Precision Ag News 7/1

Carrie Muehling

  • WinField United will add cotton to its Armor brand seed offerings for the 2021 growing season. Armor, a brand long known as a strong advocate for farmers in the Southern United States, will continue to build on its promise of delivering quality products, providing agronomic support and advocating for farmers as WinField United moves its proprietary cotton seed from CROPLAN® to the Armor portfolio.
  • SGS announces the addition of soil screening services at its Brookings, South Dakota laboratory. Soil testing services will be available to clients beginning in the fall of 2020.
  • AgBiome® announced a recent patent directed toward the Connate™ product line granted in the United States, further strengthening AgBiome’s IP Protection around novel product offerings.
  • FMC Corporation has entered into a collaboration with Cyclica Inc, a leading biotechnology company specializing in artificial intelligence and computational biophysics, to accelerate and improve the efficiency of discovering new crop protection chemistry.
  • FMC Corporation announced that it has launched FMC Ventures. The new venture capital arm of FMC Corporation is targeting strategic investments in start-ups and early-stage companies that are developing and applying emerging technologies in the agricultural industry. FMC Ventures announced its first portfolio investment in Trace Genomics, Inc.
  • Farming meets 21st Century technology with an announcement from FieldMicro, an innovative automated agriculture and farm control monitoring system including SmartFarm, a platform that uses smart technology to make farming simpler and more efficient. FieldMicro also announced a partnership with John Deere to provide real-time data to the platform.
  • Farmobile LLC, The Independent Ag Data Company™, announces the launch of its Farmobile Services+SM for Ag Retail Fleet. The new offering, built with direct feedback from ag retailers, combines Farmobile’s real-time, machine data capture technology with personalized, advanced consultative services to help retailers use their own machine data to pinpoint fleet cost centers and opportunities to realize greater efficiency and profitability.
  • AgLaunch announces their continued partnership with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture to support field-trial projects with farmers and AgTech companies.
AgWired Precision, Precision Ag Bytes, Precision Agriculture

IFAJ Presents Annual Awards

Cindy Zimmerman

The Delegate Assembly of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) held online this week presented annual Star awards for excellence.

Gil Gullickson received the 2020 AgTech Reporting Award for “Yours, Mine and Ours,” a feature article on outcome-based pricing for commodities that he wrote for Successful Farming.

Veteran radio presenter Damien O’Reilly was awarded the 2020 International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) Star Prize for Broadcast: Audio for his “Climate Change and Irish Farming” broadcast.

Fiona Lake – Star Prize for Photography

Fiona Lake’s delightful “Cobb and Co. Long Haul,” published in Queensland Country Life, received the 2020 Star Prize for Photography.

Diego Juste of Spain’s Union of Small Farmers and Stockbreeders was awarded the 2020 Star Prize for Broadcast: Video for his documentary about the decline of a rural community.

Ian Doig of the Canadian Farm Writers Federation received the 2020 Star Prize for Print for “Crisis Control,” which he wrote for GrainsWest.

Brett Worthington of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was honored with the 2020 Star Prize for Broadcast: Digital Media for his “Popping Prosecco’s Bubble”.

Read more about all of the winners here.

The IFAJ Delegate Assembly also welcomed two new members at the online meeting held on Thursday, 25 June 2020. Sierra Leone and Zambia now become the 54th and 55th member countries in IFAJ.

IFAJ

Planted Acreage up for Corn and Soybeans

Cindy Zimmerman

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is estimating 92.0 million acres of corn planted in the United States for 2020, up three percent from last year, according to the Acreage report released Tuesday. Soybean area planted is estimated at 83.8 million acres, up 10% from last year.

The report also shows wheat and cotton acres are down this year. All wheat planted area for 2020 is estimated at 44.3 million acres, down
2 percent from 2019. This represents the lowest all wheat planted area since records began in 1919. All cotton planted area for 2020 is estimated at 12.2 million acres, down 11 percent from last year.

Corn, Cotton, Soybean, USDA, Wheat

USMCA Implementation Celebration Roundtable

Cindy Zimmerman

To celebrate the July 1 implementation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst held a virtual roundtable Tuesday to discuss the importance of USMCA to farmers, rural communities and ag exports. The roundtable was hosted by Farmers for Free Trade, which showed support for USMCA with an 11 state, 4,300 mile RV tour across the country.

