Keynote Speakers for Animal Ag Conference Announced

John Davis

Leaders in research and industry will headline the upcoming 2011 Annual Conference of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture, April 11-14th, 2011, in San Antonio, Texas, as they talk about how to feed a world that’s expected to need nearly twice as much food in 2050 than what is needed today.

To discuss this issue (and more), NIAA will feature Dr. Terry Barr, Senior Director of Industry Research, CoBank, Washington, DC; Dr. Frank Mitloehner, Agriculture Economist, University of California, Davis, CA; Mr. Charlie Arnot, Center for Food Integrity, Kansas City, MO; Dr. Peter Groot Koerkamp, Professor Biosystems Engineering / Agrotechnology & Interim Professor in Animal Production Systems, Wageningen University, Netherlands; Mr. Ian Reece, Rabobank, New York, NY (Invited); Dr. Molly McAdams, H-E-B Foods, San Antonio, TX (Invited); Mr. Mark Anstoetter, Shook Hardy & Bacon, Kansas City, MO; and Mr. Clint Hickman, Hickman Family Farms, Buckeye, AZ … plus, plenty of input and ideas from the folks attending the four days of seminars and meetings.

If you’re involved in animal agriculture, it’s definitely an event you won’t want to miss.

Register before March 1st and save 50 bucks off the $450 registration fee. More information is available here.

Animal Health, Events

BASF Headline and Kixor Named No-Till Products of the Year

Cindy Zimmerman

BASF Crop Protection products Kixor® herbicide technology and Headline® fungicide were named top no-till products of 2010 for weed and disease control at the 19th Annual National No-Tillage Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio last week. This was the first time that Kixor was eligible for the award, and marks the fifth consecutive year Headline has been selected as a product of the year.

“BASF is committed to providing solutions that help growers protect – and even increase – yield potential by controlling tough broadleaf weeds, addressing yield-robbing diseases, and improving Plant Health,” said Paul Rea, Vice President, U.S. Crop Operations, BASF. “Kixor was widely successful in its first year as it offers growers a great resource for battling resistant weeds. Headline continues to offer growers the excellent disease control needed to provide Plant Health benefits and help maximize yield.”

BASF

Growmark Getting Social

Chuck Zimmerman

I’ve been spending a wonderful day at Growmark. Do you know who Growmark is? If not, don’t worry. In coming weeks and months we’re going to get to learn about them together. We’ll be making a more formal announcement tomorrow as Growmark becomes a major new sponsor of AgWired and Precision Pays!

This morning we talked all about social media. Growmark has just launched a new website and is in the process of setting up and deciding how to manage social networking accounts like Twitter and Facebook. How to gauge effectiveness has been a big part of the conversation. Feel free to let them know what you think either here in comments or on Twitter. They would appreciate it.

GROWMARK

AGROTAIN Hosts Corn Yield Expert at AGCONNECT

Cindy Zimmerman

According to University of Illinois professor Dr. Fred Below, there are “Seven Wonders of the Corn Yield World,” and one of the most important is nitrogen.

Dr. Below developed the “Seven Wonders” as a tool to teach farmers the relative importance of management factors that can impact corn productivity, ranking the top seven factors that can positively impact corn yields. “In our quest to grow 300 bushels and to improve crop management, we need to know those management factors that have the biggest impact on yield and make sure we manage those correctly,” he told me during an interview at the AGROTAIN exhibit during AGCONNECT Expo.

Fred ranks weather and nitrogen as the top two corn yield world wonders. “These wonders interact with each other so that every single thing about nitrogen application and use by the plant is affected by weather,” he says. So, while farmers can’t control the weather, they can control nitrogen loss due to the weather. To that end, Dr. Below included SUPERU® (with AGROTAIN technology) as part of a high tech fertilizer package in his studies. “The AGROTAIN technology like SUPERU is designed to mitigate weather-induced nitrogen losses. This lets the plant respond to the nitrogen, rather than have it be lost,” he said. “So preventing nitrogen loss is number one on the list for achieving high yields.”

