New Holland Seeing Pink in Australia

Chuck Zimmerman

New Holland Pink BoomerNew Holland is brave enough to wear pink. New Holland compact tractors in Australia that is.

New Holland, the global agricultural and construction equipment maker, commissioned Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) to paint five of its new compact tractors pink as part of the equipment maker’s drive to raise funds for the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Australia.

The WWL team dissembled, painted and reassembled the tractors at its specialist technical services facility in Port Kembla, the closest specialist industrial port to Sydney, Australia.

The National Breast Cancer Foundation will receive a $1000 (AUSD) donation from New Holland for each tractor sold.

Breast cancer is the most invasive cancer diagnosed in Australian women and it is the leading cause of cancer related deaths in women.

The New Holland Pink Tractor Campaign will see the tractors on display at agricultural shows across Australia in the forthcoming months.

WWL handles a significant amount of important high and heavy RoRo equipment for customisation through its vehicle processing centres in Brisbane, Port Kembla, Melbourne and Fremantle with automotive processing capacity at select locations.

‘Think Pink’ is a joint initiative between New Holland Agriculture and National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) which aims to increase awareness of breast cancer in rural Australia and raise funds towards research and support services provided by the Foundation.

Agribusiness, International, New Holland

Discussing Value of Social Media

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 230 - Discussing Social Media Including Text MessagingSince we made the change in our AgWired Mobile service this week by working with Joel Jaeger at Commodity Update I thought I’d get him on the phone to find out how things are going in the text messaging world and discuss these new media communications platforms we’ve been developing.

There is a growing amount of data from public sources like USDA-NASS to private (Nicholson Kovac, Successful Farming) that shows how fast the adoption of web based social and new media and mobile phone technology is among farmers. This means that companies and their ad agencies are scrambling to take advantage of the low cost investment in mechanisms that let them communicate directly with their customers and members. I’m betting that agribusiness still shows a lower rate of social media adoption than the general public but that gap is narrowing in my opinion. According to a post on Mashable, 2/3 of marketers now use social media in some capacity. The few who still aren’t don’t cite that they see a lack of value in social media but rather that they don’t know where to begin or how to measure effectiveness. This according to a story on eMarketer. Ahh, that measurable effectiveness thing. I just wonder how marketers measure the effectiveness of any campaign, including ones that use traditional media options. Do you know? I don’t believe that “impressions” necessarily means anything. I’d rather know how much product I sold as a result of my marketing investment. How are you measuring that? Are you measuring that?

So, listen to my conversation with Joel as we kind of ramble along about these subjects and bring up some anecdotes from our own experiences.

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our Subscribe page.

Audio, Social Networking, ZimmCast

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • The 5th annual Missouri Friends of Injured Marines Golf Outing will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 30, 2009, at the Country Club at the Legends in Eureka, Mo.
  • New Holland’s new H5920 deluxe carted wheel rake builds windrows perfectly matched for crop and field conditions.
  • Swanson Russell has won the assignment to work with AGCO on marketing communications for the Challenger brand of agricultural equipment.
  • Asoyia recently added Ann Utter to their staff as assistant grower program manager. Utter will be responsible for monitoring and managing the production of identity preserved Asoyia ULTRA low linolenic soybeans to ensure quality standards are met.
  • Farm Progress Companies has retooled and launched FarmFutures.com to provide users with a more feature-packed and flexible Internet portal.
Zimfo Bytes

AgChat at Farm Progress Show

Chuck Zimmerman

AgChatIf you’re going to the Farm Progress Show and you have never participated in AgChat, the weekly Twitter conversation/community for agriculture, then you’re going to have several chances to learn more about it. AgChat will be on display along with all the latest products and services. AgChat is for farmers, in fact for anyone involved in providing food, fuel, feed and fiber as well as consumers. The audience is growing and it’s providing some good interaction with people who want and need to understand agriculture today.

“AgChat gives farmers a stronger voice and leverages the power of the agricultural community,” notes Michele Payn-Knoper, Certified Speaking Professional and founder of #AgChat. “We see upwards of 1,000 “tweets” during our two hour discussion every Tuesday night, cementing this tool as an important venue for sharing views and ideas on current food and farm topics, from antibiotic use to mainstream media misinformation about agriculture.”

