Osborn & Barr to Promote Becker Underwood Bio-agronomic Development

Laura McNamara

Osborn & BarrOsborn & Barr is now the marketing firm of choice for Becker Underwood. The global leader in bio-agronomic development has named Osborn & Barr its agency of record.


“When we initiated the search for a new agency of record, it was very important to select an agency with a winning track record of effective brand management and marketing communications within the agricultural market,” said Paul Holliday, Becker Underwood, Business Unit Head – Inoculants. “After a thorough search and analysis, we selected Osborn & Barr because of the agency’s in-depth knowledge and understanding of the agricultural market and their tremendous success in representing some of the most widely recognized brands in the industry.”

Becker UnderwoodOsborn & Barr’s expertise will assist in increasing awareness of the innovative solutions Becker Underwood’s products offer the agriculture market. “Becker Underwood’s objective is to grow market share and build brand awareness among growers and retailers in both the United
States and Canada,” said Steve Barr, chief executive officer of Osborn & Barr. “Osborn & Barr will partner with Becker Underwood to develop and implement initiatives that fulfill the company’s goals.”

Becker Underwood, headquartered in Ames, Iowa, employs approximately 317 employees globally. For more than two decades, the company has provided unique and valuable products for niche markets in 60 countries, including agriculture, turf and landscaping, horticulture, and lawn and garden. Becker Underwood strives to develop new technologies and products through continuous scientific research that naturally improve customers’ end products, whether it’s higher crop yields or a more visually appealing golf course.

Advertising, Ag Groups, Agribusiness, Farming, Public Relations, Seed, Technology

National Dairy Animal Well-Being Initiative Announced

Chuck Zimmerman

National Dairy Animal Well-Being InitiativeThis morning at World Dairy Expo a producer-led coalition of dairy groups and companies announced the National Dairy Animal Well-Being Initiative. They’re proposing dairy animal well-being guidelines and principles. The effort held a press conference with several speakers.

One of the groups participating in the effort is the National Milk Producers Federation. I spoke with their Senior Vice President of Communications, Chris Galen (not pictured) about what his organization is doing and specifically about this new animal well-being initiative. He says that it would be naive to think that the animal rights activists (whackos would be my term to describe them) will ignore dairy since they’ve been so much on the attack of poultry and pork. The initiative effort he says puts the dairy industry on the offense in addressing the concerns that these well funded groups have on consumers.

Listen to the “Milking Parlor” podcast with Chris here: milking-parlor-10.mp3

To subscribe to the Milking Parlor podcast, here are some instructions.

2007 World Dairy Expo Photo Album
World Dairy Diary coverage of World Dairy Expo is sponsored by:
NutriDense Silage Charleston Orwig

Ag Groups, Audio, Wackos, World Dairy Expo

Welcome AgWired Contributor Melissa Sandfort

Chuck Zimmerman

Just in case you’ve been wondering who the “Melissa” is that’s been posting our Zimfo Bites, it’s Melissa Sandfort. Melissa has just accepted a job with the Cattlemen’s Beef Board as their Trade Media Manager. We want to congratulate her on that and tell her boss, Tom Ramey, CBB CEO, that he’s got a good one. In fact, I just interviewed Tom here at World Dairy Expo for our Milking Parlor podcast on World Dairy Diary.

Melissa has been working for BCS Communications and has a background in not only the agency business but in the dairy industry too when she worked for the Dairy Farmers of America.

We’re thrilled to have Melissa working with us as a contributor and in her new role with the CBB, one of our clients too! Hopefully she’ll get a little time to relax before jumping into her new job on the CBB producer communications team.

Uncategorized

Getting a Charleston|Orwig Dairy Perspective

Chuck Zimmerman

Mike OppermanIn case you’d like a little more dairy news today I thought you might enjoy this. A quiet place to get away from the crowd at World Dairy Expo is the Charleston|Orwig suite in the Coliseum where they hold meetings and entertain clients.

