Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort July 30, 2008

Don Laughlin, a long-time American Angus Association regional manager from Guilford, Mo., has been named director of member services for the Association. He’ll step into the role immediately. His primary responsibilities will include assisting members and affiliates with registrations, transfers, memberships and other daily activities. He will schedule the work flow through the office while explaining and enforcing Association rules and policies. Laughlin will also administer the Association’s parent verification program and monitor the genetic defect program.
Steve Weaver, a pork producer from Elk Grove, Calif., has been elected president of the National Pork Board. Members of the board also elected Tim Bierman, a producer from Larrabee, Iowa, vice president. Both officer terms are for one year on the board that administers all Pork Checkoff programs. Weaver and Bierman were elected during the board’s summer meeting at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. Their terms begin immediately.
Becker Underwood announces a significant expansion in the production capacity of its St. Joseph, Mo., facility to meet the increasing demand for inoculants for soybeans, peanuts, peas and lentils grown in North America. They are currently installing new state-of-the-art fermentation units.

AMS 10 Year Anniversary Celebration

Chuck Zimmerman July 29, 2008

Well the party is over. For most people anyway.

Tonight we had the 10th Anniversary Celebration for AMS and joint awards ceremonies for AAEA and LPC. The photo album has been updated.

Tomorrow morning (this morning) we’ll finish things up here with a planning meeting for next year’s combined AMS and IFAJ Congress. I’ll be there somehow.

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
and

Ag Media Summit, BASF

Propane Running All Around My Brain

Cindy Zimmerman July 29, 2008

From propane-powered irrigation systems to tankless water heaters and pickup trucks, today’s propane innovations are helping farmers save money and the environment.

Here at the Ag Media Summit, the Propane Education and Research Council (PERC) was talking about the green benefits of propane and some of their upcoming events where they will be showcasing new propane innovations for agriculture. PERC will be sponsoring AgWired’s coverage of two big farm shows in the next few months – Farm Progress show and the Sunbelt Ag Expo.

You can listen to my interview with Brandon here: ams-08-propane.mp3

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
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Ag Media Summit, Audio, BASF, Farm Shows, Propane

Ag CommuniGators of Tommorrow

Cindy Zimmerman July 29, 2008

There are over 80 students in attendance at the Ag Media Summit this week with high hopes of making a career in this fabulous field.

Being Gator alumni ourselves, we have a special affection for the contingent from the University of Florida. I think they said there are 15 or 16 of them here and I did get most of them lined up for this photo. Most of these young people are majoring in Ag Journalism. Chuck and I actually majored in Broadcasting many moons ago (1980), and it was purely fate that we ended up in this field. But, we are more than happy that our lives took us in this direction because these are some of the greatest people in the world and they love to mentor the future of our industry, as these kids will attest.

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
and

Ag Media Summit, BASF

Dive In Movie

Cindy Zimmerman July 29, 2008

“Caddy Shack” was the feature film at the Ag Media Summit party by the pool Monday night.

For those of you who have seen the movie, you will likely recall the classic “doodie” in the pool scene. Organizer Diane Johnson, however, had never seen the flick – so when someone asked her yesterday if there would be Baby Ruth candy bars in the pool, she had no idea what they were talking about. That someone did see to it that there were candy bars in the pool – and Diane had the courage to actually play Bill Murray and take a bite.

Fun for all – until the hotel personnel told us to keep the food out of the pool!

Post Update: Diane informs me that the hotel people actually didn’t tell us to keep the food out of the pool – they just wanted to know how long to keep the bars open. Not being “party poopers” after all!

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
and

Ag Media Summit, BASF

Advanced Blogging, ZimmComm Style

Chuck Zimmerman July 29, 2008

My Advanced Blogging presentation is about to begin in the Royal Palm West room. The chairs are starting to fill up. (sort of)

This post is just being done in the moments before we get started to provide a live demo for those wonderful souls who are here early to get a front row seat.

I’ll be doing some more demo posting probably so stay tuned here and on Twitter.

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
and

Ag Media Summit, BASF

Rolling Stone is Down to Earth

Cindy Zimmerman July 29, 2008

Gene Hemphill of New Holland became fast friends with Chuck Leavell, tree farmer and keyboardist for the Rolling Stones, as soon as Chuck Zimmerman introduced them some time last year. Since then, Leavell has been on the rock and roll side for New Holland, with Michael Peterson being the country side.

By the way – Gene is the one on the right in the photo.

I finally had the great pleasure of meeting Chuck at the Ag Media Summit this week and got a chance to sit down and chat with him about farming, forestry and biofuels.

You can listen to my interview with Chuck here: ams-08-leavell.mp3

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
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Ag Media Summit, Audio, BASF, Forestry, New Holland

New ACT President

Chuck Zimmerman July 29, 2008

The Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow held it’s annual meeting this morning. You can see a few photos from the meeting in our photo album.

Afterward, the now past national President, Matt Splitter and new President, Katy Teixeira, visited Agwired in the BASF Media Room. Katy says that they’re going to work on their website this year.

I’m hoping that if they come to my advanced blogging session this afternoon, they’ll get motivated to develop some new media tools for ACT online.

You can listen to my interview with Matt and Katy here: ams-08-act.mp3

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
and

Ag Media Summit, Audio, BASF, Education

Onset 5 IN Introduced at AMS

Chuck Zimmerman July 29, 2008

Just before the Ag Media Summit started, Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health invited a group of journalists to attend a session on their new Onset 5 IN product. At the event I spoke with Dr. Scott Nordstrom, Intervet, about the first intranasally administered, five-way modified-live virus (MLV) vaccine for healthy cattle 3 to 8 days and older. He says that this product challenges traditional thinking that young calves can’t respond to treatment because they have an immature immune system.

Onset 5 IN is designed to stimulate at the site of infection an immune response to  Bovine Virus Diarrhea (BVD) Type 1 and Type 2, Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR), Parainfluenza3 (PI3) and Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus (BRSV) – the costliest diseases impacting beef and dairy herds.

“Onset 5 IN is changing the way the beef and dairy industries think about the immune development of calves and, subsequently, the ability to help beef and dairy calves get off to a strong immunological life,” says Dr. Scott Nordstrom, Manager of Veterinary Technical Services for Intervet.

He says, “The bovine fetus has a much more mature immune system than originally believed.1 In fact, the immune system of the fetus is functional at approximately 170 days of gestation. We’ve also learned that development of the immune system is independent of antibody production, meaning the immune system can respond to an appropriately-delivered vaccine without antibody interference. This knowledge underpins the developmental science of Onset 5 IN and is why the intranasal route of administration of Onset 5 IN is so important.”

You can listen to my interview with Scott here: ams-08-nordstrom.mp3
Ag Media Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
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Ag Media Summit, Agribusiness, Animal Health, Audio, BASF

New AAEA Leaders

Chuck Zimmerman July 29, 2008

At today’s annual meeting of the American Agricultural Editors Association, new officers and board members were elected.

The new President is Holly Martin, High Plains Journal, pictured in the center of the group here. Holly says that the big push this year for AAEA will be the combined AMS and IFAJ Congress next year in Ft. Worth. She says they’ll be working on organization and developing additional support for the event which will be a great opportunity to showcase American agriculture to the world. AAEA appears to be in great shape and has 400 members.

I spoke to Holly after the meeting and you can listen to our conversation here: ams-08-martin.mp3

You’ll find photos from the AAEA annual meeting in the photo album.

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the Agricultural Media Summit is sponsored by:
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ACN, Ag Media Summit, Audio, BASF

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