On Tuesday, September 1, Farm Progress attendees can learn more about this social media tool at two #AgChat events:

• Tweetup: A networking and #AgChat demonstration for those in agriculture who are a part of Twitter, or want to see it in action. From 3-5 p.m., in the Country Financial tent, booth 749 on 7th Street, join Payn-Knoper and others in the #AgChat community, who will answer any questions you have. Refreshments will be served.

• #AgChat live: Join other farmers and agribusiness to participate in this fast-paced streaming “convo” on Twitter. Tweet and talk with several of the chat regulars, or just watch the community in action. Payn-Knoper will be moderating live from Farm Progress, 7-9 p.m., in the Decatur Conference Center & Hotel Illini Room. Bioenergy is the topic for the Sept. 1 chat. Other #AgChat participants will be joining in the streaming conversation from locations around the world.

“Our goal is to pull back the curtain for the next wave of adopters of these tools, and to reveal both the simplicity and power of social media in communicating about agriculture. We want farmers to experience that special act of reaching out across the virtual fence to communicate not only with other farmers, but with moms, journalists and others who are interested in gaining a broader perspective on food and agriculture. It also gives us an opportunity to ‘listen louder’ to thought leaders and consumers about their food interests.”

Farm Progress Show

PIC Helps Hog Producers Improve Performance

Cindy Zimmerman

There are still hog producers in business in Iowa and they are more dedicated than ever to producing a quality product for consumers at the best price possible.

PIC John JeckelThat was my take away from a meeting I attended this week in Washington, IA to gather some audio, photos and video for our friends at PIC International to use for some on-line marketing. PIC stands for Pig Improvement Company and account manager John Jeckel says the company was started 40 years ago by a half dozen pork producers in England to improve the genetics of their animals. “PIC’s competitive advantage in the market place is feed efficiency and growth rate,” John says.

PIC Cliff JonesBut genetics can only do so much and the rest is up to the producer. Cliff Jones with PIC’s tech services says they work with producers to help them achieve the maximum genetic potential from their animals with the proper care and he gave the producers in Washington an abbreviated version of PIC’s Farm Managers Boot Camp that they sponsor. “The key focus point is just to pay attention to the pigs,” Cliff says.

What was really interesting to me was the fact that these producers are really dedicated to taking the best possible care of their animals. “Take care of the pigs just like you would take care of your family,” Cliff said. “Take care of the animals and feed the world, that’s what our focus should be.”

Listen to an interview with John and Cliff here:

Audio, Pork, Swine

BASF Plant Sciences NutriDense Blog

Chuck Zimmerman

NutriDenseMore of the BASF ag divisions are entering the social media world. Now BASF Plant Sciences has unveiled a new blog for NutriDense. It’s refreshing to see agencies that are becoming more willing to work with their clients on these types of projects.

The blog will be updated regularly with podcasts, videos and articles from BASF Plant Science executives and NutriDense technical staff. The Web site features the striking look of the NU Day advertising campaign as well as product information, customer video testimonials and an updated media kit.

“The NutriDense blog was created to educate and inform readers about the exciting work going on at NutriDense and BASF Plant Science,” said Fran Castle, BASF Plant Science North American group communication manager. “The blog provides an ideal way to connect with customers and stakeholders through postings relevant to agricultural biotechnology and animal nutrition. After reading blog posts, listening to podcasts or watching videos, followers can join in the conversation by leaving comments.”

Visit the blog at www.nutridense.com/blog, and the Web site at www.nutridense.com.

Agencies, Agribusiness, BASF

Ag Leader Technology Providing Insights Weekly

Chuck Zimmerman

Insights WeeklyOur Precision Pays.com website welcomes new long term sponsor, Ag Leader Technology. Besides direct advertising on the site they’re sponsoring a weekly story called “Insights Weekly.” You can read the first installment below.

As we’re well into the dog days of summer, Midwest corn and soybean harvest is looming larger. If you haven’t started combine prep already, it’s time to dust off those owner’s manuals to fine-tune the machine and its data-gathering electronics.

Ag Leader Technology, a sponsor of PrecisionPays.com, offers some good advice in a pre-harvest checklist for owners of their InSight and EDGE displays:

• Create a backup of your spring information.
• Select Copy All Files to save the spring data to the memory card.
• Make sure your display firmware, manual and all connected modules are up-to-date.
• Firmware and manual updates can be found on its website under Support. If you have purchased a new combine or new heads, create new configurations for any setup that is different from last fall. Remove all old configurations.

