Ethanol & Global Hunger

Keith Good

FarmPolicy.comAs domestic ethanol production continues to grow, agricultural observers can quickly and easily see many of the potential benefits: increased investment in the rural economy, the environmental benefits of using a renewable fuel, and increased demand for corn, which can lead to higher incomes for corn growers.

However, New York Times reporter Matthew L. Wald, in an article published in yesterday’s paper, provided a look at a potential downfall of increased corn based ethanol production: global hunger.

According to Mr. Wald, “The rising corn prices may be good news for farmers, but they are worrying some food planners.

“‘We’re putting the supermarket in competition with the corner filling station for the output of the farm,’ said Lester R. Brown, an agriculture expert in Washington, D.C., and president of the Earth Policy Institute. Farms cannot feed all the world’s people and its motor vehicles as well, Mr. Brown said, and the result is that more people will go hungry.”

The Times article also included the perspective of Joachim von Braun, the director of the International Food Policy Research Institute who noted that “the mouth of your car is a monster compared to your family’s stomach needs.”

On the other hand, the Times included the view of Nick Young, the president of an agriculture consulting firm, Promar, in Alexandria, Va., who indicated that, “it was an exaggeration to say that nonfood use of crops will make the world’s poor go hungry, but he added that the use of vegetable oil as a substitute for diesel fuel had already driven up the price of canola oil.”

As ethanol use continues to grow, it’s likely that media reports covering various aspects of the industry will continue to grow as well.

***

As it turns out, today will be my last guest post at AgWired.com. Activity surrounding my Email newsletter, FarmPolicy.com, continues to grow and requires more time and attention.

I have certainly enjoyed the opportunity to blog at what I consider to be the best ag related blog on the Internet. It has been a wonderful experience. Thanks for reading.

Keith Good writes The FarmPolicy.com News Summary, an Email newsletter containing a summary of news relating to U.S. farm policy which is published most weekdays. For more information, go to www.FarmPolicy.com.

Farm Policy

ABCKC Forum On Crisis Management

Chuck Zimmerman

Agricultural Business Council of Kansas CityEver had a crisis? Want to know how to manage one? Well now you can. The Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City is holding a forum on the subject at 3pm on January 27. It’s titled “Crisis Management in the Ever-Changing Agribusiness Arena.” The forum will be hosted by Hosted by Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P., 2555 Grand Blvd., 24th Floor, Kansas City, Mo.

SHB Partners Chris McDonald and Mark Anstoetter, together with Rick Thaemert, a senior partner at the public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard, will discuss crisis readiness and the elements of effective crisis management plans, including dealing with the media; complying with required notifications under the law; and preserving evidence that might be relevant to pending or threatened litigation. FBI Special Agent Craig Watz will discuss the government’s role and provide a short update on the bureau’s agroterrorism initiatives and the 2nd Annual International Symposium on Agroterrorism slated for September 2006 in Kansas City.

The 1.5-hour program will begin at 3 p.m., with a reception immediately following. Parking for the event will be available in SHB’s parking garage at 2555 Grand Blvd. Visitor parking is plentiful on the fourth, fifth and sixth levels of the facility. Take the parking garage elevator to level “L” and follow the walkway into the building. The registration table will be on the left as you enter the SHB lobby. Upon check in, please have your parking ticket validated and someone will then escort you to the 24th Floor Conference Center.

RSVP by January 24 to Agricultural Business Council Chair Gina Bowman-Morrill at GinaB@kc.rr.com or Tamy Brown at tnbrown@shb.com, (816) 474-6550, extension 20572.

Ag Groups, Agribusiness

NAMA Awards Deadline

Chuck Zimmerman

NAMAThe National Agri-Marketing Association is reminding you about the call for nominations for two of their annual awards. Here’s the information:

The deadline for submitting nominations for the Agribusiness Leader of the Year and the NAMA Marketer of the Year awards is January 20, 2006. Both awards will be presented at the 2006 Agri-Marketing Conference & Trade Show, April 19-21 in Kansas City.

The Agribusiness Leader of the Year award honors an outstanding leader in agribusiness, education, government service or other agribusiness related areas. Nominees do not need to be NAMA members. Download the Agribusiness Leader Nomination form in an Adobe .PDF format by visiting, http://www.nama.org/awards/agbusapplication.pdf.