Participating were:
– Congressman Collin Peterson (D-MN)
– U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA)
– Congressman Jim Costa (D-CA)
– Congressman Ron Kind (D-WI)
– Blanche Lincoln, former U.S. Senator
– John Bode, President, National Corn Refiners
– Tamara Nelsen, Executive Director, Minnesota AgriGrowth Council
– Dave Milligan, President, National Association of Wheat Growers
– Michelle Erickson Jones, Farmer & Owner, Gooseneck Land and Cattle, Broadview, MT
– John Paul Dineen, Farmer & Owner, Dineen Farms (TX)
– Max Moncaster, Associate Director, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA)
– Angela Marshall Hofmann, Co-Executive Director, Farmers for Free Trade

USMCA implementation roundtable (53:06)

Audio, Exports, Trade

House Committee Releases Climate Crisis Plan

Cindy Zimmerman

The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis today released a comprehensive plan titled “Solving the Climate Crisis: The Congressional Action Plan for a Clean Energy Economy and a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America.”

The Climate Crisis Action Plan, released as a majority staff report, recognizes the role agriculture plays in providing valuable climate and ecosystems benefits. Investing in American agriculture is one of 12 pillars in the plan, recommending an increased investment to support the voluntary efforts of America’s farmers and ranchers to employ climate stewardship practices. The report also recommends setting climate stewardship practice goals across all U.S. farmland and incentivizing producers to incorporate energy efficiency and renewable energy on-farm.

Biofuels groups are pleased to see the inclusion of a Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) in the recommendations.

“The Committee correctly points out that the LCFS policy model already has a proven track record and that renewable fuels have played a crucial role in achieving the objectives of the California LCFS,” said Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) President and CEO Geoff Cooper. “We also concur with the Committee’s position that high-octane, low-carbon fuels could deliver substantial carbon benefits at a low cost in the years ahead.”

RFA and the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) were among a broad coalition of stakeholders that worked together to developed a framework and set of guiding principles for a Midwest LCFS program.

“The Select Committee’s report not only cites our Midwest Clean Fuel Policy framework as a positive example of progress, it also mirrors our recommendations to reflect the best-available science for lifecycle assessments and reward farmers and biofuel producers using climate-smart practices that reduce carbon emissions, store soil carbon, and reduce nitrous oxide emissions,” said ACE CEO Brian Jennings.

Biofuels, Environment, Ethanol

Farm Progress and Husker Harvest Shows Cancelled

Cindy Zimmerman

For the first time in history, the Farm Progress Show won’t go on.

It was announced yesterday that both Farm Progress Show and Husker Harvest Days are being cancelled for 2020 due to rapidly changing conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While state and local officials had expressed support for both shows, Don Tourte, Senior Vice President, Farm Progress said that in a very short time it became apparent that the situation across the US had rapidly changed.

“We have been working with officials in Iowa and Nebraska for our shows, and we appreciate the support they expressed for us to hold the events,” Tourte says. “They are critical partners to us, and we are all disappointed to not host the events this year, but feel confident that this is the right decision for our community.”

One of the key features of both shows is their attraction to visitors from across the country, and across the globe.

Farm Progress Events Manager Matt Jungmann says they were committed to hold both shows until more than half the United States saw a significant spike in new cases of COVID-19. “Within the next two weeks tents and other work would be underway on site. We had to make a decision based on the current landscape so that our exhibitors and suppliers wouldn’t potentially waste valuable time and resources,” said Jungmann. “While we are hopeful that case numbers throughout the country will decrease soon, we felt compelled to make a proactive decision on our community’s behalf, given the information we have today.”

A virtual experience was already being planned as an extension to the live event, so Jungmann says the events team is gearing up to deliver a “robust and dynamic digital experience.”

“Market factors are changing fast, and we’ll have more information in the coming weeks about how our virtual experience will be expanded,” Jungmann says. “We have 400 acres of corn at two sites that have to be harvested. Ground that must be tilled. We’re looking at all of our options to ensure we keep our community connected and engaged.”

Farm Progress Show, Farm Shows

Animal Ag News 6/29

Carrie Muehling

  • U.S. Poultry & Egg Association is now accepting nominations for the 2021 Family Farm Environmental Excellence Award. The award recognizes exemplary environmental stewardship by family farmers engaged in poultry and egg production. Those eligible for the award include any family-owned poultry grower or egg producer supplying product to a USPOULTRY member or an independent producer who is a USPOULTRY member. Nominations are due Oct. 31.
  • The Holstein Association USA 2020 Distinguished Leadership Award honoree is Patricia Gifford of Groton, N.Y. This award recognizes an individual who has made a career of providing outstanding and unselfish leadership for the betterment of the dairy industry.
  • As of June 1, there were 79.6 million hogs and pigs on U.S. farms, up 5 percent from June 2019, and up 3 percent from March 1, 2020, according to the Quarterly Hogs and Pigs report published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
  • The American Feed Industry Association has opened registration for its popular biennial Feed Industry Institute, which will be offered in a self-paced, virtual learning environment over a span of a few weeks later this summer. The conference, which kicks off Aug. 17 and culminates on Sept. 23, brings together industry newcomers to learn the fundamentals of the animal food manufacturing process – from the types of ingredients used to the animals served to federal policies that shape the output of the industry.
  • The National Pork Producers Council strongly supports legislation being discussed during a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing that creates important elements needed to support a private carbon credit offset market. The bill would reward the valuable current and future contributions by pork producers and other sectors of agriculture to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Growing Climate Solutions Act, introduced by Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), would direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create a program to provide transparency, legitimacy and informal endorsement of third-party verifiers and technical service providers that help private landowners generate carbon credits through a variety of agriculture and forestry related practices.
  • The economic disruption impacting nearly all sectors of the U.S. bison business far exceeds the threshold required to qualify bison producers for assistance being offered to agriculture through USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, according to formal comments that the National Bison Association filed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
AgWired Animal, Animal Agriculture, Animal Bites

Industry Ag News 6/26

Carrie Muehling

  • UPL North America recently announced the addition of David Haas as territory sales manager. In his new role, David will work directly with customers in California’s Southern San Joaquin Valley, representing the UPL product portfolio for the Kern and Tulare county regions. He will report to Gene Vernon, Western Region Sales Manager.
  • Farm Foundation and the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute are partnering to host a Digital Dialogue series entitled Managing Agricultural Trade in an Increasingly Chaotic World.
  • Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture and the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol announced a new agreement that formalizes a partnership between the two organizations to document and accelerate sustainable outcomes for U.S. cotton production.
  • Odessan Royce Bodiford, age 83, passed away June 22, 2020. Royce began his broadcast career in 1959 at KGNC Radio/Television in Amarillo, Texas, moved to KEEL Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana, for three years, and then returned to KGNC. In 1977, he became general manager of KGNC until moving to public broadcasting in the 1990s as general manager of KOCV Radio/Television at Odessa College. His involvement in the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) included serving as Chats editor, Mid-South Region Vice President, and 1976 NAFB President. He was named 1976 Farm Broadcaster of the Year and was inducted into the NAFB Hall of Fame in 2014. Royce was a 61-year member of the NAFB.
  • The GROWMARK Foundation is a longtime supporter of the American Red Cross, donating funds to its overall mission along with specific disaster relief over the years. People looking to donate blood can go to RedCrossBlood.org and enter their respective zip code to find local donation sites. In addition, the Red Cross has an updated app that you can download that not only tells you where you can donate, but also gives you an update weeks later on how your blood donation was used.
  • Internationally recognized experts in consumer insights and the food industry will reveal the latest research on consumer trends, the current environment in food and agriculture and what the future holds during a free fundraiser webcast to help those experiencing hardship. “CFI NOW: COVID-19 Pivot from Panic to Progress,” Tues., July 14, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. CDT, is hosted by The Center for Food Integrity and will benefit the Feeding America COVID-19 Relief Fund and the National Restaurant Association Employee Relief Fund.
  • INTL FCStone Inc. announced that it is rebranding the firm as StoneX Group Inc. The StoneX Group name was approved by an overwhelming majority at a recent shareholder meeting and effective July 6, 2020 the Company will be traded under the symbol SNEX.
  • Purdue University announced June 24 that Beck’s, a family-owned and -operated seed company, intends to open a satellite location in Purdue’s Discovery Park District. Officials from Beck’s worked with Carr Workplaces – a pioneer and leader in the co-working industry – to establish a location in the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration. Convergence is located in Discovery Park District, adjacent to the Purdue campus.
  • Cargill is pleased to announce that Hank Gray has joined the team as the U.S. Origination Manager for cotton within Cargill’s Agricultural Supply Chain business, effective June 22. In this new role, Hank will focus on setting and executing on Cargill’s farmer-facing strategy in the cotton space.
  • Amy McEvoy, head of Earned Media at Rhea + Kaiser was recently announced as a fellow for the Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation Class of 2022. McEvoy was selected to be part of the 20th class following a competitive application and interview process.
  • The International Agri-Center®, World Ag Expo® and the Central Valley Toyota Dealers presented a check in the amount of $90,100 to the Guilds of Valley Children’s Healthcare on May 14 in Madera, CA. Due to COVID-19, the All Guild Picnic could not be held in 2020. The Picnic is a time for the Guilds to celebrate their fundraising success and present annual checks to Valley Children’s. In place of the in-person event, a check presentation video can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1n5Q3SsVvM&feature=youtu.be.
  • The American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) is pleased to announce the hiring of Dr. Fan-Li Chou as Vice President, Scientific Affairs and Policy. Building on the strong legacy of Dr. Bernice Slutsky – who is retiring after 15 years with ASTA – in this high-profile position, Dr. Chou will work closely with ASTA’s diverse membership, key government officials and stakeholders at the domestic and global level to ensure a strong future for innovation in plant breeding and plant sciences.
Zimfo Bytes

