Get Your Waygu From Down Under

Chuck Zimmerman

Greg Norman PremiumPro golfer Greg Norman thinks beef is what’s for dinner. The only problem is he’s Australian and importing it into the United States. It looks like he’s got 2 flavors, “Signature Waygu” and “Premium.” It’s all targeted to upscale restaurants and they point out that, “This range is produced by AAco as a fully DNA trackable farm-to-plate standard. It’s your guarantee of the highest, most consistent quality beef, grain-fed and aged to perfection.”

Called Greg Norman Australian Prime™ (GNAP), the new brand is led by its flagship range, Greg Norman Signature Wagyu, a 350-day, grain-fed, super premium line of Wagyu beef. It is accompanied by Greg Norman Premium, a range of 120-day, grain-fed beef. The range also includes Greg Norman 100 percent Australian Beef Patties and Hot Dogs.

GNAP is produced in partnership with Australian Agricultural Company (AAco), Australia’s oldest surviving corporation, founded in 1824. The company has more than 600,000 BSE-free cattle on 24 stations and feedlots comprising 22 million acres in Australia’s Queensland and Northern Territory. AAco’s “farm-to-plate” standard ensures complete management over the entire supply chain. The entire range is USDA-inspected and approved.

Beef, International

Working On A New Connection Point

Chuck Zimmerman

National Agri-Marketing AssociationI have just been talked into agreed to chair the 2007 Agri-Marketing Conference Trade Show committee. We want to make it even more of a Connection Point for you.

So, I’ll need some help. Who wants to volunteer to be on the committee? We’ll have a few conference calls, work with Eldon and the staff and have fun. C’mon. I know you’ve been wanting to do something to make the convention’s trade show better than ever. Hey, even if you don’t want to serve you can still email me your ideas and suggestions.

One thing I can promise is no surveys. We did that last year and now we will be looking at the feeback we’ve already received.

NAMA

Farmers Supply Now Online

Chuck Zimmerman

Farmers Supply company just announced a new website. You’ll find an online store of all things John Deere. You had better like music with your web pages too since you’ll get a lot of it each time you click on a different page or visit the homepage. This isn’t my favorite use of audio on a website. I recommend a way to turn the sound off and have it remember that I’ve already heard it when I come back to a page I already visited.

Farmers Supply provides the best selection of used tractors online, and their fifty years experience allows customers an unmatched level of trust and service in the farming industry. Specializing in John Deere equipment and accessories, Farmers Supply is the premier online source for today’s farmer.

Agribusiness, Internet

Brave Agri-Golfers

Chuck Zimmerman

Agri-golfersI know this is a small picture but that’s so it’s not easy to see how absolutely nasty/sweaty we are after playing 18 holes of golf in 100 degree weather. This was from our goodbye to Steve Taylor golf game at Eagle Knoll yesterday.

Pictured from l-r are me, Steve Taylor (Going to Appaloosa Horse Club), Nip Neidert (Neidert Associates) and Gary Marshall (MO Corn Growers). In case you’re wondering, Gary came away with the most cash and we all recovered from the heat very well on hole #19.

Ag Groups

American Agri-Women Get Fresh In Florida

Chuck Zimmerman

American Agri WomenWhy is it that everything from Florida is “fresh?” I’m from Florida. Does that mean I’m “fresh.” I guess it’s all that beautiful blue sky and sunshine. That’s where the American Agri-Women will be holding their annual convention this year. They say it’s, “Fresh Ideas, Fresh Outlook, Fresh From Florida.” I wish they’d hire me to blog it for them.

Here’s the schedule and registration form.

Ag Groups

Successful Farming Gets New Features Editor

Chuck Zimmerman

Jeff CaldwellIt looks like Jeff Caldwell has the “right stuff” for Meredith.

Jeff Caldwell was recently named new Agriculture Online News and Features Editor for Meredith Corporation’s Successful Farming magazine. Caldwell, who grew up on a western Kansas farm, is a 2001 graduate of Kansas State University, with a BA in journalism/English. After graduation, he worked as associate editor for the High Plains Journal, and then in July 2004 moved to Des Moines to serve as field editor for the High Plains Journal/Midwest Ag Journal, as well as editor, author and designer of the company’s e-mail newsletter.

“Jeff is one of the real rising stars in agricultural journalism. He has the ‘right stuff’ to cover agriculture for the benefit of farmers and ranchers,” said Agriculture Online Editor John Walter. “He will be a great addition to the Agriculture Online and Successful Farming team.”

Publication

AgSource Seeds & NuTech Seed Merge

Chuck Zimmerman

AgSource & NuTech OfficersUsing the AgNewsWire.AgWired.com, a couple of seed companies announced their merger today. They’re AgSource Seeds and NuTech Seed. Pictured are owners (left to right) Tom Thompson, Ken Rose, Dennis Ewing and Hollis Oelmann.

(Nevada, Iowa – AgNewsWire.AgWired.com) Two of the Midwest’s young and agile independent seed companies have formed a new organization to deliver more high-performance corn hybrids and soybean varieties. AgSource Seeds, Inc. (Nevada, Iowa) and NuTech Seed, LC (Leland, Iowa) will merge their operations effective September 1, 2006 to complement each organization’s ability to provide the best seed possible for corn and soybean producers.

The new company will market AgSource and NuTech brand seed for the 2007 growing season, with NuTech becoming the primary brand in 2008 and beyond. (Full Release)

Agribusiness

Farm Podcasting On The ZimmCast

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast76 - New Farm PodcastOn this week’s ZimmCast it’s time to relax in between road trips and discuss our latest farm podcast with Pioneer Hi-Bred called “Forage Forum.”

If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the first podcast for dairy producers, now you can. I’d love to know what you think too.

Listen here: Listen To ZimmCastZimmCast 76 (7 min 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.

Dairy, Pioneer, Podcasts, ZimmCast

Farm Aid’s Top of the Haystack

Chuck Zimmerman

Top of the HaystackThe folks at Farm Aid are providing some great content for an agricultural new media workshop. I know I’ll be using them as an example in the one I’ll be conducting at the Ag Media Summit next week.

Take Farm Aid’s new “Top of the Haystack” online contest to win front row seats at the next concert. It’s an online popularity contest where you enter and compete against other people.

We’re giving away front row tickets, airfare and hotel accommodations, and all you have to do is prove you’re Farm Aid’s ultimate fan!

Ag Groups

CCI Celebrates 50 Years

Chuck Zimmerman

Hunter MoorheadI just love these pictures from the Cotton Council International 50 year reception. They did this in Washington, DC at Union Station. What I like is the little “cotton tree” that frame the speakers like Hunter Moorhead here.

CCI President David Burns, a North Carolina producer, said that at CCI’s inception in 1956, the industry was in crisis: stocks were the highest in recent memory, man-made fibers were on the move and exports were the lowest they had been in a decade. That year U.S. cotton exporters shipped a total of only 2.2 million bales. “By comparison, today’s global mill demand for cotton is more than four times greater than in 1956,” Burns said. “For the 2005-2006 marketing year, the U.S. is projected to export nearly 17 million bales, which translates to more than a seven-fold increase in exports compared with 1956 and represents around seventy percent of current U.S. production.”

Thad CochranKeynote speakers at the event included: The Honorable Thad Cochran, Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate; and Hunter H. Moorhead, Special Assistant to the President for Agriculture, Trade and Food Assistance.

Ag Groups, Cotton