Speaker to Debunk Animal Activists

Amanda Nolz

A workshop to educate farmers and ranchers on how to become spokespersons for agriculture will be held June 19, 2009 at Westwood Park in Geauga County, Ohio. This workshop, sponsored by the ProAnimal Coalition of northeast Ohio, will provide information on how local speakers can tell the factual story of animal agriculture and its importance to us and our food supply.

matt-sv-thumb Featured speaker will be Matt Sutton-Vermeulen, nationally known for working with leaders in the community and agricultural industry to help them reach out to the community with factual information about animal agriculture. If you’re in the area, this workshop sounds like a valuable resource for spokesperson training.

Sutton-Vermeulen will focus on the myths and misinformation from animal rights groups that are out of touch with today’s agriculture and putting our food supply at risk. He is well-know for working with non-governmental groups to help them become animal agriculture activists.

The June 19 workshop is open to all interested people who want to be spokespersons for animal agriculture and its importance to our country. Threats are coming from the Humane Society of the United States that they are coming to Ohio with a program to restrict sound, approved livestock practices. Such restrictions, if imposed, would reduce our food supply and increase the cost.

Registration for the workshop can be done by calling the Northeast Farm Bureau Office at 800-410-4613 by June 15. Registration is free if made by June 15 and $30 after that date. Westwood Park is located at 9465 Kinsman Road, state Route 87, in Russell Township, Geauga County.

For more information, link to John Parker’s article at Trib Today.

Food, politics

Discover Farting Cows

Chuck Zimmerman

I just got pointed to another wacko group trying to claim that what we eat is causing global warming. There’s just so much wrong with this. Global warming? Uh, that hasn’t even been conclusively proven. Too many scientists disagree on the subject. So why do these wacko groups employ scare tactics and outright lies? To raise money to line their pockets and push a completely different agenda which seems to me to be more about their “religion” than the topic.

This one is from Let’s Act Now. They’re so ashamed of themselves that they don’t even identify who they are other than to say that it’s a “joint effort of a group of people . . . ” Now that’s really clear. I guess they wanted to be clear that it wasn’t animals doing this but people.

Of course when you see that they’re promoting Animal Planet, Discovery Channel and the farting cow you start to figure it out. According to the NCBA Issues & Reputation Management program, it appears to be an effort of Supreme Master Television, a free-to-air satellite broadcasting channel run by a self-described spiritual teacher Ching Hai. Supreme Master Television operates out of its Los Angeles studio and features programs that “support a modern lifestyle that is green, healthy and compassionate.”

Apparently this wacko group is sending it’s self-promoting tv commercials to stations in the guise of a PSA and some of them are ignorant enough to air them.

Wackos

“Take me Out to the Ball Game” Song and Video Contest

Amanda Nolz

Got a beat in your step and a competitive edge? Here is an interesting contest you might want to consider entering…

batdog The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council today announced an impressive lineup of judges for the Council’s contest to rewrite “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”so that it includes a long-overdue reference to hot dogs.

Judges will include Washington D.C.’s “Man About Town,” Bob Madigan,of WTOP radio; Chicago news and sports personality Bob Sirott of NBC5 ; hot dog historian Bruce Kraig, author of the new book Hot Dog; Agri-talk Radio Host Mike Adams; and Eric Haman, corporate communications manager at Hatfield Quality Meats and star of the YouTube sensation “The Hatfield Hot Dog Launcher.”

Entries must be received by June 12, 2009. Winners will be announced at the start of National Hot Dog Month July 1 and will be featured in an online video on the Hot Dog Council’s YouTube channel.

For details on prizes and how to enter, link to the American Meat Institute.

Advertising, Public Relations

Are You Using Your Strengths?

Amanda Nolz

Whether it’s a job, team or club, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. The important thing is both improving upon those weaknesses and utilizing talents and strengths. I often get updates from Ag Careers, offering advice on how to be most effective in your career. “Understanding and Utilizing your “Strengths,” by AgCareers.com with content from Marcus Buckingham’s book Go Put Your Strengths to Work has a great message for those wishing to make their strengths more relevant at work, school, clubs, etc.

Your strengths are those activities that make you feel strong. The person best qualified to identify them is you. You don’t need a manager or a performance appraisal, or even a psychologist to tell you what your strengths are. Think about which activities draw you back to them time and again. You know which activities you can’t help volunteering for. There are certain activities that keep your interest and your concentration with almost no effort. You know which activities leave you feeling strong, fulfilled, and powerful.

So, what are your greatest strengths? That’s one of the first questions a person is asked in an interview. What makes you feel strong? How can you put more of an emphasis on those strengths in your career? For me, it’s important to do the job that makes your heart sing. At graduation, I received a card that said, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life,” and I think that’s so true. Today, take a minute to think about your strengths and weaknesses. What are the areas you can improve upon, and what are the things that make you thrive?