The other five “wonders” on Dr. Below’s list include: hybrid selection, previous crop, plant populations, tillage and chemicals.

Listen to my interview with Dr. Below here: Dr. Fred Below

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

Fertilizer

Western Farm Show Gearing Up

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 288In this week’s program we’re going to look ahead to the Western Farm Show by talking with Jeff Flora, CEO, Southwestern Association (owner of the show). The show will be held February 25-27 at the American Royal Complex in Kansas City, MO. This is the 50th annual show and ZimmComm New Media is happy to be a part of it. We’ll be exhibiting and I’ll be conducting two of the educational sessions, one on “Becoming an Agricultural Agvocate” with AgChat Foundation on Friday and one on Saturday on “Social Media – Tips & Tools.”

In my conversation with Jeff he describes the Southwestern Association which owns and manages the show. It was founded in 1889 and represents equipment retailers in a multi-state area, working in the areas of legislation, communication and education. Jeff says they’re expecting a potentially record crowd this year since he’s seen so much interest, especially from exhibitors. There are going to be more than 500 exhibits which he says is higher than recent years.

A first time highlight at this year’s show is the Friday/Saturday night Championship Tractor Pull which will be held in Kemper Arena. I’m planning to be there! Tickets for it are available here. So it sounds like a good time will be had in KC, MO. We hope to see you there.

Listen to this week’s ZimmCast with Jeff Flora here: ZimmCast 288 - Western Farm Show

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our a Subscribe page

Audio, Farm Shows, Western Farm Show, ZimmCast

Personifying Nature

Melissa Sandfort

Jack Frost
Mother Earth
Father Time
Old Man Winter

Nature is real and alive. It breathes its wintry breath on us, it heats up our souls, it’s the world’s eternal calendar. Fortunately, I live in an area where I get to enjoy all four seasons: I witness the growth of spring blooms, heat waves reverberating off the pavement in summer, the pallet of colors on fall trees, and right now, a man of nature more commonly known as Jack Frost.

He typically is personified as nipping on our nose, but this week, he only made it as far as the front window of the house. His omnipresence tells me he’s just around the corner, waiting for the coldest of mornings to strike again.

I recently returned from a winter Iceland also known as Atlanta, where daytime temperatures reached a balmy 31 degrees. When the plane landed in Omaha, it was 2 degrees with a wind chill of -10 and there were 12 inches of snow on the ground.

I’m reminded again how alive and real nature is as I walk down to the mailbox the next day and Old Man Winter literally takes my breath away.

Until we walk again …

Uncategorized

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Dow AgroSciences and Pioneer Hi-Bred have resolved a dispute regarding the marketing of certain corn seed products sold through Pioneer’s PROaccess business unit. As part of the resolution, Pioneer will continue to distribute products through its PROaccess business unit, with modified packaging.
  • The Organic Materials Review Institute has approved Alltech’s application for Sel-Plex 1000.
  • National Association of Farm Broadcasting president Lindsay Hill recently launched CowsAndCoffee.com, a place to read the latest agricultural news while you sip your morning cup of coffee.
  • The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture presented its fourth “Book of the Year” award to Cris Peterson for Seed Soil Sun: Earth’s Recipe for Food.
Zimfo Bytes

Average Cattleman Explains Farm Life To HSUS President

Chuck Zimmerman

I love Xtranormal movies. Just saw a tweet link to this one where an average cattleman tries to explain things to the president of the HSUS. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sadly true.

Animal Activists, Animal Health, Farming, Video

AgriSolutions Offers Financial Producer Education Sessions

Cindy Zimmerman

AgriSolutions® is offering “Producer Education Sessions” this month and next to help farmers achieve their 2011 financial goals.

According to Valerie Bates, AgriSolutions Training and Education Manager, AgriSolutions’ coursework is designed with the company mission in mind – to help agricultural producers become more effective business managers. Sessions are instructor-led in a classroom setting at AgriSolutions’ offices in Brighton, IL. Sessions planned for January and February will help producers learn to manage operations more efficiently and effectively, she said.

