John Deere Completes Acquisition of Ningbo Benye

Chuck Zimmerman

Benye TractorJust when I thought I had all the John Deere releases in hand, in comes another one. This time it’s about completing their acquisition of the Ningbo Benye Tractor & Automobile Manufacture Co. Ltd. business, located in Ningbo in southern China. John Deere had announced signing a definitive agreement in June.

The acquisition expands John Deere’s product line for Chinese farmers and enhances the company’s worldwide capacity to produce low horsepower tractors. In China, Deere currently builds tractors in the 60 to 120 horsepower range at a joint venture tractor factory in Tianjin while Benye mainly builds tractors in the 20 to 50 horsepower range.

Benye is the largest tractor manufacturer in southern China and currently receives 95 percent of its revenue from sales within China, although it has exported to 70 countries worldwide. Deere expects to leverage Benye’s product range and manufacturing capacity for sales in China and into other Asian, African, and Commonwealth of Independent States markets.

Deere has provided products and services to the China agricultural market since 1976 and has manufactured equipment in China since 1997. Currently, the company manufactures combines in Jiamusi and tractors in Tianjin.

Agribusiness, International, John Deere, Tractor

Osborn & Barr Forms New Executive Management Team

Chuck Zimmerman

Osborn & BarrOsborn & Barr has a new Executive Management Team in place. These 5 people will report to Joe Osborn and Steve Barr.

The new Executive Management Team will take over functional management of the agency on a day-to-day basis. In addition, the team will assist Osborn and Barr as they focus efforts on developing more strategic and long-term growth opportunities for the agency. The Executive Management Team includes:

Cheryl Bergeron has been promoted to Chief Creative Officer. In her new role, she will supervise the entire agency’s creative output, growing digital services division and production groups. Her charge will be to continue to improve our product in every way.

Steve Kunkel has been promoted to the new position of Chief Operating Officer. Now in his new role, Kunkel will oversee the entire organizational process including how the introduction of new clients into the agency, project workflow, and the client’s ultimate satisfaction. In addition, he will continue to lead the account teams for several of our clients and facilitate the account planning function.

Rhonda Ries-Aguilar, a 15-year O&B veteran, serves as the agency’s Chief Financial Officer. She is not only responsible for not running the financial, legal and technology side of O&B for the agency, but also serves as oversight on our client’s financial matters.

Michael Turley rejoins Osborn & Barr as Executive Vice President. In his new role, Turley will be responsible for client relationships, networking alliances and new product and service development.

Hugh Whaley, who has been with the agency for 11 years, has been promoted to president of the O&B Association and Government business unit.

Agencies

Find Farm Info On YouTube

Chuck Zimmerman

YouTube is moving a little slow for me this morning but I’m finding an increasing number of ag videos in there. I’ve now got 69 videos uploaded which have been viewed a collective 61,000 times!

Here’s one from Monsanto which is titled “Renewable Fuels: From Farm To Fuel Pump.” In it you’ll see leaders of both the American Soybean Association and the National Corn Growers Association talking about how productive our growers are.

How many times has your company been featured and found on YouTube?

Agribusiness, Video

Farm Progress Show Here We Come

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm Progress Show 2007It’s show time in Progress City, IL (near Decatur) and the weather is looking beautiful.

I’m off to the big show today and will be reporting on all the activities of the 2007 Farm Progress Show. My sponsor for this year’s coverage is New Holland. We’re going to find out what’s “new” with New Holland right here so don’t forget to check your feeds or just browse on back.

New HollandI know that one of the highlights of the New Holland tent is going to be Jay Leno’s Ecojet car which runs on biodiesel. It will be on display and on Wednesday a very important person will be stopping by to pay a visit.

Laura McNamara will be helping me out this week for a couple days. We’ll be working out of the New Holland sponsored media tent so if you’re trying to find either of us that’s the first place to look.

