Telling The South Dakota Ag Story

Chuck Zimmerman

Steve DickThe Executive Director of Ag United For South Dakota is Steve Dick, pictured here at the NAFB Washington Watch Issues Forum.

Steve says that AUSD is a coalition of 5 farm groups that include corn and soybean growers, pork producers, cattlemen and SD Farm Bureau. They were set up to educate the public about agriculture and particularly livestock production in SD. He says they want people to know that farmers have a message to get out to people which is that they’re working everyday to produce a safe, reliable source of protein. He wanted to emphasize that agriculture has changed significantly and in ways that aren’t always easy to see from the highway.

You can listen to my interview with Steve here: ww-09-ausd.mp3

NAFB Washington Watch 2009 Photo Album

Ag Groups, Audio

Precision Ag Helps Create Marriage Proposal

Chuck Zimmerman

I love this story Kurt posted on our Precision Pays site and thought I’d share it with you.

Give credit to farmers and their creativity. Not only are they saving time, input dollars and the environment thanks to the tools of precision agriculture, some growers find ways to use it to enhance their personal lives.

Vega, Texas grower Braden Gruhlkey used his John Deere GreenStar GPS-based guidance system to accurately plow the letters of his marriage proposal to his girlfriend Lauren.

“I just used an A+heading line for the top and bottom of the letters. I used this as a guide to see how big to make my letters. Then I just made ab and a+ heading lines to make the letters. And it worked nice because when I got one letter finished I could use the same lines and just shift track them. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, and I did it all in the field. I thought it turned out pretty neat.”

Then, on April 18th, Braden took girlfriend Lauren for an airplane ride and popped the question.

With the help of GreenStar, Braden’s creativity was a huge hit…she became his fiance.

Agribusiness, Precision Agriculture

Fresno Drive Green Event

Chuck Zimmerman

It’s time to hit the road with the John Deere Drive Green Utility Tractor Show once again. This week I’ll be in Fresno, CA at Fresno Equipment for a day of customer interaction which you’ll find covered on DriveGreenTractors.com.

This has been a seriously fun project since I’ve been able to meet so many people around the country following the truck to periodic stops to obtain content that I can post in between.

John Deere Drive Green Utility Tractor Show

I’m taking the opportunity to spend a day with our web developer too. We’ve got multiple projects in the works and when they’re ready I’ll let you know more about them. It’s a busy time in ag communications. I like it.

John Deere

Get A Dosatron Of Their New Website

Chuck Zimmerman

DosatronI liked the way this release came across in announcing the company’s new website. For one thing the company representative didn’t say, “We’re excited to . . . ” She made a very open statement that just seems very genuine to me.

Dosatron International, Inc., today launched a new version of their website, www.dosatronusa.com. The new version introduces a totally new design, a new organizational structure, and new features, such as on-demand video and a blog.

“The redesign of the dosatronusa.com website has been a company goal for several years,” said Pam Temko, Dosatron’s vice president of sales and marketing. “We realized that our old site, while it contained good information, was a little inaccessible for those not already familiar with Dosatron. With this design upgrade, our site moves into the twenty-first century and more fully represents the Dosatron brand: innovative, cutting-edge and top-of-the-line.”

You can find the blog here. They’re using WordPress (hooray) and even better, they’ve got an AgWired link in the sidebar! Now that’s how you pitch a blogger just in case you’re wondering. I love it.

Here’s an example of one of the video clips they have available to customers. Notice that it’s loaded into their YouTube account.

Journalists can find their press room here.

Agribusiness, Internet

World Ag Forum Coming to St. Louis

John Davis

worldagforumNext week, there’s a pretty important event for the international farming community as the World Agricultural Forum comes to downtown St. Louis, Mo., May 17-20th at the St. Louis Ballpark Hilton Hotel. And AgWired will be there!

This press release says the forum’s Sixth Biennial World Congress is entitled “Our Global Priority: Food Security—Financial, Trade and Technical Services” and is one of the world’s largest biennial gatherings of agricultural leaders in government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses and academia brought together to discuss the world’s growing population and the impacts on food, fuel, fiber and water in both emerging and developed markets:

Keynote speakers for the 2009 World Congress include: Right Honorable James Bolger, ONZ, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Ambassador to the United States, and current chairman of the WAF advisory board, Honorable Raghuveera Reddy, the
Minister of Agriculture for Andhra Pradesh, India and Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion and professor at Oxford University.

“The World Congress is particularly important as this year’s agenda is designed to encourage world leaders to discuss what financial, technical and trade strategies need to be developed, adopted or enhanced for a food-secure world,” said Ambassador Bolger.
“Progressive, far-reaching solutions to global problems are needed now more than ever, with the expansion of the agribusiness industry beyond food and into innovative energy sources, industrial products and pharmaceuticals. This World Congress will seek
solutions to issues concerning agricultural production and supply, the crucial resource of water and the impact on agricultural economies and resources during a period of economic uncertainties.”

