Agriblogging Professional Improvement Opportunity

Chuck Zimmerman

Blogworld & New Media ExpoFor you agribloggers and farm podcasters seeking some professional improvement opportunities this summer, here’s one. It’s the Blogworld & New Media Expo. The dates are September 20-21 in Las Vegas. I am thinking about going.

They’ve got these interesting tidbits about blogging on the Expo homepage. You’ll find links in them to where they got the information.

Important Blogging Statistics

* Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
* More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
* Over 57 million Americns read blogs.
* 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
* 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
* 9% of internet users say they have created blogs.
* 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog .
* Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs .
* over 120 thousand blogs are created every day .
* There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day .
* 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs .
* 120,000 new blogs are created every day .
* 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
* 51% of blog readers shop online .
* Blog readers average 23 hours online each week .

Podcasts

Missouri River is MO Bigger

Chuck Zimmerman

MO River CrestWe may not have the flooding you’ve been seeing stories about in Iowa but the Missouri River crested here at Jefferson City today and is expected to have another crest soon. It rained half the day today so we’ve got more flooding coming.

This is a shot of the Capitol under the bridge over the river, leading into town. Normally there’s a boat ramp here but the water is all the way to the top.

I’m betting this is one of the most photographed shots in town. Right before I got here a local tv crew was shooting the same scene. Click on the picture for a bigger version.

Uncategorized

Bader Rutter Adds Wirth

Chuck Zimmerman

Bader RutterMore growth at Bader Rutter.

Bader Rutter, an integrated marketing services agency based in Milwaukee, hired Kim Wirth as an assistant account executive and promoted Lindsay Sasse to assistant account executive in the agency’s account management group.

Prior to joining Bader Rutter, Wirth worked for Publicis Dialog in San Francisco.
Wirth is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She will be working on the Dow AgroSciences account.

Sasse joined Bader Rutter in 2007 and most recently served as an administrative assistant. Sasse holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. She will be working on the Dow AgroSciences account.

If you’d like us to post what’s happening at your agency then make sure you send me your annoucements.

Agencies

Monsanto Completes Acquisition of De Ruiter Seeds

Chuck Zimmerman

De Ruiter SeedsMonsanto continues to grow its seed business. This time with De Ruiter Seeds.

Monsanto Company announced today that it has completed its proposed acquisition of De Ruiter Seeds Group B.V., a Dutch-holding company that owns and operates De Ruiter Seeds, for EUR546 million in cash, or approximately $850 million at current exchange rates, less net debt.

Monsanto will start to transition the De Ruiter Seeds business into its vegetable seeds division alongside its other business units, Seminis and the International Seed Group, Inc. (ISG). Monsanto’s vegetable seed business will serve its customers through three dedicated platforms: protected-culture, open field and regional vegetable seed businesses. The De Ruiter Seeds business will serve the protected-culture vegetable seed market, Seminis will serve the open-field vegetable seed market, and ISG will serve customers of regional seed businesses. Until the transition is complete, business units will continue to conduct business as usual.

Agribusiness, Seed

Turkey Talk on Facebook

Laura McNamara

The National Turkey Federation is becoming more savvy in online social networking. June is ‘Turkey Lovers’ Month’ and to celebrate, the federation is debuting its new identity on Facebook.com

The federation chose to focus the concept on Facebook, to reach a younger audience that is talking with their peers through this social networking community. Campaign participants will add a “turkey voki” — a small, talking cartoon turkey — to their profile areas and share it with their friends across Facebook.

The talking turkey voki has the right elements to spread the National Turkey Federation’s message virally. The talking turkey delivers a humorous, customizable message and it wears a t-shirt that says “Shake Your Tail Feather”. The voki also says, “Do I make you hungry? Happy Turkey Month!” Users can customize the talking turkey’s clothes and choose to load up their own voice to the turkey voki with their phone or computer. The voki platform allows users to send the talking turkey to friends, or post it on a social network profile area or blog.

The tested message, “Shake Your Tail Feather,” was an almost-unanimous choice among the younger audience. Participants said they chose the phrase because it made them want to get up and dance.

Facebook users can find the talking turkey in the Voki Voice Avatars application.

Ag Groups, Food, Poultry

Farm Foundation Elects New Chair

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm FoundationRichard Hahn succeeds Sara Wyant as chair of the Board of Trustees of Farm Foundation.

Barry Flinchbaugh of Kansas State University was named Vice Chair. The election took place at the Board’s annual meeting June 7, 2008, in Canandaigua, NY.

