During most of Monday I’ll be on the agriblogging highway to Lexington, KY for the Alltech Global Dairy 500. The theme is “Sustainability in a Changing World.” The program has been so successful that this year they’ve added a “Global Beef 500” as well!
I’m looking forward to seeing my Alltech friends and enjoying a frosty Kentucky Ale! Most of my coverage will be on World Dairy Diary starting Monday evening. But I’m sure I’ll find something to share with you here on AgWired as well. For example, on Thursday, I’ll share the stage with Alltech’s Billy Frey to discuss social media. I’m really looking forward to that. I’ll also be assisting David Butler who will be managing the Alltech blog, Alltech Innovations.
So follow along here or on Twitter with the hashtag #Global500.
Two new professional development initiatives will take place in conjunction with the 2011 International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress in Canada.
IFAJ-Pioneer Hi-bred International Master Class
Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business, is supporting a pilot project called the IFAJ-Pioneer Hi-Bred Master Class. This program will bring a group of journalists from developing countries to a two-day journalism and leadership workshop prior to the congress.
The workshop will focus on journalistic training, global agriculture and communications trends. Journalists will have a chance to share ideas with colleagues, and network with professionals from around the world. Master Class participants will be selected from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
The project will be based on a workshop with developing-country journalists initiated at the 2010 Belgium Congress, which was managed by AgriTerra, a Dutch-based agri-development agency. AgriTerra will help coordinate the master class program in Canada, owing to its experience in networking with journalists from underdeveloped countries.
IFAJ-Alltech Young Leaders in Agricultural Journalism Expansion
Alltech will expand its sponsorship of the successful IFAJ-Alltech Young Leaders in Agricultural Journalism award to include a Boot Camp workshop. This activity will provide select young journalists with expert training and feedback through on-site writing or broadcasting assignments and further develop their leadership skills through formal in-class training.
As a part of their learning experience, award winners will write or record spot news three times during the duration of the congress. Their stories will be made available to the general media and posted on the IFAJ website. Mentors will be assigned to the young leaders to work with them throughout the congress and guide them through their program, which was developed with stimulus and input from IFAJ member Branko Vrabec of Slovenia.
Conceived at the IFAJ 2005 meeting in Switzerland by Alltech and federation officials, the young leaders award has brought budding journalists to Japan, Austria and the US.
The iPhone 4 really shoots good video but can be very hard to hold steady. Now there’s a new solution with a cool name, OWLE Bubo. It’s a holder for the iPhone that provides not only better stabilization but tripod mount, forward facing microphone and best of all IMO, a wide angle lens. This thing is strange looking but extremely functional. It’s on the pricey side though. I’d only buy if you know you’re going to use it. Learn more in the review video below.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was in the Peach State earlier this week talking with peanut growers and visiting an ethanol plant.
Ethanol plants in the southeast are pretty rare – in fact, First United Ethanol, LLC (FUEL) is really the only one to speak of that is operating at any capacity. FUEL is a 100 million gallon per year corn-based ethanol plant with 860 mostly rural investors from the local Georgia-Florida area. “Most of the ethanol plants in the Midwest are ‘rubber in and rail out’ and we’re sort of ‘rail in and rubber out,'” says FUEL CEO Murray Campbell. While most of their corn comes in by rail from the Midwest, they are starting to buy more local corn as farmers in the agricultural area surrounding the plant are starting to put more corn back in their crop rotation with peanuts and cotton.
Murray is pictured here (right) giving Vilsack and Congressman Sanford Bishop (D-GA) a tour of the plant on Monday.
I interviewed Murray about the timeliness of Vilsack’s visit, coming right on the heels of the biofuels initiatives announced by USDA last week, and the importance of having ethanol production in all areas of the country. Listen to or download my interview with Murray here: Murray Campbell Interview
Vilsack also visited with Georgia’s peanut growers on Monday at the American Peanut Shellers Association office in Albany at a meeting hosted by Congressman Sanford. During the meeting, the secretary heard from representatives of the Georgia Peanut Commission about their concerns that peanuts were excluded from a recent disaster assistance package, even though other commodities like rice, soybeans, cotton and sweet potatoes were included. Vilsack was also encouraged by the peanut industry to increase peanut butter purchases for federal nutrition and food aid programs, and to continue offering storage and handling in the next farm bill.
The secretary is pictured here with Tyron Spearman, who is known as “Mr. Peanut” in the southeast. Among the many hats he wears is official peanut reporter for Southeast Agnet and you can listen to his report about the peanut growers meeting with the secretary here. You can also read more about it from the Georgia Peanut Commission. Thanks to Joy Carter for the photo!
The head of USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) has been the subject of two recent articles by Washington DC watchdog reporters who are questioning his objectivity when it comes to writing new rules for the livestock industry.
