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

    Zimfo Bytes

  • BASF Podcast: Plant Health – Fit With Fungicides: In this podcast you will learn how innovative fungicides from BASF help to improve plant health.
  • Responding to President Obama’s directive to upgrade the nation’s food safety system, the White House Food Safety Working Group, led by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, launched a Web site to provide information about the group’s activities and progress.
  • Time Warner Cable and RFD-TV, LLC announced a multi-year affiliation agreement.
  • Mark Lambert, longtime spokesman for the Illinois Corn Growers Association and director of the Corn Farmers Coalition, has joined National Corn Growers Association as a senior communications manager.
    Zimfo Bytes

    Deadline Looms for Farm Foundation 30-Year Challenge Competition

    John Davis

    30-yearchallengeNext Monday by the close of business is the deadline to get your ideas into the Farm Foundation’s 30-Year Challenge Competition… and perhaps your share of $20,000 in cash prizes for the best solutions to the challenges agriculture is facing in providing food, feed, fiber and fuel over the next 30 years:

    The competition is open to anyone with an interest in the public policy issues outlined in the Foundation’s report, The 30-Year Challenge: Agriculture’s Strategic Role in Feeding and Fueling a Growing World. That report discusses challenges in six areas: global financial markets and recession; global food security; global energy security; climate change; competition for natural resources; and global economic development.

    “We encourage all segments of the food system–from producers to consumers–to contribute entries with their ideas and proposals,” says Farm Foundation President Neil Conklin. “Agriculture and the food system today face diverse and complex issues. Farm Foundation believes that without a civil and broad-reaching discussion respectful of all stakeholders opinions, we will be unable to develop the policies that agriculture and the food system need to deal with the challenges before us.”

    Entries can be submitted that address issues in one of the six challenge areas, or multiple areas. For each of the six challenge areas, judging will be done by an independent three-member panel selected by Farm Foundation. Prize winners will be announced in September 2009.

    More details about the 30-Year Challenge is available on the Farm Foundation Web site.

    The 30-Year Challenge project is directed and led by Farm Foundation. Contributing financial assistance to the project are: the Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Corn Growers Association, the National Pork Producers Council, and the United Egg Producers.

    Farm Foundation

    Virtual Farming on Facebook

    Amanda Nolz

    Looking back to my college days, there was one craze that my roommates and friends got into that I never got into. It’s called Virtual Farming, and it’s a new application on Facebook. I ran across an excellent column on this Virtual Farming by Gary Truitt at Hoosier Ag Today. While I always thought of it as some strange addiction that would more than likely eat up all my time (partly true), Truitt sees it as an educational opportunity for consumers (if the application was accurate).

    app_1_56748925791_4089 Let me explain how this works. On Facebook, you can join a farming community, where you can purchase livestock, plant and harvest crops, make money, build fences and join a neighborhood. Truitt writes, There are no diseases, no deaths, no market crashes, no hail storms or droughts, and no bank foreclosures. Yet the game is engaging and, if you are not careful, rather addictive. Like farming, it can get into your blood.

    This game on Facebook is one of those tools that might begin a conversation with consumers about where their foods come from; however, the livestock aren’t used for meat or milk production in this game. Truitt admits there are flaws to this system when he writes, I would like to see the game developers add some new features to the higher levels. Things like confined animal feeding, biotechnology, and conservation tillage. These are simple concepts that could be easily added to the game and would enhance the players’ understanding of agricultural issues that are very much in the news today.

    To read the entire column, link to Hoosier Ag Today. And, let me know if you give this virtual farming thing a shot. I haven’t tried it yet, but I might think about joining a rural community online one of these days…

    Social Networking

    The Pope On iPhone

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Vatican News iPhone AppIf you’re still wondering how new social media/networking platforms have become so pervasive I would suggest hearing how an expert explains it. That expert is Pope Benedict XVI.

    Most AgWired fans know how big a fan I was of Pope John Paul II and that personally meeting him was one of the highlights of my life. I have also grown very fond of our new Pope Benedict XVI and am amazed by how well he and the Vatican are implementing new media/social networking communications strategies. I think we can all learn a lot from these developments:

    The Pope has written a message (pdf) to go along with the new website which explains his view on using social media. I think he’s gets it completely. Here’s an excerpt:

    While the speed with which the new technologies have evolved in terms of their efficiency and reliability is rightly a source of wonder, their popularity with users should not surprise us, as they respond to a fundamental desire of people to communicate and to relate to each other. This desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our very nature as human beings and cannot be adequately understood as a response to technical innovations.

    So even though these new platforms are cool and we have cool new gadgets to use them they only work because they are helping people communicate how they want to, not necessarily how a company or organization would like to. That’s really a hard concept for traditional communicators to grasp but is one of the best explanations I’ve heard for why what we’re doing is working so well.

    How is your company or organizations adapting?

    Social Networking

    Zimfo Bytes

    Melissa Sandfort

      Zimfo Bytes

      Sustainability Important to Novus International

      Cindy Zimmerman

      Thad SimonsAt the conclusion of the World Ag Congress in St. Louis last week, Novus International held a sustainability roundtable for some of the congress participants to discuss how the livestock industry can step up to the sustainability challenge. Novus president and CEO Thad Simons, pictured here with his son Kenneth, were among the participants. Thad says this year’s World Ag Congress was the best they have ever had. “One of the reasons this is the best congress is that people are really coming to understand the value of agriculture again,” he says. “We’ve become sexy again as an industry.”

      Thad says they work with their customers to improve efficiency and deal with issues of sustainability, which is more than just a word for Novus International. They don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk as well, which can be seen in their new headquarters building in St. Charles, MO. “We just received the certification from the Green Building Council of the United States for the Platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and we are very proud of that,” Thad says. He says their goal for the building was that it be sustainable in three ways – economically, environmentally and socially. “It was intended to be an open, team-based work environment and the environmental design part of the LEED program is really focused on the employees, so it is very open and very light.”

      The grand opening of the new Novus International headquarters is coming up next week – June 3 – and we will be able to provide you with a peek inside this new sustainable building.

      You can listen to my interview with Thad here: waf-09-novus-thad-2.mp3

      Flickr Photo Album for World Ag Forum

      AgWired coverage of the 2009 World Agricultural Forum World Congress is sponsored by:
      Novus.

      Audio, Novus International, Sustainability