful Farming is now also available electronically for the iPad. Subscription price is $15.95 for 13 issues. I have not viewed it but my understanding is that the March digital edition is sponsored exclusively by John Deere and features a number of interactive articles, videos, and enhanced advertisements.

Successful Farming magazine serves the diverse business, production, and family information needs of families who make farming and ranching their business. Our passion is to help readers make money, save time, and grow their satisfaction in the farming business. True to its name, Successful Farming magazine is all about success. Every issue is packed with ideas readers can take right to the field, barn, shop, and office to increase their profit and to position their farming business for growth and success in the competitive and global industry of agriculture.

Media

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • World Dairy Expo’s Board of Directors elected eight individuals to the Executive Committee at their annual meeting.
  • Fresh mushrooms, one of the top 20 best-selling produce items in 2010, outperformed produce retail sales as a whole in terms of both dollars and pounds sold.
  • The United States Potato Board grower membership recently elected new leadership during its annual meeting.
  • Merck and sanofi-aventis announced the mutual termination of their agreement to form a new animal health joint venture by combining Merial, the animal health business of sanofi-aventis, with Intervet/Schering-Plough, Merck’s animal health unit.
Zimfo Bytes

Marketing and Risk Management With AgriVisor

Chuck Zimmerman

Here’s the latest installment of our “Getting To Know GROWMARK” series. We’re going to talk risk management with Cory Winstead, AgriVisor, a joint venture between GROWMARK and the Illinois Farm Bureau.

AgriVisor is a full service Agricultural Advisory firm that works closely with you, to provide a complete set of Agriculture Risk Management tools and Marketing services that are unique in the industry.

Cory says their main focus is “to provide producers with an opportunity to get assistance in their marketing needs and market information.” The company offers a variety of services that includes Crossover Solutions, MaxVisor, Brokerage Services, E-Visor and Cash Strategist. He says that the advice they provide depends on which area you’re working with. For example, on the Cash Strategist side where you would be talking about cash sales it’s about basis risk but on the Crossover Solutions and MaxVisor side it’s more of an all inclusive thing that looks at markets and factors like input costs and a lot of other variables that would affect a sales decision. In our interview he offers some other examples of how AgriVisor works with customers. Basically, it’s a full service, “one-stop” suite of services. It’s also worth pointing out that some of their Crossover Solution products are offered directly to GROWMARK customers who can then offer them to their farmer customers which allows them to be more competitive in the marketplace. He also points to their new Crossover Solutions Insight website which you can find at www.graininsight.com.

You can listen to my interview with Cory here: Cory Winstead Interview

Agribusiness, Audio, GROWMARK

Green Floyd is Willin’

Chuck Zimmerman

For your entertainment pleasure Green Floyd will now perform their ethanol version of Willin’. This was recorded at the recent National Ethanol Conference and I hope you enjoy it. Apologies to Lowell George but I think he would have loved it!

Green Floyd lyrics include:

I’ve been kicked by the press
Shunned by Wall Street
Got my margins caved in,
But I’m still on my feet
And I’m still – Willin’

We make it from corn
That started a fight
If we make it from stover
Hope that’s all right
Cause we’re still – Willin’

Cause I’ve been from Benson to
Winnebago, Madera to Omaha
Drivin’ every grain and fuel
rig that’s ever been made
Drivin’ on the backroads
so I wouldn’t get weighed

An if you bring me . . .
Heat, Yeast (and) En-zymes
(and) Feed-stock of some kind
then I’ll be Willin’
to keep Brewin’

Energy, Ethanol, National Ethanol Conference, RFA

Novus Introduces New Products

Cindy Zimmerman

CIBENZA DP100 is a new dietary enzyme from Novus International allows poultry producers improved control over their feed rations.

novus“CIBENZA DP100 is a real game changer,” says Dr. Scott Carter, Global Poultry Market Manager for Novus. “This dietary enzyme is formulated to give poultry producers much more control over their protein ingredients. CIBENZA DP100 offers the flexibility to incorporate more cost-effective protein sources into diets with no sacrifice in performance, or maximize performance in birds that receive rations formulated with the highest quality protein ingredients.”

According to Novus, CIBENZA DP100 allows producers to enhance the digestibility of a broad range of vegetable and animal-based proteins, from highly digestible soybean meal to feather meal, which falls at the other end of the digestibility spectrum.

To complement CIBENZA DP100, Novus has also introduced IDEA™, the first assay of its kind that provides an “almost immediate understanding of the digestibility of various protein sources, which allows producers to quickly make changes that can result in significant feed-cost savings.”

Novus developed IDEA because there was a need for a rapid cost-effective assay technology that could allow producers to accurately evaluate and quantify protein and amino acid digestibility. The more accurate assessment of the actual quality of protein ingredients eliminates the need to over-formulate for either peace of mind, or insurance purposes. With the knowledge of the quality of their protein source in hand, poultry producers can then more effectively use CIBENZA DP100 to expand their protein options to maximize performance or enhance feed-cost savings.

