NPD Group Vice President Harry Balzer, a leading expert and spokesperson on the food, beverage and foodservice industries, will be one of the general session speakers at POTATO EXPO 2010.
TerraSphere System engineers have developed a solid state lighting system that is currently being used to support plant germination. The company is working to apply their advanced system to support the entire growing operation.
To better understand and proactively address farm animal welfare issues, the Department of Animal Sciences and the College of Veterinary Medicine are holding an Animal Welfare Symposium, “Building Partnerships to Address Animal Agriculture,” on Friday, Oct. 16 at the university’s Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center.
Novus International is partnering with Vitamin Angels on a new humanitarian program that supplies children with zinc in order to relieve severe diarrhea.
We’re heading into dairy industry time. First up is the World Dairy Expo which kicks off tomorrow. Cindy will be attending along with daughter Carly. They’ll begin posting tomorrow morning here but primarily on World Dairy Diary.
The dairy industry’s spotlight will be trained on Madison, Wisconsin, when the 43rd edition of World Dairy Expo takes place September 29 through October 3, 2009. “Legendary” is the theme of this year’s show – a celebration of the legendary trade show, legendary cows and legendary people that make the first week in October one to look forward to.
Immediately following this week’s World Dairy Expo is the Alltech Global Dairy 500 Conference. I’ll be attending this one. So, ZimmComm will be very dairy focused for the next week. We’ll be looking for what’s new and bringing it to you.
“A global forum where dairy is the only topic and dairy farmers the main drivers”
2008 was a banner year for Alltech on many fronts including the inception of the Global Dairy 500 Conference. Over 300 dairy professionals representing over 40 nations assembled in Lexington to share ideas, experiences, and their own personal vision on the future of dairying worldwide.
Join us in 2009, as Alltech will renew its commitment to producers by again hosting the Global Dairy 500 Conference.
Last week, the National Pork Board kicked off National Eat Dinner Together Week, in conjunction with Feeding America—the national organization that supports our nation’s food banks. For every recipe on the pork website that is printed or downloaded—they donated five pounds of pork to the nation’s food banks! The goal of this week was to promote pork nutrition information and recipes, while donating food to a great cause. America’s Pork Producers promised to donate up to 10,000 pounds of pork – which is 50,000 meals! What a great cause!
To help get the word out, the National Pork Board enlisted all-American supermodel and celebrity mom Niki Taylor, mother of twins Jake and Hunter, and baby Ciel. Says Niki, “With all we’ve got going on, it can be difficult to fit in family meals. However, because we’re so busy, it’s more important than ever to get in quality family time, and eating together is a great way to do that.”America’s pork producers are helping those in need enjoy a meal, too.
Although we missed out on the week of donations, it’s still not too late to enjoy some pork favorites. Link here to check out some great pork recipes for your family to enjoy this week!
More and more agencies are ramping up staff understanding and expertise on new media. The latest is Lessing-Flynn. Lessing-Flynn has introduced a new, turnkey service developed specifically to assist businesses in both developing and executing social media marketing strategies. The new service, called Reel Social, was designed to help marketers tap into the marketing potential of emerging new media tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs.
“Most companies know there is tremendous potential in social media marketing because research shows that’s where people are spending more and more of their time,” said Josh Fleming, Interactive Marketing Director at Lessing-Flynn. “However, most either don’t know where to start, don’t know how to use social media effectively or just don’t have the internal resources to do it themselves.
Recent studies support a growing need for companies to engage with their customers using social media:
• 88% of marketers surveyed indicated they were employing social media for marketing purposes.72% reported this was a new initiative within the past few months. (Michael Stelzner, WebProNews)
• Social networks and blogs beat other online activity, including personal email, to become the 4th most popular online activity. (Nielson Online) • 80% of companies use LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees. (NielsonOnline)
• 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. (“Socialnomics”,ErikQualman)
• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (Web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook daily. (“Socialnomics”, Erik Qualman)
• YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. (“Socialnomics”, Erik Qualman)
“Social media is essentially a whole new type of marketing tool,” said Fleming. “It’s totally different from traditional media like tv, radio and print. There’s no reason why social media can’t be a very effective tool for any company – if it’s backed by the right strategy, then well executed.”
Here’s your newest new media reading assignment. It’s Mitch Joel’s “Six Pixels Of Separation.” I got it yesterday and believe it will help those of you who are over concerned about numbers and ROI of new media. Get it and let’s read it together.
We no longer live in the world of Six Degrees of Separation. We’re down to Six Pixels of Separation. Everyone is a simple Google search away.