NAMA recognizes its active members with senior management of marketing and/or sales responsibilities with the NAMA Marketer of the Year award. This award is the most prestigious honor awarded to an active member of the association and honors outstanding accomplishments in the field of agri-marketing directly to ag producers. Nominees MUST be NAMA members. Download the NAMA Marketer of the Year nomination form in an Adobe .PDF format by visiting, http://www.nama.org/awards/mktrapplication.pdf.

NAMA

A ZimmCast On Rural Internet Access

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast51-Tim GanschowThe issue of rural internet access is a very important one in agricultural marketing and communications today. Last week I posted the full presentation made by Tim Ganschow, Agristar Global Networks, at the Gateway NAMA meeting. I’ve selected a couple of segments from Tim’s talk for you in this week’s ZimmCast. I hope you enjoy it.

You can listen to this week’s ZimmCast here: Download MP3 File

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also now find the ZimmCast on CoolCast Radio or subscribe in iTunes.

Agribusiness, Audio, Internet, NAMA, Podcasts, ZimmCast

Newest O&B Hires In KC

Chuck Zimmerman

Benjamin RicheyAt least Osborn & Barr only announced 2 new hires this time (saves time on posting). I will post a picture of Amy as soon as I get one. In this case they’re adding to their Kansas City office.

Benjamin Richey brings a combination of marketing and livestock experience to his new role as account executive for Intervet and National Pork Board at Osborn & Barr Communications. Most recently, he was the director of communications at the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA). He has also worked with the National Swine Registry and the National Pork Board. He received a bachelor of science in animal science and agricultural communication at Purdue University.

And also . . .

Amy McCreaAmy McCrea joined Osborn & Barr in the new position of integrated marketing project coordinator for John Deere’s new dealer advertising program. Amy is the communications liaison for participating John Deere dealers, John Deere and the Osborn & Barr marketing team. Amy worked on new product introductions during her summer internship at John Deere in 2005 before completing her bachelor of science in agricultural business at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville. Amy has also interned for Farm Credit Services of Missouri and United States Congressman Sam Graves.

Agencies

I’m Not Green With Envy

Chuck Zimmerman

I wanted to use the photo but you’ll have to visit CNN.com to see it. A flourescent green pig. Somehow the thought of green ribs or a nice glowing green loin roast just doesn’t appeal to me. What am I talking about? A story on CNN about these Chinese scientists who are breeding transgenic pigs. From the story:

By injecting fluorescent green protein into embryonic pigs, a research team at the island’s leading National Taiwan University managed to breed three male transgenic pigs, said professor Wu Shinn-Chih of the university’s Institute and Department of Animal Science and Technology.

“There are partially fluorescent green pigs elsewhere, but ours are the only ones in the world that are green from inside out. Even their hearts and internal organs are green,” Wu said on Thursday.

I am so glad to hear that their’s are the only ones “green from inside out.” I really don’t think I want any others even a little bit green!

International, University

Wood You Visit The Idea Outpost

Chuck Zimmerman

Idea OutpostThe latest agency to be added to our “Agencies” listing page is Idea Outpost. I just thought I’d bring them to your attention because they contacted me and I like their website. Also, I like working with wood, even though I don’t have any time to spend in my shop and don’t know when the last time was I used my tools. I bring this up because they use a wood theme and background. I like the clever quips like, “Staring at wood can be very inspirational. Or knot.” The site is clean, simple, easy to find all the information I want about them. This is the way a website should function.

Agencies

Podcasting Applicable For Associations

Chuck Zimmerman

A friend just sent me a copy of a recent article in Association Trends about podcasting. It requires registration to get to it. However, the one line that I can share from it is, “Not every hot new trend is applicable for assns, but podcasting certainly is!” Pretty enthusiastic endorsement for using the 2005 New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year. Even my hometown newspaper is writing about it.

Just like blogging gives an association or company a very personal way to communicate with it’s membership and customers, podcasting takes it a step further. Many associations are using audio in what I call a “traditional” way. They produce sound bites or interviews and make them available to “media” hoping it will get aired. They aren’t thinking of using it to communicate directly with their members. Why not? Your members and customers can get it and are. Are they hearing it from you?

The article I mentioned above was submitted by Gary LaBranche, who is CEO of the Association Forum of Chicagoland. Their mission statement is “Advance the professional practice of association management.” If you visit their site you’ll see that they’re podcasting. They’ve even created a nice page about podcasting. You can hear his latest podcast here.

There is one farm “association” that I know of that’s already podcasting and that’s the Missouri Beef Industry Council. It’s a weekly interview about their activities. Their members can hear it directly from them and they do. We produce this report and track the number of times it’s downloaded. According to the statistics there’s a growing number of listeners. You can see the link to their podcast on their homepage and on their blog.

It’s not a fad but is a hot trend. Like blogging I have to ask if you’re considering it. Are you? If so and you’d like to learn more about it you know who to call.

Ag Groups, Podcasts

How To and Not To Blog

Chuck Zimmerman

Yesterday I was working on my high school reunion blog and ran into a great example of how to use a blog. The background is that my hometown, Sarasota, FL was in the news because some homeless advocacy group voted it the meanest city in America. So I thought that would be good for a post on my reunion blog. As I did a quick Google search I found out that the City Manager of Sarasota has a blog and he had already written about the story. Great application and in looking at his blog, here’s a guy who gets it! Not only did he respond to a national story quickly but personally for anyone to read. This is open communication that doesn’t depend on how or if the media uses it. There’s a world of application of blogging like this in the agricultural world.

For example, let’s say that someone at the executive level at Diamond Pet Foods was blogging. It would have provided them with a great outlet to deal personally with the national level story that’s been running over the pets who have been poisoned by dog food containing aflatoxin. Instead they’ve done the “traditional” thing. They issued a news release and created a nice looking but pretty “corporate” website for the issue. It’s interesting that if you type their corporate website url into your browser they’ve got it automatically re-directing you to this “Recall Information” site. Then you can’t see their home site without a little work. Once you get to the home site in their news section is a “Customer Alert” which has a title of “Media Statement.” Is that for the media or is it meant to be a personal statement to their customers? If it’s the latter, it doesn’t come across as very personal. It’s not signed by any staff person and doesn’t provide a way to contact them. A blog would accomplish so much more. Their customers would be reading the personal statements of management who could be communicating frequently as this issue unfolds. It would allow those customers to give feedback and at least feel like they had an outlet for their emotion. This isn’t a story that’s going away quickly I’m afraid. On Friday I was speaking with someone on the phone who brought it up and made it clear how he would feel if it had been his pet that got sick or died. If you Google on the topic you’ll even find an attorney who’s advertising a site for people who want to sue the company!

Although I think Diamond Pet Foods could benefit from blogging they would still have to have someone who is capable and willing to do it. I am consulting with a number of companies and organizations about blogging and it’s the first thing that needs to be considered. What you don’t want is to create a blog and then not post anything. For example, I was thrilled to see that the National Association of Wheat Growers had started the NAWG Blog “Commentary by NAWG President Sherman Reese.” However, the last post showing is from August 4, 2005. In fact, there’s only 3 posts on the blog. Not good. There’s been so many things that could have been written about on the site like, personal comments about trade, travel, staff changes, the upcoming grain congress, etc. I’ve got to believe the members want to know what the CEO thinks and what he’s doing.

Blogging isn’t for everyone but it is a very effective communications tool in today’s web world and that includes the business of agriculture. Do you have plans to blog? Do you want to find out more about how it works? If so, please let me know and I’ll be happy to share what I’ve learned in over a year of doing it!

Ag Groups, Agribusiness

Play Combine Combat

Chuck Zimmerman

Combine CombatI hope Cindy doesn’t read this post since it’s about a new online computer game (she plays them all the time!) called Combine Combat. It’s created by Successful Farming and John Deere. I played through all 4 levels. My first time final score was 407,494. How’s that stack up against your score? I can see in there user forum that a couple people have gotten higher that 600,000. I wonder who’s tops.

The game lets you pit yourself against your “rowdy” neighbor to see who can harvest the most corn and soybeans in a race against the weather, the markets and time. It’s fun, exciting and it’s drawing a lot of attention. The game is simple. Participants steer their combine with the arrow keys on their keyboard, trying to outpace their “rival” while avoiding various obstacles, including combine collisions. Collecting John Deere icons and featured items can boost speed and add bonus points. There are four levels of play, with total acres harvested, harvest yields and time in field, plus bonus points, contributing to a players net harvest profit. “We approached Successful Farming and said ‘We have some marketing goals, can you help us achieve them,’ ” said David Pauli, John Deere Advertising Creative Group Manager. “They came back to us with Combine Combat, which we felt was an exciting and very creative solution to our marketing challenge.”

In the first week of the game, the site monitored more than 17,000 plays. “People are already talking about their scores on our discussion sites”, Snyder said. “We’ve even got one guy who says he hit $600,000, which we didn’t think was possible.”

They claim the game is addicting. What do you think? In fact, what do you think about the idea of an online game as part of a marketing effort for a company like John Deere?

Agribusiness, Internet, Publication