Novus Holds Sustainability Roundtable

Cindy Zimmerman

Novus roundtable Charlie ArnotThe World Ag Congress concluded in St. Louis at midday on Wednesday, but the discussion continued with about 50 of the congress participants who attended the Novus International sustainability roundtable.

Four speakers presented sustainability-related topics and the first was Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Center for Food Integrity (CFI) who talked about how building and maintaining public trust and confidence in contemporary U.S. food production is the only way to have a system that is truly sustainable. “We define sustainability as systems that are ethically grounded, scientifically verified and economically viable,” Charlie said. “If they aren’t all three, we don’t believe they are sustainable, nor will they be supported by consumers.”

Charlie says their consumer research has discovered that confidence, resulting from shared values and ethics, is most important to consumers who are unfortunately completely disconnected from food production, which diminishes their level of trust in the system. “What they tell us is, we trust farmers, but we’re not sure that what you are doing is farming because of the size and the scale and our use of technology,” he said. “That’s the challenge we have to overcome.”

To do that, CFI is launching a consumer-directed web-based campaign on a state basis, starting in Ohio. They will be offering a year’s worth of free groceries giveaway to encourage people to go on-line and learn more about real farmers and ranchers in their state. “We’ve got to do it by connecting people to people,” Charlie said. “People are telling us they don’t trust systems or companies, they trust people who share their values.”

You can listen to my interview with Charlie here: waf-09-arnot.mp3

Download the interview here: Charlie Arnot

Audio, Novus International

World Ag Congress Climate Change Discussion

Cindy Zimmerman

World Ag Forum Jerry HatfieldNo forum on world food security issues would be complete without a session on climate change and that was how the World Ag Congress concluded its roundtable discussions Wednesday.

While the issue may be debatable, there is no question that agriculture should be taking every opportunity to decrease greenhouse gas emissions – including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Panalist Jerry Hatfield with USDA’s National Soil Tilth Laboratory talked about how nitrogen stabilizers can make a major difference in nitrous oxide emitted from the application of nitrogen fertilizer. “Nitrous oxide is 320 times more powerful than CO2, so one molecule of nitrous oxide saved is like saving 320 carbon dioxide,” Jerry said. “So we can have a major impact on total greenhouse gas emissions by reducing nitrous oxide.”

Jerry told me that USDA-ARS has found that the use of stabilized nitrogen not only reduces emissions of nitrous oxide, but it is also better for plants because it makes nitrogen more available later in the season when the plant really needs it. “So, its a win-win – a win for the plant and a win for the environment simultaneously,” he said.

He says nitrogen stabilizers are readily available in various forms for farmers from companies like Dow and AGROTAIN.

You can listen to my interview with Jerry here: waf-09-hatfield.mp3

Download the interview here: Jerry Hatfield

Flickr Photo Album for World Ag Forum

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

Audio, Fertilizer, Novus International, USDA

How to Make Your Pages Rank

Amanda Nolz

In B to B Magazine, I recently read an article titled, “How to Make Your Pages Rank.” It gives tips and tricks for making your website more prominent on the web. The writer, Christopher Hosford, summarizes a study on how different search engines weight the level of importance of different websites. Here is what he has to say…

In a new study on factors that affect search engine rankings of Web pages, marketing analytics company Covario reported that the number of inbound links from other Web sites is the single most important factor in a page showing up prominently in search results.

Covario’s study—“A Statistical Analysis of Features Affecting Rank in Search Engine Results”—cited external inbound links from educational (.edu) sites, the Delicious social bookmarking site, government (.gov) sites, the blog indexer Technorati.com and Wikipedia, in that order, as returning particularly high page rankings.

To read the rest of the article and learn about the different preferences of Google and Yahoo, link here.

Media

The First 11 Characters…

Amanda Nolz

I ran across an interesting article on the importance of the first eleven characters in an online document. Now, I know most writers cringe at having to utilize “key words” or pay attention to the meaning of their first eleven characters of text, but studies show this makes a difference if readers decide to click on your link in a search engine or not.

Users typically see about 2 words for most list items; they’ll see a little more if the lead words are short, and only the first word if they’re long. Of course, people don’t see exactly 11 characters every time, but we picked this number to ensure uniformity across the sites we tested.

Users don’t need to predict a link’s destination with 100% accuracy based solely on its 11 leading characters. In real life, links aren’t truncated on the page. Even if users see only the first 2 words or so during their initial scan, they can immediately read more if their eyes stop on the link.

To be most effective, website hosts need to do the following:

-Allow users to confidently predict what they’ll get if they click.
-Be clearly differentiated from the other links.
-Not be misleading or promise too much.

To learn more about this study, link to Jakob Nielson’s Alertbox on “The First Two Words”.

Media

Geared with New Gadgets

Amanda Nolz

img_1871Thanks to some much appreciated financial support from graduation monies, I have purchased some new gadgets to help me get my start. I bought a new MacBook and a Zoom H4 Recorder. Now the trick is getting accustomed to these new gadgets, and fast! A busy writer doesn’t have much time for reading instruction manuals, right?