Since Charleston|Orwig is one of our sponsors for coverage of World Dairy Expo this year, I did a “Milking Parlor” podcast with Mike Opperman, account supervisor. It was through the agency’s inquiries that we decided to start the Milking Parlor as a regular feature on World Dairy Diary, and for Charleston|Orwig, it is a way to help them demonstrate to their clients the potential for new media.

Listen to our “Milking Parlor” podcast with Mike here: Listen To MP3 Interview with Mike Opperman (MP3)

You can also watch the video here:

2007 World Dairy Expo Photo Album
World Dairy Diary coverage of World Dairy Expo is sponsored by:
NutriDense Silage , Charleston Orwig

Agencies, Audio, Dairy, Video, World Dairy Expo

New Media Coverage of World Dairy Expo

Chuck Zimmerman

Cindy Working at World Dairy ExpoIt’s been a busy morning of interviews here at World Dairy Expo. Cindy and I are now editing away here in the media room. We’re shooting interviews on video from which we can take the audio so we can feed the Milking Parlor Podcast and post. An example is my interview this morning with Jerry Weigel, who represents our sponsor, BASF Plant Science – NutriDense.

Jerry says that besides talking with producers about NutriDense which is a nutritionally-enhanced corn that contains a stacked set of output traits, they’ve got some incentives for those that stop by their booth.

One of those includes a free world famous grilled cheese sandwich and a milk shake. So, you can watch the video or listen to the interview:

Listen to interview with Jerry here: Listen To MP3 Interview with Jerry Weigel (MP3)

And of course we’ve got a photo album going which is feeding the Zimmages here on the AgWired homepage or available from the following link.

2007 World Dairy Expo Photo Album

I’m here through the end of the show on Saturday so keep an eye out for the latest on what’s going on in dairy here and on World Dairy Diary.

World Dairy Diary coverage of World Dairy Expo is sponsored by:
NutriDense Silage, Hoard's Dairyman Magazine, Charleston Orwig.

Audio, BASF, Dairy, World Dairy Expo

Zimfo Bites

Melissa Sandfort

  • Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business, announces it is commercializing soybean varieties developed using a technology that increases yields by as much as 12 percent per acre. Pioneer is introducing five varieties with the technology for 2008 planting, pending wide-area product advancement trial results. This announcement officially launches one of the company’s three soybean yield traits from its pipeline to commercial status. It will be commercially known as Accelerated Yield Technology™ (AYTTM). AYTTM uses proprietary molecular breeding techniques to rapidly scan and identify genes that increase yield then incorporate them into elite soybean genetics.
  • Strategies to reduce GHG emissions in the dairy industry have to be evaluated at a global level to ensure that mitigation strategies to reduce emissions do not increase emissions at another point in the chain of production. Some reasonable reductions have already been done in the input amount at farm level in most dairy countries (fertilizer, concentrate, energy consumption, etc.), and should continue in the future. These reductions should help to reduce GHG emissions in the dairy industry. Carbon dioxide and perfluorinated hydrocarbons are the greenhouse gases that the dairy processing sector can have a significant influence on. Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions at farm and manufacturing levels” is the new Bulletin of IDF n°422/2007. It can be ordered in electronic form via the IDF Web site.
  • Farms.com is pleased to announce that Bob Brcka has been promoted to General Manager PigCHAMP, a Farms.com business unit. Bob joined PigCHAMP in 2005 as Marketing Manager. Under Bob’s leadership, PigCHAMP has recently launched PigCHAMP CARE 3000, a Windows-based software program that is setting new standards for pork production record keeping and data analysis. Brcka has more than 25 years of agricultural management experience with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Principal Financial Group and Pioneer Hi-Bred International.
  • Jeff Springsteen has accepted the position of market manager for non-selective corn herbicide products with Bayer CropScience. In his new role, Springsteen has the product management responsibility for Bayer CropScience corn products, including Radius®, Balance®, Option® and Autumn® herbicides. In addition, Springsteen is responsible for introducing new products to the marketplace, including Laudis™ herbicide, which the company anticipates launching by 2008, along with three additional corn herbicides to be launched in 2009. Most recently, Springsteen held the marketing responsibilities as manager of Bayer CropScience marketing programs and customer relationship management (CRM).
Zimfo Bytes

Obligatory Agri Talk Picture

Cindy Zimmerman

WDX AgriTalkWe are covering World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin this week, along with over 175 other media representatives from all over the world.

