Animal Ag Bites 12/2

Carrie Muehling

  • Online cheese sales are experiencing major growth. By the end of 2019, IRI data shows that e-commerce sales will surge past $440 million. The 54% annual growth in online sales over the past four years signals that shoppers are embracing the convenience and variety available when ordering cheese online. Find tips on how to serve Wisconsin Cheese, including seasonal recipes, cheeseboard inspiration, cheese and wine pairing guides and more on WisconsinCheese.com.
  • Leading regional dairy council Dairy MAX recently launched its two redesigned websites, DairyMAX.org and DairyDiscoveryZone.com, to invigorate target audiences’ knowledge of dairy and support dairy sales.
  • A new educational program hosted by the American Feed Industry Association will focus on biosecurity as it pertains to foreign animal diseases, such as foot and mouth disease, African swine fever and avian influenza. The program, “Biosecurity in the Face of Foreign Animal Disease – What the Feed Industry Needs to Know,” will take place on Jan. 29, 2020, in conjunction with the 2020 International Production & Processing Expo, taking place Jan. 28-30 in Atlanta, Ga.
  • Securing zero-tariff access to China for U.S. pork would be an economic boon for American agriculture and the country, according to the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). Based on an analysis by Iowa State University Economist Dermot Hayes, NPPC says unrestricted access to the Chinese chilled and frozen market would reduce the overall trade deficit with China by nearly six percent and generate 184,000 new U.S. jobs in the next decade. NPPC launched a digital campaign to spotlight the importance of opening the Chinese market to U.S. pork as trade negotiations continue. For more information, click here.
  • R-CALF USA hosted its 20th Anniversary Convention in Deadwood, SD on August 15-16, 2019. The convention proclaimed success boasting approximately 400 attendees; the organization’s largest convention in its 20-year history. An additional 800 guests viewed the convention through online streaming.
  • Up to five regional Stockmanship & Stewardship events will be coordinated throughout the United States by the producer education team at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in 2020, thanks to sponsorship from Merck Animal Health. Additional funding and support for the program is provided by the Beef Checkoff-funded Beef Quality Assurance program.
AgWired Animal, Animal Bites

GrainBridge Introduces STRATUM Platform

Carrie Muehling

A small Omaha-based tech company aims to change the future of farming with a new grain marketing platform called STRATUM, which will connect farmers and grain buyers and provide analytics and decisions for farmers to sell their grain at the best price.

“The technology itself will be very easy to use and very seamless,” said Faith Larson, chief strategy officer of GrainBridge. “We want to eliminate any manual entry for the farmer because we know that timing is crucial and so we will have connectivity with data that the farmer is using on the farm.”

Larson described a “one stop shop” where farmers can access any grain buyers, elevators or agribusiness accounts. They can view cash bids for elevators they have connected with, as well as contracts, location information, scale tickets and wait times. They can connect with other agribusiness accounts to further understand input costs, productivity, yield expectations and look at break even or profitability targets.

The first version will be released early in 2020 and farmers can sign up for an account free of charge. More information is available at grainbridge.com.

Listen to the interview with Faith here: Interview with Faith Larson, GrainBridge

2019 NAFB Convention Photo Album

AgWired Precision, Audio, NAFB, Precision Agriculture

Woodall Shares Priorities for NCBA

Carrie Muehling

This year’s National Association of Farm Broadcasting Convention in Kansas City brought an opportunity to talk with Colin Woodall since his appointment as CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA). Woodall recognized challenges that continue to grow within the industry and the need to protect members and their investment into NCBA.

“The message to the producers is, just hang on. We’re doing a lot right now on the trade front that we think will have some positive impacts on cattle markets,” said Woodall. “That includes the Japanese trade agreement that we expect to go into place on the first on January. That’s also the U.S country specific quota into the EU. We also expect to have the USMCA ratified. And as long as we can provide some certainty in international markets, I think that will also provide a lot of certainty in the domestic market, too.”

Woodall said in addition to trade, the association will focus on ensuring there is honesty in marketing when it comes to products like fake meat. NCBA is working with the Federal Trade Commission to challenge incorrect marketing claims about the environmental impact of the cattle industry on natural resources. The association is also working on legislation to restrict the ability of companies to use the term “beef” for these types of products.

