PETA Survey Lacks Credibility – News Flash

Chuck Zimmerman

I’m sure you’ve heard of PETA. Not the people eating tasty animals folks but the other one. Just to give you an idea of how ridiculous they are I just found out about their latest scam. You can read about it here.

Basically, they are surveying “200 of the top meat, restaurant, and grocery companies, including Tyson Foods, McDonald’s, and Wal-Mart” about “more than 20 animal-related topics, such as farmed-animal welfare, rodent control, and availability of vegetarian products.” They want to rate them on a compassion quotient.

Guess how much attention the media will give that. According to the person who brought it to my attention the surveys have showed up and claim that unanswered questions will be filled out by PETA “to the best of our knowledge.” What a crock.

Uncategorized

Phone “Broadcast” of Ag Day Program

Chuck Zimmerman

National Ag DayThe term “broadcast” has a lot of meanings these days. It could mean over the air transmission, satellite feed, internet streaming, podasting or a dial-in phone feed. That last one is what the Agriculture Council of America is doing for Ag Day.

Attention NAMA Members! Can’t make it to Washington, DC for this year’s National Ag Day celebrations? No problem, you can attend the official Ag Day luncheon right in your own office via an audio broadcast.

The audio broadcast will take place on Thursday, March 16 from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. (EST). This year’s luncheon keynote speaker will be the Honorable Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. Senator Chambliss will address the opportunities and challenges facing American agriculture. Former USDA Secretary John Block of Olssen, Frank & Weeda, and Orion Samuelson, WGN Radio/RFDTV, will serve as the Masters of Ceremony. In addition, the national winner of the Ag Day Essay Contest, “Growing Our Energy,” will be honored.

There is no charge to participate in the audio broadcast. To participate, simply complete the registration form at http://www.agday.org/broadcast.htm and we’ll e-mail you the phone number and passcode to call-in. We are limited to how many phone lines are available so get your registration in now!

NAMA

Rhea & Kaiser Winning Awards Again

Chuck Zimmerman

Rhea & KaiserIt’s NAMA awards time and it looks like Rhea & Kaiser are doing fine. I didn’t make it to any awards programs so far. But there’s still the big one in April.

In the Chicago region, Rhea & Kaiser dominated with 26 awards, including Best of Show for the Caterpillar Chopper Premier and Tour public relations campaign. Nine first place awards in advertising were presented to Rhea & Kaiser in Raleigh for work on Bayer CropScience, including Best of Show for the public relations campaign “Rust Never Sleeps. Neither Do We.” Rhea & Kaiser also received nine first place awards in the New York region for Pfizer Animal Health campaigns and two first place awards for Bayer CropScience campaigns on the West Coast. (Full Release)

Agencies

Zimfo Bites

Chuck Zimmerman

A Zimfo bite is a short bit of zimmformation. I’m going to get better at this I promise. I just think calling them news bites or quick links is too boring.

We are exporting a lot of farm machinery – $6 billion worth last year, up 15%.

Ag hedging does not involve the use of clippers.

Biomaxx Systems Gets a Biotechnologist.

American Seeds (Monsanto) acquires Gold Country Seeds and Heritage Seeds.

Tractorhouse wants you to subscribe.

The press release is now “fully web enabled.”

Zimfo Bytes

NAFB Foundation Internship Grant Recipients

Chuck Zimmerman

NAFB FoundationThe NAFB Foundation is a great program because it’s all about the future and helping the young people who will be a part of that future. It’s the kind of program I wish all organizations had. We have always supported it. Here’s who will be receiving grants from the foundation to help with their internships this year.

Three of the Nation’s best Farm Radio Stations have just been named by the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) Foundation to receive the Foundation’s Farm Broadcast Student Internship Grants. Stations WMBD/WIRL, Peoria, Illinois; KRVN, Lexington, Nebraska; and KKOW, Pittsburg, Kansas, will each receive a grant of $1,000 to further develop their Farm Broadcast internship programs.