Agribusiness

Carbon Policy Topic of Next Farm Foundation Forum

John Davis

farmfoundationforum3In the tradition of bringing together diverse points of view to come up with real solutions to the problems facing agriculture today, our friends at the Farm Foundation are hosting another one of their trademark forums.

Entitled “Carbon Policy Options and Implications for Agriculture,” this conversation will be held this coming Tuesday, June 2nd:

Presenters confirmed for this Forum are:

* Iowa farmer Varel Bailey,
* Allison Specht of the American Farm Bureau Federation,
* Jon Scholl of American Farmland Trust,
* Nathan Rudgers of 25 x ’25, and
* Lou Hayden of the American Petroleum Institute.

This free, two-hour forum starts at 9 a.m. at the National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, in Washington, D.C. As usual, each presenter has 10 minutes to make their comments, and then it’s opened up for discussion from the floor.

Make your reservation with Mary Thompson, Farm Foundation Director of Communication, at mary@farmfoundation.org by this Friday, May 29th.

Farm Foundation

Shall We Gather at the River

Amanda Nolz

It seems like there’s a new video put out everyday. Thankfully, this video entitled, Shall We Gather at the River which was produced in 2008, went pretty much under the radar. I was sent this from a friend in Washington D.C. the other day, and I thought I would share it with all of you. I think it’s increasingly important that we understand and comprehend what the media and the consumers think about the agriculture industry, and this movie definitely points fingers with us as the bad guys. Here is a brief summary on the video…

A hundred years ago one man wrote a book that changed America. The man was Upton Sinclair. The book was “The Jungle.” It exposed the scandalous rancid health conditions inside the country’s meat processing plants and led to the passage of landmark federal legislation that regulated health and sanitation in meat processing for the first time in our history.

A heart stopping new documentary, “Shall We Gather at the River” has just been released which exposes a huge health and environmental scandal in our modern industrial system of meat and poultry production. The health and environmental damage documented in today’s factory farms far exceeds the damage that Sinclair could have imagined a century ago. Some scientists have condemned current factory farm practices, calling them “mini Chernobyls.”

I don’t think this calls for action as the movie has come and gone; however, let this be an educational moment on the increasing number of individuals who don’t like the way their food is raised in this country. What can we do to earn the trust of the consumers again? Where do we start. I’ll tell you one thing…it starts with me. It starts with one letter to the editor, one positive photo, one great blog post, one conversation in the coffee shop. I’m not going to let dramatic video productions stand in my way and tell my story. It starts with me…

Farm Policy

Misty Mount Rainier

Chuck Zimmerman

Mount RainierThis will be my last photo post of the day from the great state of Washington.

Although most of the mountains were clouded over this morning, they pretty well cleared up this afternoon. Here’s Mount Rainier on my way back to Seattle. According to Wikipedia it’s an active stratovolcano. With the cloud lingering at the top it looks like it’s smoking!

Mount Rainier is an active stratovolcano (also known as a composite volcano) in Pierce County, Washington, located 54 miles (87 km) southeast of Seattle, Washington, in the United States. It is the highest peak in the Cascade Range and Cascade Volcanic Arc at 14,411 feet (4,392 m). The mountain and the surrounding area are protected within Mount Rainier National Park. With 26 major glaciers and 35 square miles (91 km2) of permanent snowfields and glaciers, Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states.

Uncategorized

Picture Perfect Washington State

Chuck Zimmerman

I’ve been to Seattle many times but never had a chance to get out in the country, especially to the north. This morning I drove up to Lynden, WA which is almost on the border of Canada.

It has been a picture perfect day and I hope this photo is a good example of it. I had a little time to kill on the drive up so I stopped to shoot some photos. This was a little brook off of a side road north of Seattle.

North Washington State

I was once again the Drive Green Utility Tractor Show blogger. I saw a lot of green today in the sunshine at North Washington Implement. You can see the photos online.

John Deere

Vote Now for Pork on a Fork Winner

Cindy Zimmerman

billy frey pork on a forkYou have until 1:00 central time today to vote for your favorite “Pork on a Fork” photo from six finalists.

The contest was the brain child of Trent Loos, host of the “Loos Tales” radio show and founder of Faces of Agriculture, and is sponsored by Nebraska TV. The winner will receive an expense-paid trip to World Pork Expo in Des Moines next week. Trent received some 75 entries – which can all be viewed here – and narrowed it down to the six finalists.

Not that we are showing any partiality (vote for Billy!), but our personal favorite is this one here of our good buddy Billy Frey with Alltech cooking pork butt a on Green Egg.

View the six finalists and vote here.

Alltech, Pork

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

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