ZimmCast 648 – Trent Loos in The Stand at Paxton County

Chuck Zimmerman

Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast, featuring weekly interviews with agribusiness industry leaders and all about what’s new, with a focus on agricultural marketing. This week we’re going to hear from someone whose goal is to bridge rural and urban America. You probably have heard of him. Maybe you haven’t. But in this week’s program I’m sharing a conversation with Trent Loos, Loos Tales, Rural Route and more.

We don’t talk about the movie, The Stand at Paxton County, now on Netflix, but I have to mention it here. I didn’t know about Trent’s role in the movie. I watched it last night though and I highly recommend it. Here’s what the story is about – “A military veteran comes home to find her father harassed by a sheriff intent on confiscating the livestock on their ranch under shady pretenses.” Trent plays a neighbor farmer named Tom Gardner. If you know Trent you won’t be surprised that he does a great job acting. I Trent Loos - The Stand at Paxton Countywonder when his next movie will come out. The photo is one from the production. By the way, the Executive Director is Forrest Lucas, Lucas Oil founder, president/CEO and also founder of Protect the Harvest.

What we talk about in the program is mostly the whole idea of trying to bridge the gap between rural and urban communities. It is something we’ve worked on throughout our careers. We both think the divide is wider than ever. Trent has some good ideas on why this is and how ineffective some of the methods that have been tried are. We also ramble around on some other topics like Impossible Foods and virtual events.

So, that’s the ZimmCast for this week. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.

Post Update:

After thinking about it, I got Trent on the phone to talk about the movie he had a role to play in, The Stand at Paxton County. I have edited it into the beginning of this week’s episode. I think you’ll find his comments about being in a movie entertaining and informative. He says that the movie has been in the top five watched on Netflix for a couple of the weeks since it debuted in April! Now we’re hoping we can have a screening party at a theater in Pensacola someday when they are allowed to open again.

Listen to the ZimmCast here: Conversation with Trent Loos

Subscribe to the ZimmCast in:

Animal Activists, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Media, ZimmCast

Farm Groups Support Climate Solutions Act

Cindy Zimmerman

The Senate Agriculture Committee held a hearing Wednesday on the Growing Climate Solutions Act, legislation designed to break down barriers for farmers and foresters interested in participating in carbon markets so they can be rewarded for climate-smart practices.

The bill has the support of numerous agribusinesses and farm organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Corn Growers Association, and National Farmers Union.

“Farm Bureau’s grassroots-developed policy supports market-based incentives and compensation to farmers for planting crops or adopting farming practices that keep carbon in the soil,” testified AFBF president Zippy Duvall. “We also recognize that a number of companies, coalitions and consortiums are working to develop carbon market exchanges or programs. Rather than allowing it to become the Wild West, we support empowering USDA to help farmers navigate this new frontier.innovation.”

NFU President Rob Larew told the committee that climate change “is the single greatest long-term challenge facing family farmers and ranchers, rural communities, and global food security” but that “farmers and ranchers, if provided the right tools, can be a key part of a solution.”

Listen to opening remarks from Duvall and Larew at the hearing.
AFBF president Zippy Duvall (5:12)

NFU president Rob Larew (4:07)

AFBF, Audio, Environment