An IFAJ Congress Retrospective

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 259Thanks to that volcanic ash cloud I could not attend this year’s IFAJ Congress in Ostend, Belgium. To get a retrospective from someone who did attend I spoke with IFAJ President, Mike Wilson, Editor, Farm Futures. Mike found the event inspirational in a number of ways and wrote about his experience on the IFAJ website.

To start with, he marveled at the determination of people who went way out of their way to make it even when it involved extra expense and time to get there. Additionally, he was impressed with the organizers who never lost their cool and kept a positive attitude. Fortunately, IFAJ always has pre-Congress tours and these were well attended this year. That meant that a lot of people were there before the ash cloud problem started. So give the program a listen and let’s all look forward to a great Congress in Canada next year!

Since the IFAJ Congress was in Belgium the program ends with a song titled, “Strolling Through Belgium” by Three Fine Lines from Music Alley.

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsors, Novus International, and Leica Geosytems for their support.

You can listen to this week’s ZimmCast below.

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, IFAJ, ZimmCast

Record Crop Progress

Cindy Zimmerman

kelly robertson cornRecord planting progress continued around the country last week, despite the rain, and corn planting is breaking records.

USDA reports that 68 percent of the corn crop was planted by Sunday. That’s 28 percent more than the five year average and five percent more than the previous record for this time of year in 2004. Emergence is at 19 percent, ten percent more than normal. Kelly Robertson of Benton, Illinois had time to take some creative shots of his corn breaking ground last week. USDA reports that 39 percent of the crop in Illinois has emerged already – way ahead of normal – with 87 percent planted. Amazing progress!

Soybean planting is now underway as well, with 15 percent planted, seven percent more than average. Cotton and sorghum are also doing well.

Here is another corn planting video – uploaded via TwitVid last week by Mark McHargue of Nebraska.

Corn, Farming, Video

Bayer CropScience Completes Expansion Project

Chuck Zimmerman

Bayer CropScience has announced the completion of their $15 million expansion of the company’s Muskegon, MI crop protection manufacturing site. You’ve got to love getting pictures with a release!

Area elected and civic officials joined company global and local executives for a ribbon-cutting event to celebrate completion of the two-year project. The expansion is adding 10 full-time employees at the site, bringing total employment there to 60.

“The expansion demonstrates our company’s on-going strategic commitment to providing agronomic solutions for U.S. corn, cotton, canola and soybean farmers,” said Wolfgang Welter, Member of the Board of Management responsible for Industrial Operations at Bayer CropScience. “This multi-million investment in our glufosinate ammonium plant provides the capacity increase we need to further expand our highly successful Ignite brand herbicide in the United States.”

Pictured left to right at the Muskegon ribbon-cutting event are: Chris Evans, Head of Manufacturing, Americas; Michigan State Senator Jerry Van Woerkom; Andy Hurst, Bayer CropScience Product Manager; Michigan State Representative Mary Valentine; Wolfgang Welter, Head of Industrial Operations; Harold Lofton, Plant Manager; Lothar Doellinger, Head of Technology, Investments & Site Support; and Karl Bloss, Senior Process Engineer.

Agribusiness

Live Stream of LPC/AAEA Midwest Workshop

Chuck Zimmerman

The Livestock Publications Council and AAEA are live streaming their Midwest Regional Workshop right now. Just got the notification.

At the last minute we were able to go ahead and stream today’s workshop in Des Moines. Join us now as Crystal Young discusses videography. Followed by a tremendous line up of speakers.

Post Update: There were up to 70 people viewing the live stream today which is more than attended the event. I guess we got the word out, eh? It really shows how valuable this tool can be. Great job by Jeff Caldwell and others I don’t have names for. It’s my understanding the organization members will find videos of the presentations on their websites within the next week.

AAEA, LPC

National Beef Ambassador Earth Day Photo Contest Winners

Chuck Zimmerman

Here’s the winning photo in the National Beef Ambassador “Farmers and Ranchers Care” Earth Day photo contest. It was taken by Kaylyn Groce of Silver City, N.C.

In order to participate, the first requirement was to become a fan of the National Beef Ambassadors on Facebook and upload a photo to that page showcasing how they, as beef producers, are involved in caring for the environment. To date, the Facebook page has more than 2,000 fans.

Voting took place by ‘liking’ the photos and the winners were determined by the number of ‘likes’. On Earth Day, the winners of the photo contest were announced.

In total, 83 photos were posted. The winning photo became the National Beef Ambassador’s Facebook profile picture for one week and was also featured in Beef Ambassador Malorie Bankhead’s blog post on Earth Day. The winner of the contest also received a $50 beef gift certificate; 2nd and 3rd place winners each received a $25 beef gift certificate and appeared in Malorie’s blog post on April 23.

The winners were: 1st: Kaylyn Groce of Silver City, N.C.; 2nd: Sunny Taylor of Kaycee, Wy.; and 3rd: Allison Boggs of Martin, S.D.

