Let’s Be Safe and Healthy Out There

Chuck Zimmerman

National Farm Safety & Health WeekIt’s official when the President signs off on it (pdf).

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 20 through September 26, 2009, as National Farm Safety and Health Week. I call upon the people of the United States to join me in celebrating the vital contributions of farmers and ranchers to our Nation and in reflecting upon the importance of farm safety and health in communities across America.

The National Education Center for Agricultural Safety wants us to have a harvest full of safety and health.

The National Education Center for Agricultural Safety (NECAS) is dedicated to preventing illnesses, injuries, and deaths among farmers and ranchers, agricultural and horticultural workers, their families, and their employees. In 1997, we opened NECAS on the Northeast Iowa Community College Peosta Campus. NECAS is the only organization with hands-on farm equipment safety training center. The facility also houses classrooms and a library and resource center.

Our concern for safety in rural areas goes beyond farms and ranches. The need for our services spreads from citrus groves in the South to vineyards in the West. It covers cattle ranches in Wyoming, fisheries in Maine, and thousands of ventures in between.

Farming, Safety

Lots of Views For American Angus Videos

Chuck Zimmerman

You can’t have viewers unless you put something out there for people to view. The American Angus Association has been doing that with 52 videos in their YouTube channel now. How about views? I’ll bet they’ve got way more than a video clip placed on an internal static web page somewhere where no one can find it!

Nearly 60,000 Internet users have viewed Angus and Angus-related videos on American Angus Association®’s YouTube channel during the last year. The majority of those views have taken place during just the last six months – and traffic continues to grow each day. In fact, during August and September alone, the channel garnered more than 20,000 unique views, an indication that producers and consumers alike have identified the channel as a popular web-based destination for news, information and entertainment.

“The Association has been an industry leader in using social networking web sites not only to inform the industry about Angus cattle, but also to advance a positive message about cattle producers and their commitment to producing humanely raised, high-quality beef,” says Bryce Schumann, Association chief executive officer.

Interestingly, viewers between the ages of 45 and 54 comprised the largest portion (42%) of the channel’s audience; 58% of viewers were male.

The Association will leverage its accelerating YouTube presence to reach an even wider audience in the future. Two weeks ago, it used the web site to launch its national advertising campaign, enabling anyone in the world to learn about the economic advantages of the breed, and for Angus breeders to use 30-second video ads on their own web sites – at no cost.

Here’s an example of one:

Ag Groups, Video

Agriculture and Social Media

Amanda Nolz

facebook It was a rainy, cloudy day today in Mitchell, S.D., and like the weather, I wasn’t feeling a little cheerful. For the life of me, I couldn’t concentrate and get my writing assignments done. So, like any procrastinator, instead of dealing with the problem, I logged onto Facebook. On my status update, I wrote, “Writer’s block…” Soon after, I had a slew of suggestions and ideas for stories on agriculture. Ideas included: college kids not getting enough meat, beef demand, milk industry crisis, hi-tech beef communication efforts of the beef ambassadors, National Farm Safety and Health Week, and how agriculture has collided with social media sites.

Of course (thanks to my dear Facebook friends), my mind was full of ideas to pursue at that point, but the one I thought would make a great discussion on AgWired is the topic of how agriculture is adapting to social media and networking. Many of us in agriculture are already tuned into blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., but do we look to see how they have impacted our communication efforts? We have gone from snail-mail to instant connections online. How has that changed us as a society? How can we reach out to consumers across the globe with the positive messages on agriculture that they need to hear? What are your success stories, and what lessons have you learned through your own social media efforts?

Follow me on Twitter @AmandaNolz

Social Networking

Beef Ambassadors Reporting From National Beef Cook-Off

Amanda Nolz

IMG_2047 It was only a few months ago when Chuck and Cindy made the decision to sponsor the National Beef Ambassadors’ new blog, where they could chronicle their travels and discuss the beef industry issues in an open forum for consumers and producers alike. This summer at the 2009 Cattle Industry Summer Conference, I had the opportunity to train the ambassadors on blogging techniques and social networking tricks to help empower them to share the agriculture story online. Since then, the ambassadors have been working non-stop in their duties and have developed quite a following online for their efforts.

This week, they are reporting from sunny Sonoma, Calif. where the 2009 National Beef Cook-off is being held. 15 home cooks and six professional chefs are competing for the championships in thier Sonoma-style inspired recipes. Check out the ambassador’s new You Tube Channel; here here is their first video from the National Beef Cook-off! Way to go ambassadors!

Beef

MyFood-a-pedia

Chuck Zimmerman

MyFood-a-pediaFor those of you who want to analyze everything that passes your lips USDA has a new web page that will give you the details on any food products.

MyFood-a-pedia – The much anticipated MyFood-a-pedia is a new online tool that gives consumers quick access to nutrition information for over 1,000 foods. The MyFood-a-pedia provides calorie count information on the contribution of the food to the five food groups people need to be healthy. MyFood-a-pedia, located at www.MyFoodapedia.gov, also provides the number of “extra” calories in foods from solid fats, added sugars, and alcohol.

