Vilsack’s Busy Day

Cindy Zimmerman

Tuesday was a busy day for Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

He started the day by attending the National Agriculture Statistics Service lock up briefing prior to the prospective plantings report release first thing in the morning.

Tom VilsackThen, he testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture about the Administration’s plans to bring reform to USDA and discussed how the President’s budget will revitalize rural America. During his testimony, the secretary used the opportunity to make three announcements of actions being taken to help producers struggling with the recent downturn in commodity prices.

Vilsack announced that: 1) USDA will begin making Milk Income Loss Contract payments (MILC) to dairy producers; 2) USDA will be spending $117 million to make bonus purchases of walnuts, pork, turkey, and lamb; and 3) USDA is extending the sign-up deadline for the new ACRE program to August 14.

Then, yesterday afternoon, Vilsack held a telephone press conference with reporters where he answered questions on a number of topics. After that, not sure what he did – but it definitely was a full day. Agriculture secretary is no job for slackers!

Listen to Vilsack’s opening statement here: vilsack-announcements.mp3

USDA

Stoller USA offers Yield Boosting Technology

Joanna Schroeder

stoller-usa4While attending this year’s Commodity Classic, I had a chance to talk with Ed Shoup of Shoup Brothers Farms, who has both a hog operation and grows corn in Orville, Ohio, to chat about some of the ways he is increasing yields. He is pictured here on the left in the Stoller booth with Dan Denman of Cortland, OH and Steve Wiser of Carlton, PA. Ed was kind enough to let me in on a few of his secrets. His first line of defense isBio-Forge®, an antioxidant offered by Stoller USA. In a nutshell, Bio-Forge balances hormones in the plants to optimize growth and allow them to better handle stressful situations such as drought, floods or freezes – ultimately helping to increase yields.

“Bio-Forge has been very beneficial. When we use it with products such as Headline or Quilt we’ve seen an excellent response. It has given us more of a boost,” explained Shoup. “The product helps our ears fill out better and the corn is less resistant to insect problems, and when we have a healthier plant, it helps us get through some of the stress.”

Another positive trait is that Bio-Forge helps topical applications work better. When Shoup uses Bio-Forge with strobies (strobilurin fungicides), he sees a return on investment through better yields. “The yield boost we get is what we really like. The icing on the cake is when we can reduce our molds and know that we have higher quality feed going into our hogs,” said Shoup.

His second secret is Stoller USA’s  PowerPlus™, which is a great product for him, especially with the rising costs of Nitrogen.  He explained that when he applied the nitrogen with PowerPlus it made the nitrogen work better. The plant better utilizes the nitrogen and he saw better uptake on components like potash and phosphorous. This was a double win for him because the addition of this product helped him reduce his nitrogen costs.

Listen to my interview with Ed here: cc-09-joanna-stollerusa.mp3

Commodity Classic

Carbon Is New Ag Commodity

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm Foundation Joel VelascoI think Joel Velasco, Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, had the quote of the day here at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy Conference.

He said that “carbon is the new agricultural commodity” and that “our incentive is to produce less of it and get paid for it.” So, grow a crop, sell it and maybe earn some carbon credits? Who knows where all that will wind up.

Joel wanted people to know that biofuels can not only help mitigate climate change but build energy security. In Brazil they’ve managed to increase the use of ethanol from sugarcane to where they’ve displaced fifty percent of their liquid gasoline. They don’t have gas stations anymore he says, they have “fuel” stations. He says price is the key to the development and use of ethanol and today ethanol is half the price of gas in Brazil.

You can listen to my interview with Joel here: ff-global-09-velasco.mp3

You can download the interview with this link (mp3).

You can find photos from the conference here:
Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global & Trade Issues Photo Album

Ag Groups, Audio, Energy, Farm Foundation, International

AgCareer Spotter Specializes in Ag Jobs

Cindy Zimmerman

Ag CareerA new website is helping to spot the latest job opportunities in agribusiness.

AgCareerSpotter.com is an industry specific on-line career center targeting the agriculture industry to “make the job search, recruitment and hiring process simpler, faster and more cost effective.”

AgCareerSpotter is part of the larger Careerspotter.com, which was created by recruiters and agricultural online business veterans with over 30 years of industry experience to provide industry specific, on-line recruitment and job search technologies.