Beef

SEGMENTrak Solicits Consumer Opinions On Food Production

Chuck Zimmerman

Demeter Communications has asked consumers some questions about food production and you might find the answers interesting. They launched a proprietary market research tool called SEGMENTrak to do this.

Demeter Communications has set out to track opinions about food production practices among “indicator consumers.”

“We want to shift from a defensive position to one of proactively talking to consumers about how their food is produced,” said Claudine Wargel, M.S., senior partner with Demeter Communications, and the market researcher who heads up the project.

These data are part of Demeter’s targeted market research tool, SegmenTrakTM, a nationally-representative consumer opinion tracking survey fielded for the first time earlier this year. The online study focused on those likely to adapt perceptions and practices ahead of the general public – what Demeter calls “”indicator consumers.”

“Successfully explaining in consumer terms how food is produced has really become a requirement for product acceptance,” said Claudine Wargel, senior partner with Demeter Communications. The firm specializes in helping agricultural companies and associations connect with consumers and their influencers. Demeter’s first SegmenTrakTM study was conducted in February 2010. The data show that while indicator consumers think favorably of farmers, they have a number of questions about their on-farm practices and how they impact food. SegmenTrakTM explores what consumers want to know from farmers and what they would change about modern food production, as well as where they currently get their information about how food is produced.

More than three-fourths want to know more about “measures used to produce safe food” (76 percent “agree/strongly agree”). The next response was “ways they ensure animal care” (68 percent “agree/strongly agree”). Also ranked highly were “measures they take to protect the water” (64 percent) and “how they make farming sustainable” (61 percent). Wargel said that while this was an aided response question, it reveals a significant point.

You can find the Executive Summary here (pdf).

Agencies, Food

Mitch Rouda Revamping Farm Journal Online

Chuck Zimmerman

At the recent NAMA Convention I met Mitch Rouda who has just moved up at Farm Journal to President of their e-Media division. He has responsibility for all e-Media activity, including growth of the company’s 20 current e-titles and all online development, merger and acquisition activity. Mitch is a long time web guy who had his own business before joining Farm Journal

Mitch RoudaI interviewed Mitch in between his own interviews that he was conducting at the Farm Journal reception to announce their new re-build of AgWeb.com which will be published this summer. He says it will be a complete re-do. One of the main changes will be in navigation to find information you’re looking for. He says there are 8,000 pages on the site now. It will also have a mobile version available too. You can see pictures and video from the reception on their Facebook page.

We also talked about other things including, blogs and their rise as an information source. . At the time he was waiting on his iPad since he wanted a 3G version. He sees a lot of potential for the device to be a great tool to revitalize publications.

You can listen to my interview with Mitch here.

Audio, Media

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Sandra E. Peterson (51) is to be the new Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience AG. Click here for a complete listing of Board appointments.
  • Dairy producers, through their checkoff investment, will once again award 20 academic scholarships to students currently enrolled in programs that emphasize dairy and who have shown potential to become future dairy leaders.
  • Ag Leader Technology, Inc, added dual product control for application operations to the popular EDGE display.
  • A decade after it first asked the federal Food and Drug Administration to crack down on the misappropriation of dairy terminology on imitation milk products, the National Milk Producers Federation sent another petition to the FDA, asserting that the practice has gotten worse in the past 10 years.
    Zimfo Bytes

    Great People Make for Great Day at Novus

    John Davis

    What a great day and great enthusiasm by the people at Novus International and the Missouri Colleges Fund scholar students during Novus’ 2nd annual “Science: A Foundation for Dynamic Careers” days! The Novus staff exuded enthusiasm in their presentations to the students, and the students reciprocated in their enthusiasm for what they learned.

    Anna Arthur, a sophomore majoring in biological chemistry and minoring in psychology at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Mo., was typical of that engaged attitude (you can’t believe how much she wanted to win a t-shirt during the impromptu trivia contests during the tour!). She really seemed to cling to about every word the Novus staff had to say … not bad considering she wasn’t even sure she was going to be able to make it.

    “I’m so glad I did because I’ve gotten such a great impression from the people and from even just the facilities themselves.”

    In fact, she’s hoping to do an internship with Novus this summer. And Arthur feels that with the wide variety of jobs available, there will be plenty of opportunities.

    “It really opened my eyes to the fact that even if your major is in just one area of science that can still be brought into marketing aspects or sales aspects or all different areas which I never really thought about before.” She adds that it’s good to know Novus gives employees chances to advance and move through the company and is the kind of place where she might like to work one day after graduation.

    Arthur was also impressed how the Novus labs were a practical application of what she’s learning in the classroom.

    “It was fun today to hear them talk about the different tests they’re doing ion the labs and to say ‘I just did some of those tests myself a couple of weeks ago in my [school] lab. It’s really cool to be able to apply what you’ve done in the actual work place.”

    More of my conversation with Anna is available in the player below.

    2010 Novus International Science: A Foundation for Dynamic Careers Photo Album

    Audio, Novus International