The program started in 1997 by the NAFB Foundation provides financial assistance to stations or networks that desire to hire and train a student intern in the profession of Farm Broadcasting. In addition to the $1,000 grant, NAFB Foundation will pay the intern registration fee to the 2006 Annual NAFB Convention in November for each of the winning stations and networks.

NAFB

Canadian Live Hog Prices will Remain Volatile

Chuck Zimmerman

Harry SiemensSaskatchewan Agriculture and Food says a combination of factors will keep hog prices volatile with some strengthening as we move toward spring. Brad Marceniuk said while live hog prices have continued to fluctuate, they have improved since the beginning of February when higher U.S. slaughter numbers and higher volumes of chicken and pork in cold storage pushed prices down.

“The key factors are U.S. hog slaughter numbers, the demand for pork, U.S. meat in cold storage and the Canadian dollar,” said Marceniuk. “Lower hog slaughter numbers in the United States over the last few weeks have been positive on US hog prices. The demand for pork in the U.S. has been weakening over the last few months which have been negative for hog prices.”

With chicken in cold storage up 46 percent year over year and pork stocks up 23 percent from December, increased meat supplies have put pressure on prices. In Canada, the strengthening Canadian dollar has been negative for local prices and will continue to put downward pressure on hog prices if the dollar continues to get stronger compared to the US dollar.

Marceniuk notes February Statistics Canada figures show the total inventory of hogs in Canada as of January 1, 2006 fell slightly from one year earlier. Canadian production has levelled off, remaining relatively flat in 2005, with little growth expected in 2006 and shouldn’t be a major influencing factor on prices.

Siemens Says

International

News Briefs

Chuck Zimmerman

What do you think about the idea of “news briefs?” I did this yesterday and once again today. We’re getting a lot of news here and rather than ignore it I’m borrowing on an idea I’ve seen on other blogs I subscribe to. The idea is to give you a headline/tease with a link to the release or the website where you can find more if you want it. Love to have your feedback.

Weather alerts by SKYLERT delivers real-time Weather, Homeland Security, Amber Alerts, Hurricane and Tsunami Weather Warnings instantly to cellphones, pagers, PDAs, Blackberries and email accounts.

New website for “A Self-Propelled, Constant-Speed Spray Vaccinator for Commercial Layer Chickens.”

Rob Robinson has been named operating head of Golden Harvest Seeds, Inc.

You can find an interesting list of public relations blogs over at PR Meets The WWW.

Free Hidden Valley Collection of Kid-Approved Recipes – The Small Bites Cookbook

Uncategorized

Commodity Classic Photo Album

Chuck Zimmerman

Classic DudesAt Commodity Classic last week I took a bunch of pictures and didn’t use them all in my posts. So, in case you want to see more I put a selection of them (57) into a Flickr photo album for you.

You can see the them here: 2006 Commodity Classic Photo Album

Commodity Classic

News Briefs

Chuck Zimmerman

For your perusal:

Codex Alimentarius launches new website on Food Additives

Ridomil Gold Bravo SC Now Available for Use on Vegetables and Potatoes (from Syngenta)

Post a “FREE For Sale Listing” on TractorHouse.com.

Rhea & Kaiser Marketing Communications, an integrated marketing communications agency well known for its leading portfolio of agricultural clients, hosted 10 students from Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences (CHSAS) during February’s Groundhog Job Shadowing Week, a national program that gives middle and high school students a firsthand look at day-to-day life in the workplace.

Trans Ova Genetics has announced the appointment of Chris Sigurdson to the position of Sales & Marketing Director, based out of the corporate headquarters in Sioux Center.

Agencies, Agribusiness

Follow College Students on Domestic Fuel

Chuck Zimmerman

The idea of blogging college students seems to be catching on. Over on Domestic Fuel, we’re getting some daily reports from students who are on a cross country tour fueled by E85. They’re in a Chevy Avalanche. We just got the first reports in today and I’m sure Cindy will have them posted later. You can see the original post on it here.

We found out about it at the last minute and would have liked to have set it up differently but this works. They’re writing about their experience and we’re providing an outlet. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of feedback it generates.

Ethanol