ZoomAnd, now I have some questions. If you are a Mac user, what do you like best about them? What are your favorite tools on a Mac? Next, which editing software do you prefer for podcasts? Which ones are most user friendly?

Thanks for all of your support and advice! It means a lot to me!

Technology

Grains Council Launches The Grain Board

Chuck Zimmerman

The Grain BoardAnother ag group has joined the agriblogging ranks.

The U.S. Grains Council welcomes you to “The Grain Board.” This blog was created to serve as a sounding board for the latest trade developments, U.S. agriculture, Council happenings and whatever else comes to mind. We encourage you to comment on the postings, ask questions and share with your friends. Posts on “The Grain Board” are produced by U.S. Grains Council staff. Feel free to contact the bloggers at thegrainboard@grains.org.

Ag Groups

Alltech Young Scientist Awards

Chuck Zimmerman

Alltech Young Scientist AwardThe Alltech Young Scientist Award program keeps getting bigger with more entries and that means the competition level increases. This is the fourth year of the program and the awards were presented at the Symposium.

The overall winner in the undergraduate category is Fan Liu of Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China who submitted a paper on HSP70 as a new biomarker in the development and evaluation of anti-stress feed additives.

There were regional winners in both the undergraduate and graduate categories as well.

Alltech Young Scientist AwardThe overall winner in the graduate category is Tung M. Che, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA who submitted a paper examining the Effects of mannan oligosaccharide on immune function and disease resistance in pigs. Both these winners are pictured in between Dr. Mark Lyons and Inge Russell.

“This year’s Alltech Young Scientist Award program was a very close competition which attracted many high caliber young scientists” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, president and founder of Alltech. “At a time when we need the brightest young minds in the world to engage in scientific study, I am delighted to present this prestigious award to such talented young students.”

Tung M. Che and Fan Liu will be awarded prizes of $10,000 and $5,000 respectively.

Alltech Symposium Photo Album

Alltech

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • In recognition of their vision, inspirational efforts and leadership that has helped shape today’s cattle feeding industry, Paul F. Engler and the late William D. “W.D.” Farr are honored as the inaugural inductees into the newly established Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame.
  • Kuhn North America, Inc., of Brodhead, Wis., introduces the new GF 7802 T, six-rotor, trailed rotary tedder with a working width of 25′ 7″.
  • AutoFarm announces embedded steering control (ESC) for Envizio Pro, allowing it to work with the AutoFarm OnTrac2 GPS Assisted Steering System to provide robust steering of a broad range of equipment including tractors, sprayers, spreaders and combines.
  • Emily Caldwell of Beaver Falls, Pa., will serve as the 2009 editorial intern this summer at Farm and Dairy, a weekly agricultural publication based in Salem, Ohio.
    Zimfo Bytes

    Biofuels Discussion at World Ag Congress

    Cindy Zimmerman

    World Ag ForumBiofuels from the perspective of India and East Africa, as well as Europe and the United States, were part of the discussion at the World Ag Congress in St. Louis on Tuesday.

    Henk Joos with London-based D1 Oils moderated the panel focusing on an integrated approach to biofuels. He stressed that the purpose of the panel was to find solutions. “We can decide to go again in an immense debate on food versus fuel,” he said. “I would like to take a different approach. I would like with my fellow panelists to identify responsible ways to make food and fuel at the same time.”

    The panelists included former Secretary of Agriculture for India Radha Singh, Lee Broughton with Enterprise, Bill Horan with 25x’25, and professor Nuhu Hatibu, CEO of Kilimo Trust, East Africa.

    Flickr Photo Album for World Ag Forum

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

    Biodiesel, Novus International

    New CEO Introduced for World Agricultural Forum

    Cindy Zimmerman

    World Ag Forum Day Kathy MoldthanDr. Leonard J. Guarraia, Chairman and CEO of the World Agricultural Forum, announced today at the 2009 World Ag Congress that his title will soon only be chairman of the organization and that Kathy Moldthan is taking over the job of CEO. Kathy has been with WAF for ten years, just before the first World Ag Congress in 1999. Prior to that, she worked in the sustainability division of Monsanto.

    Kathy says her goal going forward with WAF is to take the organization from only having congresses in St. Louis to expanding into other areas of the world. “To better bring the solutions and innovative ideas that are working in one area and see if we can replicate them in other areas,” she said.

    They were expecting 200 participants for this year’s congress and Kathy says there are over 260 registered from more than 20 different countries. “The theme this year is food security and looking at the technological issues related to food security,” she said. “The participants feel the panelists have been outstanding and the discussions have been robust, and some pretty innovative ideas and concepts coming out of those.” She is also pleased with the participation in this year’s Congress by a variety of stakeholder companies – from food manufacturers like Hershey and General Mills to agribusiness companies like Novus, Monsanto and AGROTAIN.

    You can listen to my interview with Kathy here: waf-09-kathy.MP3

    Download the audio file here: Kathy Moldthan interview

    Click here to see all stories from the World Ag Congress.

    Flickr Photo Album for World Ag Forum

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

    Agribusiness, Audio, Novus International