Listen To The New FAO Goodwill Ambassadors

Chuck Zimmerman

World Food Day 2005Today is World Food Day and although there are celebrations around the world, the official program took place in Rome according to the following schedule. You can also listen to some short sound bites from the newly appointed ambassadors of FAO using links after the schedule below.

Assembly of guests in the Green Room
The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations opens the ceremony
Screening of a video feature on the World Food Day/TeleFood theme, “Agriculture and Intercultural Dialogue”
Address by the Director-General
Address by His Excellency Giovanni Alemanno Minister of Agricultural and Forestry Policies of the Italian Republic
The Director-General awards the World Food Day Year 2005 medals to the three first prizewinners of the World Food Day poster competition organized by the United Nations Women’s Guild
The Director-General introduces the newly appointed FAO Ambassadors
Brief interventions by newly-appointed FAO Ambassadors
Musical Presentation
The Director-General closes the ceremony

New Ambassadors:

1. Beatrice Faumuina has been appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations. She has been New Zealand’s top ranking track and field athlete for a number of years, won 10 national titles between 1993 and 2005, and is Ambassador for Oceania of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). This is what she declared as she accepted her new title from FAO Director-General, Mr. Jacques Diouf. Download MP3 File

2. Ronan Keating is newly nominated FAO Goodwill Ambassador. With over seventeenth million album sales, the Irish pop singer admits that he has been given much; but, as he was receiving his new title from FAO Director-General, Jacques Diouf, in a special ceremony in Rome, Ronan Keating said it is his duty to give back and make a difference. Download MP3 File

3. The third new ambassador is Paraguay’s First Lady, Ms Penayo de Duarte. She is a strong supporter of FAO’s campaigns against hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity in Latin America. She believes that “hunger is one of the most violent forms of aggression against human rights”. In her country, she has played an active role in various social, health and human development programmes in favour of women, vulnerable people and street children in Asunción and other parts of Paraguay, with particular attention to families living in extreme poverty. No audio currently available.

Audio

Tune In To The Swinecast

Chuck Zimmerman

SwinecastIt’s described as “Regular updates and entertainment on and about the pork industry.” It’s Swinecast. I didn’t even know about this until posting the ZimmCast into Yahoo Podcasts today.

The swinecaster is Ned Arthur who many may know was a farm broadcaster once upon a time just like me. Wait a minute. We’re still producing ag programming. We’re sending it out in a “broad” fashion. What does that sound like. Sounds like farm broadcasting to me. We’re just using the internet!

The coolest thing is that the Swinecast is sponsored by Elanco. I wonder if they believe farmers have digital audio players, computers and broadband? I kind of think so, don’t you?

Audio, Podcasts

Cotton Industry Tour Coming Up

Chuck Zimmerman

Cotton Council InternationalFor the 34th time there will be a Cotton USA Orientation Tour. This year there will be 24 participants representing 13 countries in Asia and Latin America. It’s put on by Cotton Council International.

Textile executives from 13 countries throughout Asia and Latin America will travel across the U.S. Cotton Belt, Oct. 17-28 to familiarize themselves with U.S. cotton and how that fiber is produced, processed and marketed.

The participants, which represent 24 companies in Bangladesh, Colombia, Ecuador India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand. Those companies are expected to consume about 1.3 million bales in 2005, and consume an average of 467,000 U.S. cotton bales annually.

More than 750 textile executives from 60-plus countries have toured the U.S. Cotton Belt via CCI’s Orientation Tour, which was initiated in 1968. The Tour’s specific objectives are to increase these U.S. cotton customers’ awareness of the types and qualities of U.S. cotton, help them gain a better understanding of U.S. marketing practices and enhance their relationships with U.S. cotton exporters.

Ag Groups

Florida Honey Marketing Might Be Buzzing

Chuck Zimmerman

Florida Farm Bureau FederationSince I saw that Florida Farm Bureau is supporting the creation of a Florida honey marketing cooperative it gave me an excuse to write about one of my former employers. Yes, I worked for FFBF way back when (early 1980’s) as the Broadcast Manager. That was an interesting time . . .

So the buzz is all about marketing honey because not all honey is created equal and it’s a huge business in Florida. There’s a story about this in the Palm Beach Post, “Marketing could add buzz to Florida’s honey trade.” It says that this is a $202 million/year industry! According to Florida Farm Bureau, “Florida honey producers and packers who want information about the formation of the marketing cooperative can contact Jerry Latner, president of the industry steering committee, at (877) 832-3268.”