I’m sure this will help some people but it just kind of takes some of the taste out of food for me. Just for the record, I was not anticipating this.

Food, USDA

Syngenta Seed Breeders in Paradise

Cindy Zimmerman

Syngenta Seeds Ben HableWhy is this man smiling? Probably because he spends about half the year in Hawaii working on new corn seed hybrids for growers to plant back here on the mainland.

Ben Hable (pronounced Hobbly) is Syngenta Seeds Corn Product Development Lead. During an agricultural media seminar following the grand opening of the new Syngenta Seeds headquarters in Minnetonka, MN this week, Ben said that producing seed corn in Hawaii allows them to fast track new products to market. “In Hawaii we can actually turn a crop every 3 and a half months so we can increase the seeds that we need to get back here to the mainland for seed production,” Ben told me during an interview. “Syngenta now has over 300 full time staff in the state of Hawaii working on corn and soybean seed production.”

Ben told us that seed corn is now Hawaii’s biggest cash crop, and he was telling the truth. Just today, a story came out of Honolulu about the latest report from the the Hawaii Field Office of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) that says the value of Hawaii’s seed industry for the 2008/2009 season was a “record high” of $176.6 million. Seed corn accounts for $169.3 million, or 96 percent, of the total value.

A recent Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation study shows that seed crops have become the largest agricultural commodity in the state, exceeding the value of both sugar and pineapple by 180 percent and 90 percent, respectively. The photo is of seed corn growing on the island of Molokai.

Listen to or download my interview with Ben Hable below.
Sponsored by

Audio, Corn, Seed, Syngenta

FuelChat Session at 2pm Eastern Today

Chuck Zimmerman

fuel chatThis is a reminder that today at 2:00pm Eastern time the Renewable Fuels Association will be hosting another 1 hour online Twitter chat session. It’s FuelChat and you will have the chance to ask questions and interact with others on the subject of ethanol. I’ll be working with RFA as moderator for today’s session.

There are a number of mechanisms you can use to follow along and participate. We recommend TweetChat. Just go to TweetChat.com, log in with your Twitter account login and then enter the search term, #fuelchat. TweetChat will display a live list of Twitter posts that use the #fuelchat “hashtag” and you can read them, reply to them or enter your own. Another useful mechanism is Twitterfall.

If you’ve never used Twitter and don’t have a free account, you can still go to Search.Twitter.com and search for #fuelchat to see the results. You will need to manually refresh the page to see new ones as they are posted. It’s also a good way to go back and review the session afterward.

Post Update: Today’s FuelChat session has concluded and as a reminder you can see the questions/answers/comments by reviewing all the posts using this link.

Uncategorized

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Members of the Missouri Renewable Fuels Association have selected Ryland Utlaut of Alma, Mo., as the organization’s 2009-10 president.
  • New Optimize 400 with LCO Promoter Technology delivers new treatability benefits for retailers and extraordinary ROI for growers.
  • Vermeer Corporation offers a new carted wheel rake, called the VR-Series. It is available in 8 and 10 wheel sizes.
  • Cibus is now Cibus Global. The shift marks a new age for the company, with an international operating structure and a continued focus on advancement and product growth in markets around the globe.
    Zimfo Bytes

    BASF Kixor Gets Results

    Cindy Zimmerman

    basf kixorWe were happy to see BASF finally get Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registration for Kixor® herbicide last week for use on a wide range of crops and effective on more than 70 broadleaf weeds.

    Four formulations “powered by Kixor” are now available for growers — Sharpen™ herbicide for various crops, OpTill™ herbicide for soybeans, Integrity™ herbicide for corn and Treevix™ herbicide for citrus, fruit and tree nuts. To get an idea of how effective this new chemistry is on broadleaf weeds, BASF had a plot tour demonstration for growers to check out at the 2009 Farm Progress Show. Take a look here:

    BASF, Farming, Video

    Hot Potato Ideas

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Potato RecipeThe U.S. Potato Board held a “Hot Potato Ideas” contest and culinary students were rewarded for their innovative recipes like this Cheesy Southwestern Potato Crisps one shown in the photo. During my pheasant hunt our cook made us some of the best potato pancakes I’ve ever eaten. Perhaps we should get her to enter next time.

    Creative ideas and innovation bring excitement to menus and inspire the restaurant patrons who enjoy them. This was the motivation behind the United States Potato Board’s (USPB’s) “Hot Potato Ideas” contest, which rewarded culinary students for their innovative potato recipes in one of three categories: Ethnic, Healthy and New Classics.

    Twenty-two students from the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, NY, campus entered the contest, so deciding upon the top three entries was a challenge. Nonetheless, here is a snapshot of the winning potato recipes:

    Cheesy Southwestern Potato Crisps, a Latin-inspired recipe with fresh jalapeño-cilantro pesto and cheese enveloped in crisp shredded potatoes, captured the Ethnic Category and overall Grand Prize in the Potato Innovation Recipe Contest. This fresh and flavorful recipe was created by William “Trey” Smith. The USPB awarded Smith a trip to the Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavors® conference in St. Helena, CA, (Napa Valley) taking place November 12-14, 2009. Read More

    Food, Potato