Thank you America’s farmers and ranchers for all you do. I want to especially thank Michigan’s beef producers. Sorry you had to put up with that silliness from your Governor.
I made some steak choices today and they were good. Never let a little sleet and rain stop a good steak to celebrate Ag Day.
If you’ve enjoyed a good steak then feel free to post onto Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s Facebook page or on the Great American Steak Out. I have.
Earlier this week, my sister, Kaley, and I participated in Ag in the Classroom, an annual event held at the 4-H grounds in Mitchell, SD. Educational stations were set up to teach students about beef, dairy, pigs, sheep, horses, soil and farm safety. Kaley and I hosted the beef booth, complete with a baby calf, arial photograph of our farm and a table displaying beef by-products.
Nearly 300 students attended this event, and it’s truly an honor to be able to work with area fourth graders and teach them about agriculture, food products and the hard work farmers do each and every day. They ask so many questions, and they get incredibly excited to pet a baby calf. This event only reaffirms my belief that educating our consumers should be our number one priority. Have you shared the agriculture story today?
You may have noticed updates from South Dakota have been pretty scarce lately, and I can pretty much sum up the reasons why in a few words: baby calves, snow and mud. It’s been a hectic month of March moving cow/calf pairs to the barns and dealing with flooding from the James River.
However, I haven’t been completely stuck in a hole for the last few weeks, and there have certainly been some interesting headlines filtering in my email account during National Ag Week. As a result of Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm proclaiming National Ag Today as Michigan Meat Day, Dewey Mann of Purdue started an event on Facebook called The Great American ‘Steak’ Out. Like Michigan Meat Day, this day calls for all beef lovers to enjoy a steak today and take a photo to send to the governor. Although she edited her statements, like a two-stepping politician, changing Michigan Meat Day to Michigan Ag Day, I think it’s still important to send your photos and share the positive message about meat with the governor.
On Saturday March 20th, enjoy a big ole, juicy steak and mail a picture to Michigan governor, Jennifer M. Granholm. Then you can send the picture to:
Governor Jennifer M. Granholm
P.O. Box 30013
Lansing, Michigan 48909
I will be enjoying a steak today on National Ag Day; will you?
The Agriculture Council of America has announced the 2010 National Ag Day Essay Contest winner. Her name is Christine Vanek.
ACA called upon seventh- to 12th-grade students nationwide to submit original essays of 450 words about the importance of agriculture in the U.S. Using this year’s theme, “American Agriculture – Abundant, Affordable, Amazing,” students were encouraged to focus their essays on the importance of agriculture and how the industry continues to overcome new challenges. These include keeping food affordable, meeting the demands of a growing population with fewer acres, working with legislative influences, and addressing consumer concerns.
Vanek, a 12th-grader at Greenhills School, Ann Arbor, Mich., was named the national winner of the 2010 contest during the Ag Day event held at the USDA Whitten Building Patio. Vanek read her essay to industry representatives, members of Congress, federal agency representatives, media and others at the Celebration of Agriculture dinner in Washington, D.C. The following is an excerpt from her essay:
“At seventeen, I have come to admire the work my grandfather and all American farmers do. It is thanks to the abundance of American agriculture – from the corn, soybean, and wheat fields of the Great Plains to the expansive fruit orchards in the South – that I, along with the rest of the country, have access to a wide variety of affordable, safe, nutritious foods.”
Next week I’ll be covering the International Conference on Enhanced-Efficiency Fertilizers courtesy of AGROTAIN. The event is produced by IFA-New Ag International. We’ll be kicking things off on Tuesday morning.
While at Commodity Classic I spoke with Andrew Semple, VP, International Sales for AGROTAIN. He says this category of fertilizers was created only recently. It was meant to encompass types of fertilizers that are designed to be better for the environment. This first of its kind conference will include innovators and early adopters of this new category of product. AGROTAIN was one of the pioneering companies of this type of fertilizer. They’re a major sponsor of the event.
You can listen to my interview with Andrew here.
Farmers and small business have found a crop to make them more money – clean energy. This according to a recent report from the Environmental Lay & Policy Center (ELPC) which just released “Farm Energy Success Stories” that demonstrate how a farm or small rural business adopted clean energy technologies and cut energy costs. Much of the monies that made these projects possible came from the Farm Bill’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). For example, Jim McBratney, who used a REAP grant to install a wind turbine at his Massachusetts nursery, says REAP is “…the right thing to do. It spurs industry and allows new, better technology to reach the market.”