Coursework begins with a review of accounting principles, and includes financial reporting, analysis of operational and capital cash flow, and debt analysis. AgriSolutions coaches help participants understand true profit and cost, in order to enhance decision-making. Participants in some courses build business plans and strategic plans, and learn to better control their business’s finances to achieve their goals and objectives.

The courses include:

January 20-21, or February 3-4, 2011
AS 203 – Managerial Analysis
Producers attending will measure and monitor factors of managerial accounting centers, examining area performance, profitability, and assessing efficiency and cost control. Participants will leave with an understanding of true profit and costs, resulting in enhanced decision-making.

January 27-28, or February 17-18, 2011
AS 104 – Growth and Debt Funding
Participants will learn to analyze the impact of asset decisions on the operation, review key debt and equity principles, and assess the benefits of funding an operation with debt and equity. Producers evaluate their operation’s working capital requirements, conduct a complete debt analysis.

February 1-2, or February 15-16, 2011
AS 103 – Taking Action to Improve Performance
This class will explore basic accounting principles, financial reporting, analysis of operational and capital cash flow, and managing business finances to achieve goals and objectives.

For additional information, registration assistance or questions, please contact AgriSolutions Education by emailing asiEducation@agrisolutions.com, or call 800-454-4524. Online training options are available, as well, offering 24-hour access, 7 days a week.

Uncategorized

Farmers Engaging Farmers and Non-Farmers

Chuck Zimmerman

I’m glad I could get farmers in the title three times. The reason for this post is the excellent response in comments to a recent story post Cindy did about Farm Bureau members engaging in social media. I really appreciate one AgWired reader who posted a comment with her observation after looking at some of the Twitter accounts of the farmers mentioned in the story, “. . . they do a good job of having conversations, but it seems to be with just other people in the ag industry and not “non farmers” as they call them.” So I tweeted this question with a link to the post “Are farmers only talking to other farmers?” That generated a number of responses through the blog as well as Facebook and Twitter. One of the recurring themes is that you can’t judge social networking and new media with just a quick look. This is about having an ongoing conversation that ebbs and flows. Some times it may just be with a few friends. Some times it might be with a whole new group of people. Kind of like real life, eh? And as some point out, they have both a business and a personal presence although there are some like me who combine both at the same time. What are your thoughts?

Here’s a list of excerpted comments that were posted:

I have to agree with everything that has been said. Social Media use in Agriculture is in it’s infancy and is growing by leaps and bounds. If each farmer reaches out to just a few outside farming amazing things will happen. I have spent quite a bit of time thinking of more than one way to reach out and not just through social media.

I also agree that ones total social media presence cannot be judged by just a brief look at a Twitter account. There’s so much more out there (blogs, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Quora, Foursquare, etc.).

And there are a ton of people who consume information without acting on it. My guess is the amount of people who have read this conversation, but haven’t said anything is overwhelmingly higher than those who are participating. And remember, there’s nothing wrong with preaching to the choir once in a while either…especially when it gets them singing the same tune!

I do talk to other farmers a lot using social media. They are my friends and I enjoy hearing updates about their farm’s. I have learned a lot about farms across the US and have even made some improvements to my farm after hearing some creative ideas by other farmers via twitter and Facebook.

Don’t discount the fact that we talk to other farmers a lot though, we do talk to others outside of agriculture a lot. Just this morning I enjoyed a conversation with a young lady from New York City. I also get at least one email or direct message a week from somebody that found me from social media and has a specific question about agriculture that they want to learn more about.

At the same time, the analysis of SM is not easily tackled in a quick one off. First, considering a tiny point in time isn’t representative of any efforts on SM. It’s about relationships. Second, I’d also suggest that my social media connections go WAY beyond Twitter with Facebook, blogs, etc.

Indeed many of us talk to farmers, but we talk to many non farmers as well. I talk with many moms, foodies and others of interest to me. I would say more than 75% of those I follow are non-farmers. I learn a lot from farmers and nonfarmers a like.

AFBF, Social Networking