Greetings from Grand Rapids, Mich. I’m attending and speaking at the 2009 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference, a conference that has been serving the needs of dairy producers since 2003. The conference center is packed with producers who are seeking solutions to the rising challenges facing them in 2009. I’m happy to be a part of the equation, and I hope I bring some fresh ideas to the table over the next couple of days.
Today, my speech was titled, “CSI: Activist Chants, Mythical Media and Confused Consumers.” I spoke to the farm partners about how these three groups will cause us to change our production practices in the future. I shared stories, and I challenged them to take an active role by serving as dairy advocates. I told them that I understand that the daily worries of food production: paying the feed bill, maintaining low input costs, getting the heifers bred, fighting the poor markets and battling winter storms, were much BIGGER issues on an everyday basis than worrying about animal rights groups, the falsified information in the media and the disconnect between pasture and plate. However, I told the group that these weren’t problems we could ignore, and I dared them to do more about it on a daily basis.
By the way, I’m thinking about starting a support group on this very idea. It will be called the Food Mafia, and it will be tailor-made for people that truly care about the integrity and the future of food production. Members of the Food Mafia would actively work together to discover exciting and original ways to share the food production story with the world. So, how about it? Do you want to be the pilot members? How could we market this to the appropriate audience? Let me know what you think?
It’s nice to see companies adding staff these days. I guess that means they’re “Brave Enough.”
Katherine Liljegren has been hired as a creative generalist after completing a graduate internship with the agency. Liljegren earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication at Drake University in 2008, where she served on the Board of Student Communications and the Student Activities Board. She is a native of Kansas City.
Long time AgWired fans know that we worked very closely with the former Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. The organization has now been remade into 
The 
In turn, taking Markus’ previous role as BASF group VP for crop protection is Nevin McDougall. Most recently, McDougall was Vice President, US Business Operations, Crop Protection. McDougall has spent the last 16 years with BASF and its legacy company (American Cyanamid) working in Canada, Asia and the United States, where he has served in a variety of sales, marketing and management roles. McDougall has also led BASF operations in the Asia Pacific region as Group Vice President for Agricultural Products.
The agriblogging highway runs to Orlando, FL next week and the 
We were broadcasting live earlier this evening from the Ft. Worth Stock Show & Rodeo in Watt Arena. Here’s the setup. I really didn’t know we’d have fairly good internet access but thought I’d give it a try.
This is the big day for all you agriculture statistics fanatics. USDA will be releasing the 