Andy Olsen, a policy advocate for ELPC an organization that has been a public supporter of the program since its inception in 2003, said, “With the help of farmers, ranchers and rural small businesses, America can make great strides toward solving its energy problems. REAP is creating economic development, energy independence and a cleaner environment one farm at a time.”
The program has also generated new rural businesses. After Glen White slashed his energy costs by installing a solar water heating system on his Indiana farm, he began selling and installing solar energy systems on other farms and homes in the area.
Since 2003, REAP has funded over 3,000 clean energy projects, in 50 states that cover the clean energy spectrum – wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and energy efficiency. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the program receives applications for more than three times the amount of funds available, and in February, President Obama raised the funding levels to the highest amount ever to $109 million.
The U.S. Potato Board will have Don Ladhoff leading their retail efforts for their Domestic Marketing Program.
He will provide key input to strategy and guide the tactical execution of the program, with the goal of increasing demand for potatoes in the retail environment.
“I’m pleased Don has joined our team,” said Kathleen Triou, USPB’s Vice President, Domestic Marketing. “He brings considerable experience and enthusiasm to the position, and he’ll be ready to contribute from day one.”
Ladhoff was most recently the President of BrandForce, a full-service marketing agency he founded in 2008 that assisted clients including Butterball, Chiquita and T-Mobile. Prior to BrandForce, he was the Vice President of Client Solutions at Seismicom from 2006-2008, working with brands such as Nestle, Fresh Express and Challenge Dairy. From 2002 to 2006, Ladhoff was a Vice President of Account Services with MARS Advertising, developing shopper marketing programs for clients including Clorox, ConAgra Foods, Dr Pepper/Snapple and Procter & Gamble.
This is taking teating, er, I mean tweeting to a whole new level. Not only are dairy farmers getting social but so are dairy cows. From our World Dairy Diary site:
Wondering what your cows are thinking? Well, a group of Candain Holsteins is telling the world through Twitter, exactly what they are mooing about. Called “The Teat Tweet“, the project comes from the University of Waterloo’s critical media lab. You can visit this website to follow all 12 Holsteins on Twitter.
“As far as we know they’re the only cows tweeting,” said former LaSalle and Windsor resident Marcel O’Gorman who is behind the University of Waterloo’s critical media lab project.
The tweeting cows are poking fun at the popular Twitter network and are meant to push people to think about where their food comes from and the high-tech nature of farming.
“Hey human, I just pumped out 9.3 kg for your pleasure. Show me some love,” says a recent tweet of dairy cow Attention Please referring to her milk output.
It’s obviously impossible for the hoofed animals to tweet without the aid of a computer but by approaching the robotic milker, the cows do trigger a tweet. The Holstein cows have radio frequency ID tags which tell the computer whether the cow is ready for milking and the computer records how much, how fast and even which teat pumped out milk the fastest.
Dairy Management Inc. is conducting a webinar on social media for dairy producers in a couple weeks.
Dairy producers who use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to stay connected with family and friends, and producers who want to learn about these tools, are encouraged to participate in a free 90-minute webinar on Thursday, April 15 to learn how these applications can be used to share positive dairy stories and communicate with consumers about modern dairy farming practices.
Dairy Management Inc.™ (DMI), which manages the national dairy checkoff program, launched the myDairy Social Media program in 2009 to help dairy producers and dairy enthusiasts use social media proactively to share their dairy stories and counter negative or misleading information about the dairy industry. The myDairy program currently mobilizes over 1,000 dairy enthusiasts from across the country to engage in social media networks, building a strong, positive online dairy presence to help counter misinformation and maintain public confidence in dairy foods and the people who produce them. The myDairy program provides tips to navigate and use popular social media sites, along with key messages to incorporate into dairy stories, and opportunities to connect with other dairy enthusiasts and the general public.
“Consumers want to hear about the dairy industry first hand from dairy producers and social media provides an opportunity to communicate effectively with a large audience via one platform,” said David Pelzer, senior vice president of strategic communications at DMI.
To register for the webinar and/or to become a myDairy advocate and learn more about the program, email myDairy@rosedmi.com.
One producer who is out in front on this is Will Gilmer, Gilmer Dairy Farms. Here’s his latest MooTube Minute:
