We’re into question and answer here with the Secretary.
I told Mike Adams I wasn’t going to put him on the internet again but here he is with Sec. Johanns. Mike’s the emcee so he gets his picture posted.
Prior to the meeting here today Mike interviewed Sec. Johanns on Agritalk. I’m looking forward to a short private interview after we’re done here momentarily.
Right now Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns, is speaking here in St. Louis.
He’s talking about drought assistance. He acknowledges the need and I’ll have more details when I post his comments and get a chance to interview him later.
Hello in real time from St. Louis and the joint Gateway NAMA/St. Louis Agribusiness Club meeting. I’m here in Clayton where we’ll have a nice program featuring our Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns. I’ll record his comments for you and try to get a private interview as well.
Here’s registration taking place in the hall outside our ballroom. I know we had 150 reservations and expect walk-ins so it’s going to be a nice crowd.
This could be a dusty event and knowing Florida cowboys I’ll bet they find a way to slake their thirst.
The Florida Agricultural Museum will present the “Great Florida Cattle Drive of Ought 6” December 5-9, 2006. Registration is now under way for the event, which will begin just south of Kissimmee and end at the new Silver Spurs Arena in Kenansville. In 1995 — to celebrate 150 years of Florida statehood — a group of 600 cattlemen, historians, horse lovers and hearty adventurers drove 1,000 head of native Cracker Cattle across the state. The group also included wagon drivers, walkers, artists and local, state and national media.
The United Soybean Board was the driving force behind this week’s biobased products event at the Pentagon. A couple of soybean growers were on hand to help out with their display. Pictured here are Tom Brown (l) who is a member of the USB and Dale Profit who is a member of the Ohio Soybean Council.
I got to interview each of these gentlemen while I was there. I asked them about what they had on display and why products made from soybeans are a good choice for governmental purchasing agents.
You can listen to my interview with Tom here: 
Tom Brown Interview (2 min MP3)
You can listen to my interview with Dale here: Dale Profit Interview (3 min MP3)
You can hear all the audio I recorded at the event here and see a selection of the pictures I too here.
I can’t wait to try one of these new digital content players. It’s the Zune from Microsoft which is now official although it’s been rumored and talked about for quite a while. You can see some more photos over on Engadget which has this to say about it.
Not a lot of surprises in the specs department, but they’ve confirmed the basics we’ve known for a while, like WiFi, 30GB of HDD, built-in FM, a 3-inch screen and the basic music, pictures and video playback. They also finally let slip the screen res — an unsurprising QVGA — and some better news on the codec front: the Zune supports h.264, MP3, AAC and WMA.
It sounds like we may see these available by the holidays. Keep it in mind for your gift giving. A new device to listen to the ZimmCast on!
An association for people who live in the country? It seems like we have a lot of those but maybe not one like this. It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out. The announcement says there will be an annual convention and trade show too. Hmmm . . . Member registration is $49.
A new association to address the needs of the ever-growing “country living” population will begin initial operation Sept. 15, 2006. The new entity is named Country Living Association and its membership is focused on individuals and families who reside in the country and marketers who supply these families with goods and services relating to country life. “Data proves there are millions of households made up of people who reside outside of cities on acreages ranging from one to 50. These people, as well as traditional farm operators, have unique needs and priorities, and they can benefit greatly from a collective voice, as well as networking opportunities and educational resources,” says Alan Krob, executive director of Country Living Association.
In addition to introducing the new association, Krob announced that Meredith Corporation’s Living the Country Life will serve as the organization’s official publication, and John Deere has committed to be a founding sponsor.
It’s good to be home. Now I’ve got some catching up to do. I’ll have a few posts for you yet today but it’ll take a couple days to get everything posted I’d like to. So let’s get started with this announcement from Rhea & Kaiser about additions to their Bayer CropScience team. They’ve added 3 new staff members: Jennie Schutte, David Harding and Brooke Hepler.
“Dave, Jennie and Brooke bring a deep knowledge of agriculture and an impeccable client service ethic to the team,” said Kim Cooke, vice president and account management supervisor at Rhea & Kaiser. “We believe they will help make a strong Bayer team even better.” Schutte (top picture) joins the Bayer CropScience corn/soybean team as account supervisor, overseeing integrated communication campaigns for BALANCE PRO® and RADIUS™ herbicides, LAUDIS and the GROWING STRONG™ REWARDS PROGRAM/corn portfolio. Schutte, who joined Rhea & Kaiser in 2002 as account coordinator, is a graduate of Purdue University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural communications.
Harding joins the Bayer CropScience team as a public relations account supervisor, supporting the Bayer CropScience cotton/rice/peanuts portfolio. Since joining Rhea & Kaiser in 2000, Harding has won seven first-place National Agri-Marketing Association awards. Harding received a bachelor’s degree in radio-television-film from the University of Texas and a master’s degree in media communications from Webster University.
Hepler joins the Bayer CropScience Southern row crop products team as account executive. She joined Rhea & Kaiser in 2004 as an account coordinator. Hepler is a graduate of the University of Missouri–Columbia with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture business.
One of the companies exhibiting at today’s biobased event at the Pentagon is Advanced Image Resources.
These are the bio-toner people. They’ve even got a patent on their environmentally friendly toner which is made from both corn and soybeans. They had samples from an HP printer on hand to show how well it works.
I spoke with Tom Gandolfi who describes the product and the benefits it offers to customers.
You can listen to my interview here: Tom Ganfolfi Interview (3 min MP3)
It seems like I run into Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns, everywhere these days. Today it was in the Pentagon at the Dept. of Defense, biobased products event that was put together with a lot of work by the United Soybean Board.
After his remarks (which you can hear on the USB site) I got to ask the Secretary a couple questions about promoting biobased products made from agricultural commodities. He says the market potential is in the billions just with our own government and that USDA is working to create awareness in all departments besides just the Dept. of Defense.
You can listen to my interview here: Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns Interview (3 min MP3)
