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Advocating For Agriculture Awards Announced
The AG CONNECT Expo “Advocating for Agriculture” Awards winners have been announced.
Over 20,000 votes were cast for the AG CONNECT Expo Awards! Thank you to all of you who participated! And the winners are…
Ag Woman of the Year Award
Grand prize winner: Liz Doornink
Runner-up winner: Jolene Brown
Community Leadership Award
Grand prize winner: Fred Rogge
Runner-up winner: Julie Brashear
Ag Innovation Award
Grand prize winner: Samuel Petty
Runner-up winner: Christopher Callahan
Grand prize winners in each category receive a free trip to AG CONNECT Expo 2010, including roundtrip airfare for two to Orlando, Florida, from anywhere in the continental U.S., hotel accommodations for two people for up to four nights, a complimentary rental car provided for up to four days for exploring Orlando, two complimentary admissions to the show including Preview Day, and two free tickets to the Education Breakout Sessions of their choice.
Runner Up Winners in each category receive two complimentary admissions to AG CONNECT Expo 2010 including Preview Day and two all-access passes to attend their choice of 24 Education Breakout Sessions.
All winners will be honored at AG CONNECT Expo 2010 in Orlando, Florida, during the “Celebration of Agriculture” VIP reception from 4:00-6:00pm on Preview Day, January 12, 2010.
Corn Yield Contest Winners Annouced
The National Corn Yield Contest winners have been announced. It’s been a challenging growing season weather wise but yields have been great.
The National Corn Yield Contest is in its 45th year and remains NCGA’s most popular program for members. This year, NCGA has processed 6,960 entries – a 3.5 percent increase over 2008 (6,727 entries) and 41 percent increase over 2007 (4,932 entries).
“Again this year, we are excited and pleased looking at the yields achieved by our growers,” said Steve Ebke, chair of NCGA’s Production and Stewardship Action Team. “This contest highlights how, through scientific advances and grower innovation, we can meet growing demand for food, feed, fuel and fiber.”
The 24 winners in eight production categories had verified yields averaging more than 300 bushels per acre, compared to the projected national average of 162.9 bushels per acre.
While there is no overall contest winner, yields from first, second and third place farmers overall production categories ranged from 287.0744 to 346.0156 bushels per acre.
You can find all the state and national winners on the NCGA website.
Olympic Cranberries
Now this is going to be impressive. Thirteen million cranberries will be used to make a “colossal depiction of the Canadian Olympic Committee’s logo” and it will be floated in the Fraser River running in front of the Richmond Olympic Oval throughout the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
The tribute celebrates Richmond’s top agricultural crop and honors the Winter Games. The installation will float within a 46,000 sq. foot parameter in front of the Richmond Olympic Oval, home of the 2010 speed skating competitions. Built specifically for the upcoming 2010 Olympic Winter Games, this state-of-the-art building has been called the “crown jewel” of the Games, based on its award-winning architectural beauty and innovative green features.
Richmond is an official Venue City of the Games, and is Canada’s largest producer of cranberries with more than 60 family-owned farms, the majority of which are part of the Ocean Spray Cooperative.
Zimfo Bytes
- FMC Corporation announced the introduction of Broadhead rice herbicide.
- Gary Tretter, G&J Farms, of Murphysboro, Ill. was drawn as the winner in a random drawing, and he now has the opportunity to demo a Challenger tractor on his operation.
- The Alltech-Muhammad Ali Center Global Education and Charitable Fund recently launched a cell phone recycling program. Proceeds from the sale of the phones will go to the Fund which raises money to support a range of educational and humanitarian initiatives around the world.
- The National Cotton Council has announced that early registration for the 2010 Beltwide Cotton Conferences has been extended until Dec. 23.
Holiday Greeting From IFAS
Thank you for the holiday wishes Mark McLellan, Dean of Research for the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
If you have a holiday card you’d like to share then send it on.
Judging from the slowdown in my email inbox, business activity has also started the holiday slowdown. A lot of companies take the next week or two off. I think that’s a good idea.
It’s a nice time to re-charge your batteries and as one of my former employers always had us do, throw away all the unnecessary stuff you collected in your files and office during the year. It’s amazing how much you collect and think you have to keep “just in case.”
The Agency Formerly Known As Pure Marketing
Pure was known as Pure Marketing & Media. Now the name is purely Pure. The company just announced the launch of a new brand identity built around its exclusive p.u.r.i.f.y.™ brand development process.
The new identity includes an enhanced Web site as well as a dramatic new logo and supporting tag line: Distilling potent brands™.
“At Pure, we believe there’s an underlying reason why many brands are lifeless, stagnant or worn-out,” noted Brent Beshore, Pure’s president and chief executive officer. “They often contain impurities such as false assumptions about one’s market or target audience, unfocused positioning, inconsistent messaging, uninspired creative or ineffective communications channels.
“This is indeed an exciting time for everyone at Pure,” stated Steve Engle, president of Pure Ag—the company’s agribusiness unit. “Unlike traditional advertising and PR agencies, we back our full-service claim with a wealth of internal resources.
Beach Blogging
Agriblogging will be happening from the beach for a few days as Cindy and I try to escape the cold, almost winter, temperatures. Although it’s looking like we’re going to have some weather move in tonight.
It looks like a chunk of the southeast has had too much rain for a change. We drove past several flooding rivers in Alabama and a couple of inches of new rain are expected by tomorrow. I guess it’s all that “climate change” stuff going on, eh?
The picture is the view from our deck and actually most any window we look out of here in Panama City Beach.
Obama Administration Partners with Ranchers to Combat Climate Change
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack today spoke at the key note event, Clean Energy Investments: Creating Opportunities for Rural Economies, at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, according to a recent release by USDA. In an effort to improve the environment, Vilsack hopes to provide opportunities for food producers to do just that.
“Rural economies will benefit from incentives in comprehensive energy legislation that reward production of renewable energy and sequestration of greenhouse gases,” said Vilsack.
Climate change is one of the great challenges facing the United States and the world. But for our farmers, ranchers, and those who make a living off the land, the challenge presents unprecedented opportunities. Secretary Vilsack shared how the Administration is actively partnering with rural communities to create solutions for curbing greenhouse gases and preventing the worst impacts of climate change.
Secretary Vilsack shared how the Administration is actively partnering with rural communities to create solutions for curbing greenhouse gases and preventing the worst impacts of climate change.
To read the entire article and learn more about the program, link here.
Headline Harvest Report from Conrad, Iowa
Getting these BASF Headline harvest reports done this fall (yes, it is still fall) has been a challenge, to put it mildly. We’ve been trying desperately to get interviews set up with farmers since late October – in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. We did okay in Missouri, but when the harvest kept getting later and the rain kept falling, it just continued to get postponed. We had to cancel a trip to Iowa last week when the blizzard came through, but we went up this week even with below zero temperatures
Our second day in the frigid state brought us to the home of Brent Schipper of Conrad, where we had to record in the office to avoid becoming popsicles. Despite the weather challenges and a late harvest, Brent is very pleased with his crop this year, which was helped by Headline fungicide. “With the late harvest, the corn did stand very well,” Brent said. “The yield increase helped because Headline eliminated some of the disease pressure we had from the cool, wet weather.”
Brent saw a yield advantage of 4-5 bushels on soybeans and 10-20 on corn because of Headline, which he has been using for about six years now. There were some acres he did not spray with Headline, but because he saw such a definite yield difference this year, everything will be sprayed next year. “It showed one year of not spraying everything cost us in the end,” he said. “It’s a good insurance policy.”
Watch the video interview and listen to or download the audio of my interview with Brent below.