Read more about CIBENZA DP100 and IDEA from Novus.

Novus International, Poultry

March is Peanut Month

Cindy Zimmerman

March is National Peanut Month and to celebrate it, the Georgia peanut industry brought peanuts to the state capitol last week.

pbj dayIn addition to providing plenty of grilled PB&J’s and boiled peanuts, the peanut industry put on a program about the importance of peanuts to the state.

“Peanuts are Georgia’s Official State Crop and the state boasts the largest share of peanut production in the U.S. at nearly fifty percent,” says Armond Morris, chairman of the Georgia Peanut Commission. “Georgia’s 4,500 peanut farmers contribute approximately $2 billion annually to the state and local economy.”

Coincidentally, March is National Nutrition Month – a great time to recognize the nutritional value of peanuts. One serving of peanuts is a good source of protein, Vitamin E, Niacin, Folate, Phosphorus and Magnesium. Peanuts are naturally cholesterol-free and low in saturated fat.

The sponsored program also included the latest in peanut research being done by University of Georgia Peanut Team and the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Peanut Research Lab in Dawson, Ga.

Peanuts

When Will Planting Start

Chuck Zimmerman

Our latest ZimmPoll didn’t really generate a lot of responses. I thought that there would be a lot of excitement about planting. However, the results are in. So your answer to the question, “When will planting season start this year?” is as follows: 37 percent say later than average, 36 percent say at the five year average (late March) and 27 percent say sooner than average. I’m guessing that some of those “sooner” folks are already out in the field!

Our next ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, “How will Japan disaster affect US agricultural exports?” Our hearts go out to the people in Japan by the way. It is a disaster of monumental proportions. There are many organizations providing assistance and we hope you’ll support them. Let us know what you think and thank you for participating.

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

ZimmPoll

USDA ERS Atlas of Rural and Small Town America

Chuck Zimmerman

USDA’s Economic Research Service has created an online Atlas of Rural and Small Town America that you might find interesting. It’s an interactive map that allows you to select broad categories of data including people, jobs and agriculture. You can select specific counties to get information or areas like regions and states.

ERS promotes the well-being of rural America through research and analysis to better understand the economic, demographic, environmental, and social forces affecting rural regions and communities. In collaboration with other USDA agencies, ERS research helps provide rural residents and community and business leaders with the knowledge and skills to help their communities thrive in the global economy.
The objectives of the Atlas are:

* To provide a spatial interpretation of county-level, economic and social conditions along four dimensions: people, jobs, agriculture, and county classifications.
* To highlight the value of the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey as a new source of county data and to bring together data from several different Federal sources.
* To allow the use of socioeconomic indicators jointly with ERS county typologies to better understand the diverse opportunities and challenges facing rural regions and communities.

Thanks to @AFBFMace and @Cottonaggie for the heads up.

USDA

Pioneer Partners With NBC Learn

Chuck Zimmerman

Pioneer Press ConferenceAt the Commodity Classic Pioneer announced a “partnership with NBC Learn, the education arm of NBC News, to bring science to life for high school students in Iowa and Illinois. The program is focused on building students’ understanding and interest in agricultural science by providing innovative, video-based educational resources to schools at no cost.” I spoke with Todd Frazier about the program to learn more.

You can listen to my interview with Todd here: Interview with Todd Frazier
Through this partnership, Pioneer will fund subscriptions to the NBC Learn Science Collections for 40 schools in Iowa and Illinois for the 2011-2012 school year. The partnership was announced at Commodity Classic in Tampa, Fla.

Through the grant from Pioneer, NBC Learn will make available more than a thousand video clips from NBC News archives, plus current NBC News science coverage, to Iowa and Illinois teachers, students and schools to use as teaching tools.

“Meeting the challenge of doubling agricultural productivity by 2050 is dependent on the next generation of young talent with an interest and understanding of agriculture,” said Judd O’Connor, vice president – Pioneer Hi-Bred. “We are proud to support the expansion of the NBC Learn science curriculum across Iowa and Illinois to help engage young people in the opportunities available in this growing industry.”

“NBC Learn is proud to partner with Pioneer and DuPont to make compelling real-life stories of agricultural science available to students and teachers. Through this effort, NBC Learn hopes to inspire a new generation of students devoted to innovation in agriscience,” said Soraya Gage, executive producer – NBC Learn.

I joined the press conference late but you can listen in here (includes Q&A): Pioneer Press Conference

2011 Commodity Classic Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2011 Commodity Classic
is sponsored by: BASF New Holland and AgHaven

Agribusiness, Audio, Commodity Classic, Pioneer