“Each participant in the Congress will have an active role in developing plans for change,” said Kathleen Moldthan, executive vice president and chief operating officer, WAF. “The World Congress is one of the only opportunities where government, NGOs
and the private sector can share an equal voice. We have seen many partnerships emerge from these gatherings that would have never come to fruition in a different setting. Its these partnerships that illustrate the value of WAF and initiate the actions for change.”

I’ll be there for part of the sessions with Cindy picking up the the second half. We’ll either see you in St. Louis or on the Web here at Agwired.com!

International

Farmers Growing Media Support – HTFUS

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast-219 - The Hand That Feeds U.S.I’m sure most of you know that The Hand That Fees U.S. is the American farmer. But not everyone understands that in the media and the consuming public. For that reason HTFUS was announced today.

The Hand That Feeds U.S. LogoOne of the key individuals involved with this project is Larry Combest, former U. S. Representative from Texas. He was Chairman of the House Ag Committee and was directly involved in farming his whole life, although he’s not currently actively farming. So he’s sure got a good background on the subject matter.

I spoke to Larry this morning and we talked about why this new project has come about, who’s behind it and how they plan to help educate the media about agriculture. I found out about it this morning on Twitter. You can follow their feed here. He says HTFUS is a project of FarmPolicyFacts.org which he became aware of during last year’s farm bill efforts. One of the things HTFUS will do is respond to any and all media articles about agriculture that are not factually correct or are very biased. He says this is an outreach effort to the media to make sure real life farmers are given a voice.

Of course they’ve got a website and you can already watch video with a real life farmer telling his story. A very diverse group of organizations has come together to support this project and Larry says more are considering joining in.

This week’s program ends with music from the Podsafe Music Network. It’s a song titled, “Take My Hand”, by Dr. Mic and the Brain Ninjas. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.

You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: Listen To ZimmCastZimmCast 219 (30 min MP3)

Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:Interview with Larry Combest - ZimmCast 219

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes

Ag Groups, Audio, Farm Policy, Farming, ZimmCast

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • McCormick Company in Kansas City has recently been awarded two Pro-Comm awards by the Business Marketing Association for excellence in b2b marketing communications.
  • Syngenta Crop Protection announced that the California Department of Pesticide Regulation has granted Section 18 emergency exemption approval of Inspire fungicide for use on Alternaria in almond orchards in Butte, Glenn, Kern and Tehama counties.
  • With help from the agri-marketing community, Rhea + Kaiser Marketing Communications raised $1,800 for the Agri-Business Educational Foundation during the 2009 National Agri-Marketing Association conference.
  • The R-CALF USA Board of Directors has unanimously elected Missouri veterinarian Max Thornsberry to another 2-year term as president of the board. R-CALF USA Region IX Director George Chambers, of Carrollton, Ga., was unanimously elected as vice president of the board.
    Zimfo Bytes

    The Hand That Feeds U.S.

    Chuck Zimmerman

    The Hand That Feeds U.S.I want to shake The Hand That Feeds U.S. Here’s a great example of helping bring the story of today’s American farmer to the public.

    America’s farmers are extending an olive branch to the same urban media that have often been critical of agriculture, and some powerful U.S. lawmakers asked the nation’s reporters in a letter today to give them a chance.

    “It makes no sense that we’re being demonized by many of the nation’s top newspapers,” said Linda Raun, a rice grower from Texas who is participating in The Hand That Feeds U.S., a new farmer-led project to improve relations with big-city reporters.

    “It’s not the newspapers’ fault,” she continued. “We haven’t done a good enough job telling them our story. We’ve been negligent in explaining that farmers and farm policy feeds and clothes every person in this country, employs 20 percent of the nation’s workforce and will be at the center of America’s economic recovery.”

    Andy Quinn, a Minnesota corn and ethanol producer agrees. “We’re the best farmers in the world, but we’re far from being master communicators. For too long, we’ve let a handful of environmental extremists and coalitions bankrolled by big business define our industry in the news.”

    Ag Groups

    First Pork On A Fork Photos

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Pork on a ForkTrent Loos let me know via Twitter today that the first photos are in for his Faces of Agriculture “Pork On A Fork” contest where you’re encouraged to submit photos of family members, friends, customers, anyone, anywhere eating pork.. This is one from the Flickr set he’s got going to show the entries publicly.

    Faces of Agriculture announces the launch “Pork on a Fork”, a contest aimed at raising awareness of the importance of pork to the American diet and economy.

    Pork on a Fork“No matter how you refer to it, H1N1 influenza has unfairly devastated the livelihood of the American pork producer, and that puts at risk the health of the American public,” said Faces of Agriculture spokesperson Trent Loos.

    As of May 1, American pork producers have lost $17.69 on each hog marketed. For the April 24 through May 1 period, total losses reached $7.2 million a day.

    Photos received by May 26 will be judged, and the winner will receive an all-expense paid trip for two to the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa, June 3-5. All submitted entries will be available for viewing during the World Pork Expo and on FacesOfAg.com.

    “It is time for every consumer that enjoys a good piece of locally produced pork to step to the plate and show their support for the commitment that America’s pork producers make everyday to feeding the world and protecting our health,” said Loos.

    Send your entries to Trent directly.

    Ag Groups, Food