A great way to support the Ag Media Summit and Agricultural Relations Council is to get your bid in on the silent auction. There are some great items.
I spoke with Mark Ingbritson who is keeping an eye on the auction area. He says the proceeds are split between ARC and AMS to help out students.
Mark Ingbritson Interview
The winner of the Livestock Publications Council Forrest Bassford Award this year is Lisa Brown, Oklahoma State University. The award is sponsored by Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health. It was presented during the luncheon today at the Ag Media Summit.
The student winner receives an all-expenses-paid trip to participate in LPC’s annual convention and now the Ag Media Summit. This award recognizes and rewards excellence, leadership and encourages professionalism among students. This opportunity provides the recipient face-to-face exchanges with leaders in livestock publishing. Forrest Bassford’s name was appended to the LPC Student Award in 1992 in honor of his contribution to LPC, and his particular interest in furthering the Student Award. The overall winner receives a $2,000 scholarship and up to four additional students each receive $750 travel scholarships to attend the convention.
2010 Ag Media Summit Photo Album
The Ag Media Summit is officially underway. Some are out golfing and some of us are attending educational sessions at the hotel.
If you can’t be here with us then some sessions are being live streamed. You can click on the player below to see the current stream.
Want to take in all the information you can from Ag Media Summit, but can’t attend in person? Join the conversation live: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ag-media-summit.
Video clips at Ustream
The good folks at Leica Geosystems have found plenty to talk about at the 10th International Conference on Precision Agriculture. And why shouldn’t they? Leica is into precision agriculture systems, and it’s definitely for farms just about anywhere in the world.
“It’s important for us to be here to show people where Leica comes from [and] our product range,” Rob Kiernan, Leica’s Global Sales and Marketing Manager told me.
He says while agriculture is different in other parts of the world … some places focus on huge fields, while many farmers work in numbers of acres that you could count on one hand … there is a need to have precision technology, such as Leica offers.
“If we have the core technology of the GPS, it does benefit agriculture across the regions [of the world]. We’ve always looked at the big fields, but the small fields are equally important.”
You can hear more of my conversation with Rob by listening to it or downloading it from the player here: Rob Kiernan, Leica Geosystems
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When it has to be RIGHT!
The 2010 Ag Media Summit got off to an official start this weekend. I joined up in time to go on the welcome reception cruise. It was a good one. In fact, I’m kind of at a loss for words how to describe it. So I guess I’ll just have to let the photo album tell the story. We had awards for the best dressed “Minnesotan” and I’ve got them in the photo album including these winners.
I also caught some of our winners early on the dock before the cruise, getting in the mood.
I am ready for some rolling on the river at the Ag Media Summit. Just got in and got registered. Now getting ready for our evening welcome reception.
Of course I’ve got a photo album started. There will be plenty more added to it in coming days so keep your eye on it and see who you know.
2010 Ag Media Summit Photo Album
Don Koehler, Executive Director, Georgia Peanut Commission, helped me wrap things up for the Southern Peanut Growers Conference. As of this point in time everyone has a free afternoon before our concluding dinner this evening. I’ll be adding some photos from that event to the photo album. You can also find another set of photos taken by Joy Carter, Georgia Peanut Commission on her photo album with this link.
Don says the conference attendance has been consistent with previous years in spite of the economy and gulf oil worries. He says farmers are all positive and that’s the best word to describe the conference. The mood is upbeat and even with some areas needing some rain. He’s looking forward to conference number 13 next year. The move to an end of the week program has been very positive so that’s likely to be the schedule next year too. Don Koehler Interview
Joy and I will be heading north tomorrow to join the Ag Media Summit which is already in progress.
It’s always good to hear from our presenters and sponsors but what about our growers? Let’s find out what a peanut farmer thinks about the Southern Peanut Growers Conference.
I spoke with Steve “Beaver” Yoder, Altha, FL. Steve brings his family as many peanut farmers do. They look forward to it as a “tradition” and it shows his children what he does and how he keeps himself informed as a farmer. He sees the conference as a great opportunity to combine some vacation time with a professional improvement conference. He says his peanut crop is off to a good start by the way. That’s what I’m hearing a lot in the hallways.
Steve Yoder Interview
It’s an effort to bring high-quality information to corn farmers so they can improve their bottom line. But Bill Wyffels, who is the President and owns Wyffels Hybrids along with his brother Bob, likes to describe the Wyffels Hybrids Corn Strategies 2010 held in a tent on the Cummings family farm just outside of the eastern Iowa town of Malcom a little differently.
“It’s kind of a combination of family reunion and state fair atmosphere.”
Family reunion … if you have about 600 members who plant corn for a living. And if you’re from a family that big (gee, sounds like an Iowa Catholic family from my neighborhood!), there are some family members who you might not even know. Wyffels says they’re also trying to introduce themselves to more farmers by setting themselves apart from the big seed companies.
“Wyffels is quite unique. We only sell hybrid corn. We mostly do business in Illinois and Iowa, and the name of the company is kind of a funny name.”
But besides the family-owned apsect that lends Wyffels that “funny name,” the company makes its mark by its level of customer service … where the farmers they sell to are their friends and partners in business.
“There’s more than what’s in the bag. There’s a personalization. We need to know the needs of every individual farmer. We need to know about his land. We need to prescribe those products and how to use those products to maximize his profitability on his farm.”
Wyffels says his company’s small size does give it a bit of advantage when going up against some of the big boys in the seed corn business as they’re able to have a more personal touch.
“It’s been part of our culture for a long, long time. The office where I grew up was the kitchen table. Farmers would buy seed from my father, and it’s kind of ingrained into the other family members.”
Wyffels says they started offering this type of event five years ago, when just about 60 growers showed up. Now, even as it’s grown to more than 600 corn farmers at each of the two locations where it’s offered, Wyffels sees it as another chance to touch people.
You can hear or download my entire conversation with Bill here: Bill Wyffels
