50 Years of Membership Growth for American Farm Bureau

Cindy Zimmerman

To the tune of the “Rocky” theme song, American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman showed off a special membership jacket made just for him to celebrate 50 consecutive years of membership growth for the general farm organization at 92nd annual meeting opening general session on Sunday.

“American Farm Bureau membership stands at 6,279,813 member families,” Stallman said proudly during his opening address. “Today, thanks to you, we celebrate 50 consecutive years of growth.”

The theme of the annual meeting this year is “Producing Results” and Stallman says American agriculture continues to be the world’s biggest manufacturer. “America’s farm and ranch families are all about producing,” he said. “You produce and you deliver.”

Stallman used the annual address to announce that AFBF is taking new legal action against the Environmental Protection Agency. “It’s time to stop the EPA,” he said. “This suit will seek to rein in EPA’s latest and most aggressive effort to use the Clean Water Act to impose burdensome new regulations on agricultural production … the Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load or TMDL.”

The AFBF president from Texas also talked about the estate tax reform victory and the challenges facing agriculture as Congress begins to consider a new farm bill.

Listen to or download Stallman’s opening address to the membership here: AFBF President Bob Stallman

If you need any photos from the AFBF opening general session, including most of the state presidents with Stallman, check out the photo album here – 2011 AFBF Annual Meeting Photo Album

AFBF, Audio

AG CONNECT Expo Showing Significant Growth

Chuck Zimmerman

AG CONNECT ExpoThis morning the media got an update on AG CONNECT Expo with some statistics you’ll find interesting. Pictured are (l-r), Dennis Slater, President, AEM, Martin Richenhagen, President/CEO, AGCO and Chairman of the show management committee, Charlie O-Brien, VP Ag Sector, AEM and Sara Truesdale Mooney, Show Director.

There are 12,000 AG CONNECT Expo and AFBF registrants with more than 60 countries represented outside the U.S. By comparison, the first Expo had 7,700 registrants. There are 382 exhibitors covering 174,500 square feet of space in the trade show that includes the AFBF Pavilion. There are pavilions in the show from Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Italy. The first show had 312 exhibitors. So the show is growing and will now move to a rotation of every other year. The next show will be held back in Orlando, FL, site of the first one.

You can listen to the full update session and download the audio here: AG CONNECT Expo Update Session

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

Audio, Video

AFBF Opening General Session Underway

Chuck Zimmerman

The opening general session of the American Farm Bureau Federation is taking place right now. President Bob Stallman just gave his opening address and Cindy will be bringing it to you in audio and video very soon.

In the meantime I’ve updated our photo album with my photos from the session. Please feel free to enjoy. Cindy will be kind of AFBF focused while I’m still over at AG CONNECT Expo. We’ll be getting an update on the show there in just a little while.

2011 AFBF Annual Meeting Photo Album

AFBF, Ag Groups

Guest Blogging For American Farm Bureau Federation

Chuck Zimmerman

While Cindy and I are covering the 2011 AG CONNECT Expo, we’re also covering the 2011 American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Meeting! In fact, not only are we going to be doing stories from the AFBF meeting but we’re also “guest bloggers” on the AFBF Annual Meeting Blog. Check it out.

There are quite a few guest bloggers and this might be the first time one of its kind. It will be interesting to see the different perspectives and stories being posted. You can see the list of guest bloggers here.

We’ve already started a photo album for the AFBF Annual Meeting which you can find here: 2011 AFBF Annual Meeting Photo Album

AFBF

Agriculture’s Incredible Shrinking Footprint

Cindy Zimmerman

American agriculture has a great story to tell of increasing productivity while at the same time decreasing its environmental footprint.

The first of the Town Hall Forums held Saturday at AG CONNECT Expo in the Successful Farming Innovations Theater was “The Shrinking Environmental Footprint of Agriculture” which was moderated by former National Resources Conservation Service chief Bruce Knight, a third-generation rancher, farmer and conservationist from South Dakota. He says he’s amazed by the progress in agriculture just in his lifetime is amazing. “I think about my own father coming home from World War II and still using horses to put up hay. I got started using 16 foot equipment. Now we’re using GPS guidance systems. It is an incredible adventure for all of us in agriculture.”

Two excellent presenters provided some good information for people in agriculture to know and share about how American farmers and ranchers continue to produce more food while using less natural resources. Karen Scanlon, executive director of the Conservation Technology Information Center, talked about advancements in row crop production. “It’s fortifying for farmers and those who support farmers to recognize that there have been impressive achievements in the last few decades and it’s also encouragement that we can continue to do more.”

