The 2011 AG CONNECT Expo is winding down but that doesn’t mean our coverage has ended. I’ve just updated our photo album with today’s photos.
Cindy and I have more stories that we’ll be posting over the next several days. I’m heading over to the American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Meeting. They’ve got another general session starting real soon. See you from there.
Neither freezing rain, nor snow, nor sleet has stopped the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting from going on today in Atlanta. The shuttle buses have stopped running, the media reception is canceled, but there are still plenty of people here attending sessions and finishing interviews and presentations for YF&R awards. Conferences this morning included animal welfare and crops outlook, this afternoon we’ll hear about the livestock outlook and how farmers can tell their story with social media.
State Farm Bureaus were recognized for excellence yesterday during the opening general session. For outstanding program achievement and membership growth, the Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas and Michigan Farm Bureaus received Pinnacle Awards and numerous states received Awards for Excellence and President’s Awards.
In addition, AFBF announced that Ben LaCross of Michigan has been elected as the new chairman of the Young Farmers and Ranchers committee.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and “Dirty Jobs” Mike Rowe are still on for this afternoon’s closing general session so stay tuned for more.
What do consumers think about food? Betsy Freese, Living The Country Life, told AG CONNECT Expo attendees about the results of recent survey results from the Better Homes & Gardens magazine editors. They mainly focused on women readers and their food habits in the last two year.
Betsy says that between 2008 to 2010 they found that the economy had an impact but that they’re still interested in organic and locally grown food although their use of those foods hadn’t really increased during this time. The economy is probably the reason as they are making fewer trips to the grocery store. They also looked at what types of meat they were consuming and found that beef and pork were stable while chicken had declined very slightly. Fresh fruit and vegetable use went down also probably due to the economy. There was a whole part of the study on food safety. In the past two years food safety confidence was steady although it had declined in the time period before this survey. She says the local food movement seems to have hit a plateau in the last couple years. She says that there is a lot that farmers can take away from the study. She thinks it is very important that farmers don’t try so hard to segment what kind of farmer they are, as in organic vs. non-organic and try to work together more.
You can listen to my interview with Betsy here: Interview With Betsy Freese
One very well attended education session at AG CONNECT Expo was on “Smartphone Technology: Unleashing Agriculture.” The presenter was Neil Mylet, Loadout Technologies. He started his company right after graduating Purdue to develop intelligent smartphone technologies to allow phones to command and control and be part of industrial processes such as grain handling.
Neil was encouraged by the turnout at his session and he hopes they left better able to assess how they can better integrate mobile smartphone technology into their operation. He thinks mobile technology is still in a growth mode but will change how we communicate and work within the industry. The ag industry is no different than others that are being transformed by new technology. He says wifi is also essential on farms to take full advantage of these technologies. He also believes farmer adoption of smartphones is just a matter of time.
You can listen to my interview with Neil here: Interview With Neil Mylet
The staff at the Atlanta Convention Center was out shoveling snow early today. That’s something they don’t do very often but it was sure needed. The final day of the 2011 AG CONNECT Expo is here and the show will open for business at 9am. All educational sessions are taking place too. A lot of things got canceled in Atlanta but here, the show goes on. The roads are pretty well covered with snow and now freezing rain has moved in. It was crunchy walk over but not too bad.
The American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Meeting is also in full swing after this morning’s Foundation Flapjack Fundraiser. I did not get to that breakfast but enjoyed one in the AFBF Media Room area with several other reporters. I’m back to the AG CONNECT Expo media room now and getting ready to do some posts and more interviews on the floor. Cindy will be working over at AFBF until I transition over there later today.
We hope you are warm and safe wherever you are.
The year was 1930 and my Grandmother was 5 years old. For historical preservation, the dog, Spot, was lovingly noted on the back of the photograph. A while back, I wrote about round bales versus smaller square bales. Today, the picture depicts a time before either of those existed and hay was moved in loose piles.
This photograph is my grandmother, her mother, and her younger brother, posed in front of a hay wagon, onto which the hay was loaded with pitchforks. The wagon was then taken to the barn where it was parked under the hay fork. The hay fork was a large hook, tied to a heavy rope, looped through a pulley at the end of the barn.
A team of horses was hitched to the end of the rope, and they would pull on the rope to raise the forkful of hay into the barn. Grandpa said on their farm, he was always in charge of the trip rope, which emptied the hay into position in the loft. And then the process would start all over again until the hay wagon was empty.
Today we have balers, and tractors with forks, and large trailers to stack bales on to transport them to a barn, or even another farm three states away for cattle feed. And with digital photos and frames, I doubt the dogs get their notoriety these days. Thanks to Grandma for finding this picture.
I’m telling you folks, grandparents are a goldmine. Take time to do some digging.
Until we walk again …
American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) president Bob Stallman fielded questions from the press for 40 minutes on Sunday afternoon at the annual meeting in Atlanta, covering a wide variety of topics.
Several questions centered on the legal action AFBF intends to take against EPA over the regulation of the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load (TMDL), a so-called “pollution diet” that he says threatens to starve agriculture out of the entire 64,000 square mile watershed spanning five states. Stallman says they are planning to file the challenge Monday in the federal district court for the middle district of Pennsylvania.
Stallman was also asked about what he expects will be the biggest issues for the delegate session, progress made by the new US Farm and Ranch Alliance, regulation of biotech crops, the proposed GIPSA rule, and more.
Listen to or download Stallman’s press conference here: Stallman Press Conference
Out on the AG CONNECT Expo floor in the AFBF trade show pavilion you’ll find the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s Mobile Ag Ed Science Lab. This is one of a number of mobile classrooms to teach children where their food comes from. The Lab is a project of the PA Friends of Ag Foundation.
I visited with Tonya Wible, Program Director for the project. She says that when they asked children where their food came from it wasn’t just the inner city but also in suburban and even rural areas. So they created this program which now has six mobile labs place across the state. The trailer can accommodate a full size class. It’s a mobile agriculture education science lab, complete with all supplies and a certified teacher, that travels to a different elementary or middle school in Pennsylvania each week. The lab is designed to target grades K through 8.
You can listen to my interview with Tonya here: Interview With Tonya Wible
Kenny Wallace, NASCAR driver, says, “Ethanol all the way in NASCAR!” That’s what he told me this afternoon in the American Farm Bureau Federation Pavilion on the floor of the AG CONNECT Expo. Thanks to Tricia Braid, Illinois Corn Growers, for setting up our interview and taking the photo. Kenny was signing autographs in the Nationwide Insurance exhibit.
You won’t find a bigger supporter of the American farmer and in particular that farm made fuel, ethanol. NASCAR is using E15 now and Kenny finds that exciting. Family farmers have supported Kenny recently and will be doing so in a bigger way in the future. He says that he wants farmers to know that he’s helping get their message out to the public. Kenny says he’s had a chance to run a combine and is amazed at the technology built into them! Here’s where you can follow Kenny on Twitter.
You can listen to my interview with Kenny here: Interview With Kenny Wallace
