Irena Sendler

Amanda Nolz

The prize doesn’t always go the most deserving, and this was certainly the case with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. I was emailed this story the other day, and it’s an inspirational tale of a woman who never quite earned the recognition she deserved for her courageous acts. Read this story provided by Snopes, and you’ll see why…

200px-2005_02_13__irena_sendlerowa_foto_mariusz_kubik_01_zoomThere recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a plumbing/sewer specialist. However, she had an “ulterior motive.” She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the toolbox she carried. She also kept a burlap sack in the back of her truck for larger kids. She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi’ s broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunite the family. Most of course had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

In 2007, Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize…She was not selected. Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming. LET’S SEND THIS ONE AROUND THE WORLD! GOD BLESS HER! May she rest in Peace.

Note: Sendler’s story was brought to light in the United States when students in Kansas found it described in a magazine and popularized it through their original play Life in a Jar. On April 19, 2009, The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, a Hallmark Hall of Fame production written and directed by John Kent Harrison and starring Anna Paquin in the title role, was broadcast by CBS.

Events

What Is Sustainability?

Chuck Zimmerman

That’s a question posed by the National Corn Growers Association President, Rick Tolman. It’s a good question and judging by the social networking comments on this subject I’ve seen in the past few weeks, it’s one that has a multitude of answers depending on who’s defining. Here’s what Rick says from his “Our View” statement today:

The definition of “sustainability” has become one of the most widely discussed topics in agriculture – and with consumers, too – during the past several years. Many definitions exist for sustainability; some are very good and some have created much confusion for consumers.

The National Corn Growers Association understands the importance of agricultural sustainability for today’s consumers and wants to help everyone understand its real meaning. Our corn farmers have always worked hard to be good stewards of the land and environment. New technologies and farming practices have made them even better stewards of the land, creating more sustainability for all of us to enjoy and allowing them to produce more corn on less farm land.

We have an underlying policy at NCGA that officially adopts the definition that was included in the 1990 Farm Bill:

“The term sustainable agriculture means an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will, over the long term, satisfy human food and fiber needs; enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends; make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls; and sustain the economic viability of farm operations enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.”

Sounds like a pretty good definition to me. What’s yours? If you don’t like this one, why?

I think all of us involved in agriculture are on board with the ideas like enhancing the environment and the other elements of the definition above. However, it seems like the word is being used with some very emotional definitions today to promote a certain lifestyle or to portray groups or individuals in a negative light or even to promote a company’s products or services. As I listened to the radio on the highway today it seemed like most of the commercials contained words like, sustainable, green, environmental. They were mostly for existing companies and products. Do consumers really buy into those claims just because they’re mentioned in a commercial? Is it helping drive sales? And why would anyone use them to try to attack the very people who are helping feed the world while increasing their sustainability practices?

Ag Groups, Corn

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