J. Dudley Butler, a Mississippi trial lawyer, was appointed by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in May of 2009 to serve as Administrator of GIPSA and immediately charged with coming up with a new rule to protect livestock producers against “unfair, fraudulent or retaliatory practices” as required by the 2008 Farm Bill and through existing authority under the Packers and Stockyards Act. That rule was announced in June 2010.
Last week, Big Government’s Capitol Confidential did a piece about Butler entitled “Fox Guarding the Hen House” which focuses on how the GIPSA head could profit from the rule he proposed once he returns to private practice as a trial attorney. The article notes a comment Butler made in a speech to the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM), an organization that he helped to found, in August 2009 – after he was appointed to the USDA position. Here’s the quote, in context from Beef Magazine, highlighting the significant phrase. “When you have a term like ‘unfair, unreasonable or undue prejudice,’ that’s a plaintiff lawyer’s dream,” Butler says in the clip. “We can get in front of a jury with that. We won’t get thrown out on what we call summary judgment because that’s a jury question.”
The Hill picked up on the story this week, saying that some things don’t mix well, like “trial lawyers and regulation of the cattle industry.” The article notes that cattle producers have a reason to be concerned about Butler – “a regulatory boss with a background in suing the very industry he now regulates, and one can readily understand the apprehension among many cattlemen and beef producers.”
Both articles note that congressional leaders have already called Butler’s actions into question, but that the Obama administration appears to be unconcerned. It does seem to be a clear conflict of interest and one has to wonder why Butler was appointed to do this job in the first place.
The Mid South NAMA chapter lunch meeting is about to get started. I’ll post a different photo later. We’re just mingling before eating and doing some social media talk.
Janice Person, Monsanto, and I are tag teaming a presentation. The chapter conducted a member survey prior to the mtg. to find out what level of social media participation the members were involved in and solicit questions. I’ll post more on that later.
In the meantime, you can use the Twitter hashtag #midsouthnama to follow tweets or add you’re own. We’re posing some of the questions there and seeking input. Thank you.
Post Update: Our session has concluded. We had a full one with over 30 attending. That’s really good for a NAMA meeting today. I think this topic is still of great interest to a lot of agricultural companies and member organizations. We had some really good questions that included:
• What is the most significant benefit and most significant drawback (real or potential) of a trade association trying to improve its reputation through a significant commitment to social networking ?
• Is this a viable marketing tool for agriculture yet? Especially considering the average age of farmers is in the high 50’s.
• How widespread is use among ag audiences
• How to make $$ in the ag world with social media?
• How to combat crack-pot posters!
• How do you manage Social Media with existing staff and budget …. full time.
• How are you measuring the value?
• Compared with personal use of social media, how much are farmers using it for business and how much do they want to use it for business?
• Where is it all going?
• How do you manage the proper updating of material and responses and how do you measure the impact?
I invite you to post your responses to these questions in comments. Janice and I provided our answers in our session and would be happy to discuss these topics if you contact us.
Agri Marketing Magazine has announced two awards this year. The first one is their 2010 Product of the Year which is AgriGold’s GIANTS.
“The judges voted unanimously for AgriGold’s GIANTS,” says Lynn Henderson, Publisher of Agri Marketing. “We have set very rigorous standards for a product to be named, including the benefit and value added to the marketplace, strategic marketing, share of market and sales growth and other industry recognition the product has achieved. AgriGold’s GIANTS were voted first in all categories.”
“We will be publishing a special supplement with the next issue of Agri Marketing magazine providing in-depth look at the GIANT’S remarkable success,” says Henderson.
This is the twelfth year the magazine has been conducting its Product of the Year program. “The program is designed to recognize the outstanding technology that is being introduced to agricultural producers and the exceptional marketing program supporting it,” Henderson said.
In addition to the Product of the Year award the magazine has also announced a 2010 New Product of the Year – SmartStax Corn which was developed jointly by Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto.
“This is the first time we have awarded a NEW Product of the Year,” says Lynn Henderson, Publisher of Agri Marketing. “For over a decade, we have awarded the Product of the Year award. This year we decided to issue that award again-to a product that has been in the commercial market place for over two years-and the NEW Product that, as the name implies, is in its initial year of introduction.
“Both awards have very rigorous standards including the benefit and value added to the marketplace, strategic marketing, share of market and sales growth and other industry recognition the product has achieved,” Henderson adds.
“It is interesting to note that initial reports showed some corn hybrids containing the SmartStax trait were yielding somewhat lower than those containing triple stacks,” Henderson observes. “However, as harvest progressed and more reports were received, the SmartStax hybrids were consistently yielding higher than the triples. In addition, the judges cited the trait’s ability to provide much more comprehensive insect control, regardless of the genetics used in the hybrid.