Ag Groups

Monsanto Sticky Traps Catch Variants

Chuck Zimmerman

MonsantoThe latest Talking News Release we distributed this week was from Monsanto. The topic was research from their sticky traps program to see if western corn rootworm beetles are present in soybean fields. I think this is a very interesting story. These western corn rootworm “variants” have adapted their reproductive practices by laying their eggs in soybean fields in order to survive field rotations between corn and soybeans. The variant eggs hatch during the spring, after the field has been rotated back to corn, resulting in larval feeding in first-year corn, which is not a good thing. These are some smart pests!

A sticky trap monitoring program conducted recently by Monsanto suggests that the western corn rootworm variant may continue to be expanding, posing a potential threat to first-year corn next season.

Monsanto distributed 28,000 Pherocon® AM sticky traps to 3600 growers in parts of five Central Corn Belt states – Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Missouri – where the rootworm variant has been expanding. Growers participating in the monitoring program, which covered more than 10 million acres, were asked to place the sticky traps in their soybean fields to determine whether the rootworm beetles are present and at what level.

“What our results showed was that in 90 percent of the counties that we sent sticky traps into farmers did capture the western corn rootworm beetle on these sticky traps,” said Dave Rhylander, Director of Traits for Monsanto. “And so that tells us this bug continues to move east, and to the west and to the south, and that it’s now expanded further than anybody had anticipated.” Full Release

Agribusiness, Audio

The ABS Global Walton Distribution Center

Chuck Zimmerman

ABS GlobalThe picture is what nailed it. Send me pictures with your releases!! Love ’em.

ABS Global Inc. proudly dedicated its new Distribution Center to Dr. Robert Walton on October 5, 2005. Dr. Walton joined friends, family and ABS Employees and Representatives from around the world to reflect on his contributions to ABS and the industry.

“Dr Walton’s legacy is his dedication and energy to identify and adapt new technology that benefited beef and dairy producer’s world-wide,” said Richard Smith, ABS Dairy Sire Acquisition Manager. Dr. Walton has played a huge role in the history of ABS Global. Starting in 1962, Walton strove to provide a unique style of leadership and direction for the company. Walton combined the technological abilities of ABS and coupled them with strong marketing concepts and international influence to help create what ABS is today. After 29 years with ABS, Walton retired, however, continues to serve as a consultant to ABS.

Agribusiness

United Nations of Horticulture

Chuck Zimmerman

I thought you might be interested in this story in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, about east coast farmers planting “ethnic” veggies like, n’goyo, njilu, ichiban, habanero peppers, callalou, gboma, fufu and egusi. They apparently can’t grow them fast enough to satisfy the demand for immigrants from other countries!

I especially liked the description of this one guy’s farm as the “United Nations of horticulture.”

Farming

Stop And Smell The Onions

Chuck Zimmerman

Soybean HarvestIt is a beautiful day in mid-Missouri. Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses. Or in today’s case, the wild onion. I took time to do a midday run on the Katy Trail and this guy was getting his soybeans harvested. There was a lot of wild onion around the edges and when he cut through it you could smell it quite a ways. I love that smell too!

The picture is from my mobile phone. Not bad, eh? Anyway, it’s the kind of a beautiful fall day that makes you glad to be alive and thankful for all you have. At least that’s my feeling today. I hope it is with you too!

Uncategorized

ZimmCast On CoolCast Radio

Chuck Zimmerman

Tune in to CoolCast RadioPodcasting continues to become “mainstream.” Announcing CoolCast Radio. Agwired’s ZimmCast is a charter program offering of the new internet-delivered audio programming network. I’d love to know what you think about it. The company has not made its big media splash about this yet although the service is up and running.

Tune in to CoolCast RadioIn addition to the podcasts they offer for you to listen to they also have a store with some “cool” things you can buy and of course they have AgWired logo items like this little teddy bear. Do your Christmas shopping in the CoolCast Radio Store and support AgWired!

Podcasts, ZimmCast

Mycogen Seeds Forage Superbowl Winner

Chuck Zimmerman

Mycogen SeedsMycogen Seeds has the bragging rights when it comes to silage and alfalfa. The World’s Forage Analysis Superbowl was held at World Dairy Expo.

Mycogen Seeds corn silage hybrids dominated competition at the World’s Forage Analysis Superbowl, earning 18 of 20 possible placings in two corn silage categories. In the BMR Corn Silage category, Mycogen Seeds hybrids swept the entire category. In addition, a Mycogen Seeds grower was named the Grand Champion First-Time Entrant. In the Standard Corn Silage category, Mycogen hybrids earned eight of 10 possible placings.

In addition to that they also:

Mycogen Seeds alfalfa varieties had a strong showing in three separate divisions: dairy hay, dairy haylage and commercial hay at the World’s Forage Analysis Superbowl. A Mycogen Seeds grower was named Grand Champion of the Dairy Hay category.

The Grand Champion Dairy Hay division was won by Mike Beun, Waterloo, Wis., who planted Mycogen 4A421.

Agribusiness