Many of them are farm broadcasters – and here is our obligatory Agri Talk picture, kind of a tradition for us to post a photo of them from every event we both attend.

Some other farm broadcasters I have seen today include Pam Jahnke, Cliff Mitchell, Don Wick, Emery Kleven, and Bob Bosold. Not to mention all the ag publications and dairy industry media, including one of our World Dairy Diary sponsors Hoard’s Dairyman magazine, the appropriately named Lee Mielke of Dairyline, and Dairycast podcaster Ned Arthur.

Our coverage of World Dairy Expo on World Dairy Diary is being sponsored by:
NutriDense Silage Hoard's Dairyman Magazine Charleston Orwig

Agencies, BASF, Dairy, Farm Shows, Media, World Dairy Expo

Shell Pumps Up Ethanol Frenzy Before Atlanta’s Petit Le Mans

Laura McNamara

Pumping the American Le Mans Series #31 Ferrari F430 GT with E10 fuelConsumers enjoyed discounted fuel and free fountain drinks and coffee at the Sam’s Mart in Atlanta, GA this afternoon. The Ethanol Promotion and Information Council sponsored an ethanol pump promotion where consumers could fuel up with E10 fuel for 50 cents less than the going rate.

The promotion officially kicked off the 2007 Petit Le Mans race weekend for EPIC. American Le Mans Series drivers Tom Milner and Peter Dumbreck manned the pumps, handed out autographs and divulged the benefits of ethanol fuel to consumers. E10, a blend of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline, is “the official ethanol-enriched fuel” of the ALMS. This is the first year an endurance-based racing series has used a street legal renewable fuel.

The Sam’s Mart at New Northside Drive in Atlanta, GA pumped more than 1500 gallons of discounted E10 fuel for customers between 11:30 a.m and 1:30 p.m. Consumers were filling their tanks at a rate of $2.25 per gallon. This morning the fuel was selling for $2.75.

Racing fans also got to check out Peter’s #31 Ferrari F430GT, the official ALMS car for Petersen Motorsports/White Lighting Racing. Click here to check out the Ferrari’s deep, throaty throttle:
ferrarithrottle.mp3

2007 Petit Le Mans Photo Album

Audio, Environment, Ethanol

EPIC Represents Product of the Year

Chuck Zimmerman

EPICIn a near unanimous decision, ethanol has been chosen as the 2007 AgriMarketing Product of the Year by AgriMarketing Magazine.

According to the magazine, the entry was submitted by long time ZimmComm client, the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC).

In just the past year, ethanol production has increased over 50%, given several segments of the ag economy a much needed boost, and increased household income by $6 billion.

The combined Nov/Dec issue of AgriMarketing magazine will feature a special supplement about ethanol and its impact on North American agriculture and agribusiness.

Ag Groups, Ethanol

Early Numbers Show Successful 2007 Rice Harvest

Laura McNamara

Enfer DiagnosticsU.S. rice harvesting is just about a quarter from being complete in six of the major rice-producing states. Early data shows the harvest is well ahead of last year.

The U.S. rice harvest is progressing ahead of last year’s harvest in California and Missouri, at 50 percent vs. 41 percent harvested in California and 80 percent vs. 67 percent harvested in Missouri. The Missouri harvest is substantially ahead of the five-year average of 58 percent harvested. Mississippi and Arkansas are 75 percent and 95 percent harvested respectively, while Louisiana and Texas are 99 percent and 98 percent harvested respectively, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Crop Progress report released today.

Ag Groups, Farming