Gateway Farm Lunch

Chuck Zimmerman

Terry BarrThe Gateway NAMA chapter is having its luncheon today (right now) in conjunction with the St. Louis Agribusiness Club. Speaking is Terry Barr, Chief Economist for the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and Vice President of the Cooperative Business Center in NCFC. His subject is “Implications for Agribusiness with an Updated Outlook of the U.S. Economy.” We’ve got about 60 people here.

Right now he’s talking about how he thinks we’ll see a potential doubling of ethanol production within 4 years and a doubling of how much corn is being used to make ethanol. Along with these predictions he’s providing his assumptions. We’re going to continue to hear lots about this since what happens in the biofuels markets has such an impact on other commodities and with legislation.

If you want to hear and see this kind of presentation make sure you’re involved with your local NAMA chapter or organization like the St. Louis Ag Club.

NAMA

We Are The Champions

Chuck Zimmerman

University of FloridaHow ’bout them Gators?

I just had to say that. They are the champions after last night’s BCS Championship whomping of Ohio State. They also have an excellent ag school in case you didn’t know that. I graduated from the College of Journalism.

This is a celebration day for those of us in the Gator Nation, which is their online social networking site.

It’s off to St. Louis today for meetings. See you later.

Uncategorized

Duda Farms Celery Straws

Chuck Zimmerman

Duda Celery StrawsHere’s a whole new way to drink your bloody mary. Celery straws from Duda Farm Fresh Foods. Yes, according to a story on Iconoculture the wizards at Duda have engineered a celery stalk that works as an edible straw. I’m sure you can think up some creative things to do with this.

You can also find the story on Neatorama, Boing Boing, Cool Business Ideas and FreshPlaza.

I got it via Engadget. How’s that for a news blog trail?

Food

Diversa Partners With Syngenta

Chuck Zimmerman

DiversaSince today’s ZimmCast focused on biofuels this is a timely story as more companies are working together to try to increase the efficiency of biofuel production.

Syngenta and Diversa Corporation announced today a new 10-year research and development partnership focused on the discovery and development of a range of novel enzymes to convert pre-treated cellulosic biomass economically to mixed sugars — a critical step in the process of biofuel production.

The new agreement allows Diversa to independently develop and commercialize fermentation-based enzyme combinations from its proprietary platform. Syngenta will have exclusive access to enzymes from Diversa’s platform to express in plants for enhanced cost-effective production.

Agribusiness

Renessen & Efficient Ethanol Production

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast101 - Doug Rushing, RenessenBiofuels are continuing to be a hot topic in agriculture so I’m glad to have a ZimmCast for you this week on how a company is working to make ethanol plants more efficient and offering a new corn hybrid to growers that will produce a premium product tailored for ethanol production.

I interviewed Doug Rushing, Renessen, at the recent NAFB convention. Renessen is a joint venture between Cargill and Monsanto. Doug describes the high oil corn hybrid his company is offering growers in selected states this year and the process they’ve created to make ethanol plants more efficient.

To listen to my complete interview with Doug you can download the ZimmCast: Listen To ZimmCastZimmCast 101 (7 min MP3)

Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:

zimmcast101-1-8-07.mp3

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes.

Agribusiness, Audio, Corn, Ethanol, ZimmCast

Ice Cream Blogging

Chuck Zimmerman

Turkey Hill DairyYou never know what you’re going to find when you’re Googling around. Like this story I just posted on World Dairy Diary. It’s your basic neat promotional story about an ice cream and a football team. But as I was looking at the Turkey Hill Dairy website I discovered they have a blog.

It’s called Ice Cream Journal, The inside scoop on ice cream and Turkey Hill Dairy. Check it out and learn. From a pretty quick look I’d say they’ve got a blogger on board who’s doing a great job. They’ve got comments on most of the posts I looked at (something I hope to bring back to AgWired soon). So what did they do to reward the people who make comments?