We are all intrinsically connected. Mitch Joel unravels the fascinating world of new media and how it is changing business as we know it. Written in business language for business people, Six Pixels of Separation is a book about why these changes happened and what you can do about them to make your business grow. If everyone around you is asking what you’re doing on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and you’re still concerned about that newspaper ad you will be running next week, this book is the perfect business primer for you.
Arenus announces that STEADFAST CANINE will sponsor the 2009 DockDogs National Championship scheduled for Oct. 16-18 at King’s Island Resort in Mason, Ohio.
Invited guests gathered with 300 employees in Minnetonka, Minn., to celebrate the grand opening of the new Syngenta Seeds, Inc., headquarters building for North America.
AgVenture Spangler Seed has announced they’ve hired seed sales professional Art Tessmann of Watertown, Wis., as sales manager.
Students in fourth grade and up can now “Think like a Farmer” with the help of a new Web Quest launched this fall by the CropLife Ambassador Network.
Hey bird photographers. Here’s a photo contest you may be interested in from USDA.
USDA APHIS’ Biosecurity For Birds campaign is inviting you to enter your best poultry or pet bird photos in the 2009 Biosecurity For Birds calendar photo contest.
We are especially interested in photos of all kinds of poultry, gamebirds, wild birds, shorebirds, and pet birds shown in a clean environment and without people in the pictures. People of all ages are encouraged to enter.
The winning poultry or bird photo (or photos) will be featured in the 2011 Biosecurity For Birds calendar. Photos will be featured on the Biosecurity For Birds website, and some may be featured as screen savers.
Your photos should accurately reflect the subject matter, and the main image should not be digitally altered beyond removing dust, cropping, cleaning up the background and making reasonable adjustments to exposure, color and contrast, etc.
All photos will be credited with the person’s name.
The Georgia peanut industry donated another 14,112 jars of peanut butter today in celebration of Hunger Action Month in September. This donation was made to the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank.
“We are very appreciative of all the donations and efforts that have made this donation come to fruition. This donation will supply needed food protein to thousands of households fending off hunger,” says Ronald Raleigh, executive director of the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank. “We serve a population of needy seniors, families and children in middle Georgia, and we’ve found that everyone loves peanut butter regardless of their age, gender or ethnicity.”
The donation was made by the Georgia Peanut Commission, National Peanut Buying Points Association, American Peanut Shellers Association and Georgia Farm Bureau along with fourteen other individuals, organizations and businesses.
Novus International is helping humans as well as animals with nutrition needs to achieve their corporate mission of helping “feed the world affordable, wholesome food and achieve a higher quality of life.”
The St. Louis-based company is partnering with Vitamin Angels on a new humanitarian program that supplies children with zinc in order to relieve severe diarrhea.
This partnership coincides with Novus’s decision to expand the scope of its solutions to include ingredients and technologies that can be directly utilized in supplements, beverages and foods. As part of the partnership, the company has committed to making significant donations in the way of monetary funds as well as raw material zinc.
This large-scale humanitarian project coordinated through Vitamin Angels’ Thrive to Five program is being launched during the group’s 2009 Celebration of Angels Event at the Natural Products Expo East in Boston on September 25th. The new zinc program will provide relief for diarrhea, one of the most widespread and deadly health problems affecting children under the age of 5 around the world. The program will be launched in Sauri, Dertu, and Eldoret Kenya, with plans to extend to other areas of need worldwide.
The whole USDA Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative keeps growing with new tools. This time it’s a live chat session via USDA/Facebook.
Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today launched a new USDA website for the ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ initiative to continue the national conversation about developing local and regional food systems and finding ways to support small and mid-sized farms. Merrigan will also host a Facebook chat about the initiative on Thursday, Oct. 1, to discuss local food systems.
We’re heading into dairy industry time. First up is the 
Immediately following this week’s World Dairy Expo is the 
Last week, the National Pork Board kicked off 
More and more agencies are ramping up staff understanding and expertise on new media. The latest is Lessing-Flynn. Lessing-Flynn has introduced a new, turnkey service developed specifically to assist businesses in both developing and executing social media marketing strategies. The new service, called Reel Social, was designed to help marketers tap into the marketing potential of emerging new media tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs. 
Here’s your newest new media reading assignment. It’s Mitch Joel’s 
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This partnership coincides with Novus’s decision to expand the scope of its solutions to include ingredients and technologies that can be directly utilized in supplements, beverages and foods. As part of the partnership, the company has committed to making significant donations in the way of monetary funds as well as raw material zinc. 
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