Here’s the weather outlook according to the Weather Channel:

Today Aug 27 Sunny 90°/65°
Tue Aug 28 Sunny 94°/68°
Wed Aug 29 Mostly Sunny 94°/68°
Thu Aug 30 Partly Cloudy 81°/63°

AgWired coverage of the 2007 Farm Progress Show is sponsored by New Holland

Farm Progress Show, New Holland

Corn Is Being Harvested

Chuck Zimmerman

Harvested CornThis is the field I posted a picture from last week which shows that corn harvesting has begun here in Missouri. It’s the first field I’ve seen that’s been combined.

With some beautiful weather in store in the midwest there might be some competition for farmer’s time this week as the Farm Progress Show kicks off in Decatur, IL.

Corn

New Zealand Rural Network Blog

Chuck Zimmerman

Rural Network BlogPhilippa Stevenson is blogging on the Rural Network in New Zealand. She’s “a freelance journalist and columnist with a 26-year career in journalism. She specializes in reporting primary industries, science and the environment. ”

Here’s some information on the Rural Network. It’s “a community for, by and of rural people. Here, you’ll find news, information, topical opinion and useful advice contributed by specialists and community members.

The Rural Network is the initiative of Dow AgroSciences, which has been providing New Zealand farmers with cost-effective solutions to pasture and crop production problems for 50 years. It just seemed like a good idea for a new era.”

International

The Worm Farmer

Chuck Zimmerman

Pfizer CattleI have never met someone who grows worms for a living but that’s what Dr. Patrick Meeus is doing for Pfizer Animal Health. He’s a parasitologist and specializes in worm research. So at the Pfizer VMRD facility he works on the development of de-wormers.

They call his part of the facility the “Worm Farm.” You can hear him tell how they do the research in my interview with him. He says they are constantly looking for the latest parasites in the field which they bring into the lab to do tests with. There are only about a half a dozen people working in his facility and they have a pretty tough schedule since as he puts it “worms don’t take a day off.”

You can listen to my interview with Dr. Meeus here: pfizer-vmrd-07-meeus.mp3

Or if you’d like you can download it here: Download MP3 FileDr. Patrick Meeus Interview

Animal Health, Audio

Wait to Re-Treat Cattle For BRD

Chuck Zimmerman

Pfizer BeefDr. Merlyn Lucas is Associate Director, Pharmaceutical Clinical Development, VMRD for Pfizer Animal Health. At the recent Pfizer media event he spoke to us about some of his research that focused on single-dose therapy, specifically on Excede and Draxxin. These products are used to treat cattle for bovine respiratory disease.

He says that producers are starting to learn that these products have really changed their need to treat cattle frequently. In fact, the research he’s done makes it pretty clear that waiting to re-treat cattle after using these products is cost effective. Who doesn’t want to save some money?

You can listen to my interview with Dr. Lucas here: pfizer-vmrd-07-lucas.mp3

Or if you’d like you can download it here: Download MP3 FileDr. Merlyn Lucas Interview

Animal Health, Audio

John Deere Product Launch Overview

Chuck Zimmerman

John Deere RevealAfter the big show at the John Deere product launch all the dealers were invited down to the floor and the next room to see all the new equipment up close and personal.

While I was wandering around the floor I met Chris Whitehead, John Deere Manager of Advertising and Marketing Communications. He provided me with an overview of what John Deere has been showing their dealers. Besides dealers he said that they’re also bringing in customers for to see the same demonstrations and product reveal here at the end of the last week of the introduction.

Chris says the product introduction this year is one of their biggest ever and that it focuses on all the customer segments their dealers have.

You can listen to my interview with Chris here: launch-07-whitehead.mp3

John Deere Product Launch Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the John Deere product launch is sponsored by Precision Pays

Audio, John Deere

Seth Crawford Talks John Deere Combines

Chuck Zimmerman

John Deere Combine & Corn HeadThe big combines just have that “wow” factor when it comes to a show and this week’s John Deere product introduction was no exception. The marketing manager for combines for John Deere is Seth Crawford. I interviewed him right after the field demonstration portion on combines. The one in this picture is one of their new 70 Series with the easy to adjust 600 Series Corn Head.

You can learn all about the these new items in the following interview.

John Deere Product Launch Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the John Deere product launch is sponsored by Precision Pays

Corn, John Deere, Video