Established in 1933, Farm Foundation is directed by a Board of Trustees comprised of leaders in agriculture and the food system. Farm Foundation works as a catalyst for sound public policy by providing objective information to foster a deeper understanding of issues shaping the future of agriculture, food systems and rural regions. Farm Foundation does not lobby or advocate. Its primary product is comprehensive, objective information on economic and public policy issues.

Ag Groups

Zimfo Bytes

Melissa Sandfort

    Zimfo Bytes

  • Deere & Company has completed the acquisition of Plastro Irrigation Systems, Ltd., headquartered in Israel, to add significant momentum to the growth of John Deere Water Technologies.
  • The Poultry Science Education Fund of the U.S. Poultry & Egg Harold E. Ford Foundation supports student recruitment at colleges and universities with poultry science courses that do not have a full department with a poultry science degree. Applications for funding requests (recruitment grant of up to $7,000) are now available here.
  • The Wisconsin Guernsey Breeders Association will be hosting the National Guernsey Convention from June 26 through June 30th in Middleton, Wis. A complete schedule of events is available here.
  • Geile/Leon Marketing Communications is pleased to be recognized in The St. Louis Business Journal ‘s annual list of fastest growing private companies. Geile/Leon ranked ninth out of 50 in the St. Louis Community.
    Zimfo Bytes

    Twittering and Tweeting on AgWired

    Chuck Zimmerman

    TwitterFor those of you who have wondered about the little blue birdy thing at the top of AgWired, that’s the latest post in my Twitter feed. A growing number of you are following me directly on Twitter and I thank you. As you’ll find out if you do, I post quite frequently on Twitter, especially when I’m traveling. It’s very easy to to.

    We decided to pull the latest Tweet (Twitter post) onto the top of AgWired as a way to update you even when I don’t have my computer out. I’m also posting pictures to the feed from my Blackberry Curve. So, that’s what it’s all about. Keep an eye on it since it sometimes gets updated even more than my AgWired posts.

    Want to know more about Twitter? I’m a small, inexpensive consulting fee away.

    Uncategorized

    CUTC Media Mania

    Chuck Zimmerman

    Andy Vance and Christina KoboldtWhile I was attending the Corn Utilization and Technology Conference recently, I turned the tables on one of the media representatives covering the conference. Pictured on the left is Andy Vance, Buckeye Ag Radio Network along with NCGA’s Christina Koboldt. Christina was a big help by the way, helping those of us who haven’t attended a CUTC in a while.

    I asked Andy why he attended. He says that what’s happening with corn is extremely important right now to his audience and that he couldn’t imagine not being there. Since the CUTC focuses a lot on new uses for corn he wondered if some of the new uses would generate as much public reaction as using corn for ethanol has.

    Andy says that there were several Ohio growers present and even leading some of the sessions. He thinks that growers should participate since these new technological uses of corn are very important to their future.

    You can listen to my interview with Andy here: cutc-08-andy-vance.mp3


    CUTC Photo Album

    Ag Groups, Audio, Corn, Media

    The Tomato Industry Attack

    Chuck Zimmerman

    TomatoesCindy pointed me to a story on the Financial Post Blog about the big tomato scare. It’s too good not to bring to your attention. Here’s how Financial Post editor, Terence Corcoran, describes how the whole mess got started.

    It begins with a food poisoning, gets picked up by brain-dead media, story flies out of control for 48 hours, regulators swing into extreme self-preservation mode, risk-ignorant consumers 2,000 kilometres away get confused and panicky, and the food in question — a billion dollar industry — gets blown away.

    Exactly. Our main, traditional media outlets of today are so out of control it’s no wonder people are looking elsewhere for information. Here’s an interesting point made in the post on the FP:

    Enhancing the media-led distortion is the fact that the original story is wrong: The man allegedly killed by tomato salmonella after eating at a Houston, Texas, restaurant — 67-year-old Raul Rivera — actually did not die from the tomato he ate. Kathy Barton, a Houston health official, said Mr. Rivera’s official cause of death is cancer. The Texas health department reports it has no deaths from salmonella poisoning.

    I wonder if that story got corrected. We certainly live in a society where people and especially many in the media are looking for a scapegoat for every little thing that happens. No one wants to claim their own responsibility and as the FP says, consumers of today have, “almost willfull ignorance of risk.” This is why it’s more important than ever for anyone involved in agribusiness to be looking at new ways to communicate and dare I say that we can all do it ourselves now? I looked for some tomato grower organizations with blogs and couldn’t find any. Seems like it would be a good place to be writing about the truth on this story!

    Food