For December, we chose several blog comments at random and are giving each of the authors a free Turkey Hill ice cream spade. The winners are:

– Brian G. from Port Jefferson Station, NY
– Kathleen S. from Salley, SC
– Cathy L. from Cherry Hill, NJ
– Marvin M. from Chambersburg, PA
– Carol A. from Jamestown, RI
– Joan O. from Whitman, MA

Now that’s the way to help build your online customer community!

Dairy

Looking Into Poultry & Feed

Chuck Zimmerman

International Poultry ExpoThe winter travel schedule is about to heat up starting this week with a Gateway NAMA meeting in St. Louis. I’ve added an even to the schedule too. It’s the International Poultry Expo and International Feed Expo. They’ll be taking place together in Atlanta on the 24th through the 26th. This looks like a huge show and will be a first time for me.

International Feed ExpoThe Poultry Expo is put on by the U. S. Poultry & Egg Association. The Feed Expo is put on by the American Feed Industry Association.

Before hitting this show I’ll be in Berlin for International Green Week, then after this show I’ll be in Nashville for the Cattle Industry Convention, followed by San Antonio and the National Biodiesel Conference. That’s going to make for some interesting posts here on AgWired so get ready.

Uncategorized

iPods and iTunes Mushrooming

Chuck Zimmerman

hitwiseSince I just helped an agricultural media company create a podcast and I’m in a podcasting mood I thought you might find this of interest. Keep in mind that all the people referred to are using an online environment that includes the biggest podcast directory. Is your company represented there? When I see numbers like these I do have to laugh about this public comment about podcasts and iPods that a farm broadcaster made recently, “It takes too much energy and management for busy people over a long term.” Yeah? Well tell that to all the new iPod owners!

Hitwise, the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service, today announced that the market share of visits to the iTunes website (www.apple.com/itunes ) was up 413 percent on Christmas Day 2006 (December 25, 2006) versus Christmas Day 2005 as new iPod owners flocked to the web to download iTunes. In addition, the market share of visits to the Apple Store (store.apple.com) showed an increase of 110 percent when comparing Christmas Day 2006 to 2005. The Apple Store was the fourth most visited website in the Hitwise Retail Index on Christmas Day 2006.

The market share of visits to Zune.net, the site for downloading the music software for Microsoft’s MP3 player showed an increase of 1,030 percent on December 25, 2006 versus the previous Monday (December 18, 2006). However, this strong initial performance was overshadowed by the iPod, as the market share of visits to the iTunes website increased by 1,222 percent in the same period, and outnumbered visits to Zune.net by 30 to 1. “For the third holiday season in a row, the iPod has been the must-have Christmas gift,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise.

Via Sundog.

Podcasts

New Farm Podcast Recorders From Olympus

Chuck Zimmerman

Olympus DS-50I’m not sure why companies wait until right after Christmas to announce all kinds of new gadgets but whatever. Here’s a cool one for you farm podcasters out there. I have an older Olympus digital audio recorder and you’ve listened to a lot of audio that Cindy and I have recorded on it. This one looks pretty good at first glance. The one pictured here is the Olympus DS-50.

Olympus unveils three new DS-Series digital voice recorders that bridge the gap between work and play. In addition to capturing audio of meetings, interviews and other critical information expected of digital recorders, the new Olympus DS-30, DS-40 and DS-50 are optimized for downloading, listening to and creating podcasts. The new recorders’ high sound quality is also great for listening to audio books and music, making them the all-in-one audio device.

Software included with the devices makes downloading podcasts easy, and the podcasts’ contents are updated automatically each time the audio recorder is connected to or “synchronized” with a computer. Podcasts and other audio content can be downloaded from any Web site. The new voice recorders are also specifically designed to work with Audible.com, a leading online provider of audio books and other spoken entertainment and information.

The price on these is very attractive too. They range from $149 to $249. I think the smallest one is plenty for what most farm podcasters would need.

Via Podcasting News.

Podcasts