Dr. Jude Capper of Washington State University, a livestock carbon footprint expert, talked about the importance of looking at the footprint in terms of the production, not the animal. “Compared to 1944, now we have bigger cows, they eat more feed, but they also give more milk, so milk yield per cow has increase four fold since 1944,” she explains. “We’ve cut cow numbers by 60 percent, but we also make 59 percent more milk, so that cut the total carbon footprint per gallon of milk, which is huge.”

I interviewed Bruce, Karen and Jude about conservation, carbon footprints and sustainability which you can listen to or download – or both!

Listen to my interview with Bruce here: Bruce Knight

Listen to my interview with Karen here: Karen Scanlon

Listen to my interview with Jude here: Dr. Jude Capper

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

Audio, Conservation, CTIC, Environment

Developing A Crop of Agvocates

Chuck Zimmerman

AG CONNECT ExpoThe AgChat Foundation held an agvocate training session this afternoon. We’re building an army of agricultural advocates one crop at a time! I had the honor and pleasure to be a presenter and finally meet some of my fellow board members in person.

Here are (l-r), Ray Prock, Jeff Fowle and Nate Taylor. They each took turns talking about Twitter and then answered questions. Our session today covered the importance of social media, technology/tools, Twitter and Facebook after which participants broke up into groups. I hope we’ll see more of these at various events throughout the country during the year. I’m working on one to take place at the Western Farm Show in Kansas City, MO next month. More on that later.

Photos have been updated in our AG CONNECT Expo photo album and Cindy and I have a lot more stories to come as the show rolls on and we transition over to the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting which gets into full swing tomorrow morning with the opening general session.

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

Uncategorized

Ag Sector of Economy Healthy

Chuck Zimmerman

AG CONNECT ExpoThis morning at AG CONNECT Expo the first session was the Ag Executive Forum. The keynote speaker for breakfast was Thomas Cunningham, Economist and Associate Research Director, Federal Reserve of Atlanta. Thanks to Mary Thompson, Farm Foundation, for taking a photo of us in the hallway during my interview with him.

According to Thomas the economy is recovering but at a very slow pace. I asked him if there was room for optimism and he said it was more like “less room for pessimism.” He says that things are pretty good for the ag sector of the economy. With people around the world building wealth they’re spending more on food. As he put it, “It doesn’t look too bad right now.” and “The world is getting wealthier and as it does that it is changing its diet.” He doesn’t see this trend reversing. I thought he made an interesting observation that in talking with ag groups they “have a good sense of history.” So the bottom line is that the ag sector is relatively healthy compared to the rest of the economy but we should keep in mind that the world has changed, mostly for the better, and make financial decisions accordingly.

You can listen to my interview with Thomas here: Thomas Cunningham Interview

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

AEM, Audio

Advocating for Agriculture Winners Honored

Cindy Zimmerman

The winners of the AG CONNECT Expo 2011 “Advocating for Agriculture” awards were honored at the “Celebration of Agriculture” and opening ceremony for the show on Friday evening. These awards recognize those who support “in a compelling way the work of farmers and ranchers to provide abundant and affordable food and fiber.” Online voting by the Ag community helped select the winners, and more than 12,500 votes were cast for the nine finalists.

The winners from left to right are:
Next Generation of Ag Award — Elliott Marsh from Statesboro, Georgia
Ag Woman of the Year — Beverly Hall from Baxter, Tennessee
Community Advocate Award — Ray Bowman from Frankfurt, Kentucky

You can see more photos from the opening ceremony in the
2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

AEM

Live Stream – AG CONNECT Expo Opening Ceremonies

Chuck Zimmerman

AG CONNECT ExpoWe live streamed the opening ceremonies from AG CONNECT Expo here and will post both video and audio later since we have it recorded.

In the meantime you can check out our photo album from the link below. It’s growing by the hour!

The preview day is history and it’s party time in Atlanta.

Post Update: You can listen to the opening ceremonies here: AG CONNECT Expo Opening Ceremonies

Here’s an edited video version of the opening ceremonies:

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

Audio, Video

AEM Executive Pleased With AG CONNECT

Cindy Zimmerman

We’ve been talking with Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) Vice President of Agricultural Services Charlie O’Brien about AG CONNECT Expo since it was first announced at Ag Media Summit in July 2008.

Now we are starting the second AG CONNECT Expo, which will be held every other year after this year, and Charlie says the show has really come together this year to be what they envisioned. “It’s certainly a larger footprint than we had last year,” Charlie says. “It feels like people really stepped it up a little bit more this year and it’s really looking good on the show floor this year.”

Charlie says it worked out very well for them to team up with American Farm Bureau, as well as other groups such as the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, to have co-located events. “That’s kind of been the strategy all along is to have key meetings associated with it and then have the trade show and the educational events as part of the trade show. We’re trying to be as efficient as we can with everybody’s time.”

Listen to my interview with Charlie here: Charlie O'Brien

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

AEM, Audio