Agribusiness

How Biofuels Policies Affect Trade

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm Foundation Seth MeyerSeth Meyer is with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI). He’s also a speaker here at the Farm Foundation’s Transition To A Bio Economy Conference.

He talked to us about how biofuels policies are affecting commodity prices and trade but he says there are a lot of other factors affecting export volume. For example, he says that even though we’ve been using more corn to make ethanol we’ve still been able to increase the amount of corn we’re exporting at the same time. However, whether we have biofuels policies or not other factors will come into play like weather, the price of oil and foreign demand.

You can listen to my interview with Seth here: ff-global-09-meyer.mp3

You can download the interview with this link (mp3).

You can find photos from the conference here:
Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global & Trade Issues Photo Album

Ag Groups, Audio, Energy, Farm Foundation, Farm Policy

More Live Coverage of Transition To A Bio Economy Conference

Chuck Zimmerman

We’re back in session at the Farm Foundation’s Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global Trade & Policy Issues. I’ll be posting live throughout the morning. Feel free to join in.

Farm Foundation

Loosening OPEC’s Grip On Price

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm Foundation David ZilbermanWe know that OPEC has had a monopoly control over the price of oil on the world market and we hope that the increase of more environmentally friendly biofuels will force that to change. However, David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley, has created a model to measure how much impact we’re having.

I spoke to David here at the Farm Foundation’s Transition To A Bio Economy Conference. He wanted to show how ethanol in particular fits into the whole OPEC price situation. His model shows that by increasing the supply of fuel with ethanol you reduce OPEC’s ability to make money. He says that our ethanol production has raised the price of fuel in OPEC’s own countries while lowering it for everyone else around the world.

He says the promise of ethanol isn’t just it’s value to our environment but the ability to lessen OPEC’s grip on fuel prices.

You can listen to my interview with David here: ff-global-09-zilberman.mp3

You can download the interview with this link (mp3).

You can find photos from the conference here:
Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global & Trade Issues Photo Album

Ag Groups, Audio, Corn, Energy, Farm Foundation

European Renewable Energy Mandate

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm Foundation Laurent JavaudinSpeaking on behalf of the European Commission To The United States here at the Transition To A Bio Economy Conference was Laurent Javaudin. Laurent sent me a message about coming to the conference via my Twitter feed! I guess that makes him my Twitter buddy.

His comments focused on the impact of EU mandates for renewable energy. To start with, in the EU they don’t have a mandate of a certain number of gallons of biofuels. Instead they are looking at requiring alternative energy sources like biofuels be a percentage of the fuel consumed and achieve it by 2020. He says that they don’t consider just biofuels but also other alternative sources of energy. The biofuels that are considered must be produced in a sustainable way. They also expect these fuels to obtain at least a 35 percent decrease in green house gas emissions.

He says that after the political decision of December 2008, the implementation phase of the mandate for the 27 nations of the EU is now a work in progress and they hope to have it kicking in by the second quarter of 2010.

You can listen to my interview with Laurent here: ff-global-09-javaudin.mp3

You can download the interview with this link (mp3).

You can find photos from the conference here:
Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global & Trade Issues Photo Album

Ag Groups, Audio, Energy, Farm Foundation, International

Biofuels Blogging Again

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm Foundation Chuck ZimmermanMary Thompson, Farm Foundation, took my photo yesterday as I was doing some concluding work for the day here at their Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global Trade & Policy Issues.

That new Mac is getting a workout on the road and I’m loving it.

I’ll be posting more interviews through the day today and will be live tweeting at twitter.com/AgWiredLive.

You can find photos from the conference here:
Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global & Trade Issues Photo Album

Ag Groups, Energy, Farm Foundation

Ethanol May Change Meat Trading Patterns

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm Foundation Al MussellBiofuels production in Canada will impact meat trading patterns according to research by Al Mussell, George Morris Centre, University of Guelph. He says that the increase in biofuels production will turn the country into an importer of grains instead of an exporter. Al was one of the speakers at the Transition To A Bio Economy Conference.

He says that as you develop an ethanol production system built on feed grains it will seriously impact feeding livestock. That will mean serious adjustments over time. He says that these trends take a while to work themselves out. But in the long run he says we should like the taste of Brazilian beef and pork.

You can listen to my interview with Al here: ff-global-09-mussell.mp3

You can download the interview with this link (mp3).

You can find photos from the conference here:
Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global & Trade Issues Photo Album

Ag Groups, Audio, Energy, Farm Foundation, International