Combine Inspection
• Check to make sure all cables are properly attached and in good condition.
• Remove flow sensor and inspect for damage.
• Check the elevator deflector and impact plate for wear. Verify you have the proper clearance at the top of the clean grain elevator. Clearance should be between 3/8” and 5/8”.

Other items on the Ag Leader checklist include: sensor calibration, header stop height, distance calibration, temperature and moisture check and grain weight. Consult your manual in all cases. And if you’ve lost it, you can find them on the website.

For more information on pre-harvest preparation, Check out these links:

Yield monitor calibration: Garbage in garbage out – Purdue University.
Yield monitor calibration tips – Ohio State University.
Tips to cut combine breakdowns – Corn & Soybean Digest.

Ag Leader Technology publishes a periodic newsletter called “Insights.” You can subscribe to an rss feed of their news releases and the newsletter with this link.

Advertising, Agribusiness, Precision Agriculture, ZimmComm Announcement

New & Improved AgWired Mobile Launches

Chuck Zimmerman

AgWired MobileWe’re making a major change to our AgWired Mobile service starting today. As many of you who have subscribed know, we’ve been sending custom text messages via AgWired Mobile when we see important information that we believe you’d be interested in knowing. Feedback has been great. However, we found that most of what we posted via AgWired Mobile was also being posted on AgWired which was a real duplication of effort.

With the help of Commodity Update’s Joel Jaeger, we built a way to direct the AgWired feed to our mobile text service so subscribers will now receive texts for each post on AgWired containing the post title and link to the post. We’ve set it up to only send texts between 8am and 8pm central time since you know that we do some late night posts. We won’t be waking you up with texts in the middle of the night!

In addition to this announcement we’re also implementing a mobile phone web browser version of AgWired and all the ZimmComm News Network sites that include Domestic Fuel.com, Precision Pays.com and World Dairy Diary.com. We hope to have that implemented very soon. Then when you get your AgWired Mobile text on your phone the link will take you to a very simple text only version of the post/website. Now how’s that for some new innovation?

To sign up for AgWired Mobile all you have to do is text the word agwired to 46786 and you will get your AgWired news fresh and conveniently wherever you are. Don’t wind up wishing you had seen a story but didn’t have the time or ability to check online.

Uncategorized

Gateway NAMA Board Meets

Chuck Zimmerman

Gateway NAMA BoardThe Gateway NAMA board met yesterday for some program/membership planning. I’m waiting on a summary of what we accomplished to help with member communications. I can tell you that we’ve been pretty inactive but with some fresh talent in leadership hopefully we’ll change that around this coming year. We’re looking at a mix of fun and educational sessions that will be of interest to all members.

I just thought I’d share this with you and encourage you to become a NAMA member and get involved in your nearest chapter or at least participate in the national events like the annual convention or fall Trends In Agriculture conference. You’ll be glad you did even for no other reason than the networking and contacts you’ll make.

NAMA

Carbon and Land Use Models Being Discussed

Chuck Zimmerman

NCGA Land Use ConferenceDo you understand things like indirect land use when it comes to regulations via departments like the EPA due to the RFS? Me either. And I’ve sat in on conferences and discussions and interviews on the subject for a while now. That’s because an issue like indirect land use involves predicting the future based on certain assumptions that may or may not be valid, especially if they’re based on out of date data and information. So that’s part of what the NCGA is dealing with at their Land Use and Carbon Impacts of Corn-Based Ethanol Conference which has many different presenters talking about their models and research. A large crowd is gathered to ask them questions.

The Conference Chairman is Jamey Cline, NCGA Director Biofuels and Business Development. I caught up to him on a break to learn why NCGA was conducting this event and what they hope to achieve as a result.

Jamey says that regulations from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and from EPA on the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) have brought up a number of questions and this conference was put together to ask them and receive answers in a public forum with various stakeholders. A lot of these current or proposed regulations are based on assumptions and economic theory and so questions need to be asked to make sure the latest data is being used and reasonable predictions are made for the future. He says that these issues are extremely important to agribusiness and corn growers in particular because if the CARB regs hold up, by 2012 they will effectively shut off that market to ethanol. Additionally, one presenter said that due to the proposed climate change bill and RFS, approximately 27.1 million acres would be taken out of production across the Unites States. That would have a huge impact on our economy, especially in rural areas.

Ag Groups, Audio, Biofuels, Corn, NCGA