Listen to the interview with Colin here: NAFB19 Colin Woodall, National Cattlemen's Beef Association (4:18)

2019 NAFB Convention Photo Album

AgWired Animal, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Beef, NAFB, NCBA

Zimfo Bytes 11/27

Carrie Muehling

  • The National Council for Agricultural Education has named Dr. James Woodard the Director of Agricultural Education, FFA Board Chair and National FFA Advisor. The national board of directors also named Cheryl Zimmerman executive secretary for National FFA.
  • World Ag Expo® and E.M. Tharp, Inc. have teamed up for the 13th annual “We Believe in Growing” scholarship, created to support agricultural education. High school seniors from Madera, Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern counties in California are encouraged to apply by January 17, 2020 to be considered. A $10,000 scholarship will be awarded to two students who attend a four-year university to major in an agricultural field. The scholarships will be disbursed over four years at $2,500 per year. Download the application online at: www.worldagexpo.org/scholarships.
  • Farmers Business Network announced that Sonny Perdue, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, will address the company’s fifth annual Farmer2Farmer Conference, at 8:30 AM on December 12, 2019, in Omaha, Nebraska.
  • The American Farm Bureau Federation, in partnership with Farm Credit, has announced the 10 semi-finalist teams in the 2020 Farm Bureau Ag Innovation Challenge. To learn more about the Challenge visit www.fb.org/challenge.
  • The Amarillo Farm & Ranch Show, slated for Dec. 3-5 at the Amarillo Civic Center in Amarillo, Texas, features several education sessions with a focus on ag topics affecting the Texas Panhandle. New programming at this year’s show will highlight cotton and hemp.
  • Registration is open for the upcoming Farm Foundation® Forum, Exploring Outcome-Based Pricing in Agriculture, at 9 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
  • UnitedAg announced it is adding the fourteenth wellness center to its ever-growing network that serves California and Arizona farmworkers and their families. Together in partnership with three agricultural employers, the new wellness center will provide healthcare access to farmworkers and their families in the City of Selma.
  • The Hemp Innovation Challenge™ is designed to accelerate the future of the hemp industry by supporting entrepreneurs, researchers and students who are launching the most disruptive hemp innovations in the world. Submissions will come from hemp innovators in universities, companies, research institutes, barns, and government agencies. Finalists will be invited to the World Ag Expo® in Tulare, California in February 2020 to participate in the fast pitch competition.
Zimfo Bytes

Hemp Seed is a Hot Topic for ASTA

Cindy Zimmerman

American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) chairman Wayne Gale, Stokes Seeds, spent a lot of time answering questions about hemp seed at the recent National Association of Farm Broadcasting Trade Talk.

Gale says ASTA’s role is to provide information for the growing hemp industry to help the seed industry identify sources of quality seed “to ensure that the growers that the crop that they want.”

Seed industry interest in hemp is high and the upcoming ASTA CSS and Seed Expo 2019 will feature a session on Hemp Seed Opportunities & Challenges.

Learn more in this report from NAFB with Gale:
NAFB19 Wayne Gale, American Seed Trade Association (3:02)

2019 NAFB Convention Photo Album

Content Creation from the NAFB Convention Thanks to
Coverage of the NAFB Convention is sponsored by FMC
ASTA, Audio, Cannabis, hemp, NAFB, Seed

Corn Harvest Still Unfinished

Cindy Zimmerman

The USDA crop progress report out yesterday afternoon should have been the last one for the 2019 season. But with 16 percent of the nation’s corn crop still in the field, NASS will continue to evaluate harvest progress for all crops each week to determine how long to continue the report.

As of Sunday, 84 percent of the corn crop was harvested, compared to 96 percent for the five year average, with Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin trailing furthest behind. North Dakota still has 70 percent of the corn crop in the field. Normally, the state should be 91 percent complete.

Meanwhile, the soybean harvest is 94 percent complete nationwide, just a few percentage points behind average, but basically normal for the country and all of the states running behind on corn.

NASS is now gearing up for the annual December crops and livestock. During the first two weeks of December, NASS will survey over 81,000 United States producers to obtain final information about 2019 U.S. row crops focusing on harvested acreage, production, and storage.

The survey will also be used to help establish county level estimates used by the Farm Service Agency for the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program and the Risk Management Agency to administer insurance programs. In addition, hog producers will be asked about their current inventory, pig crop, and farrowing intentions for the next six months. The results will be available beginning with the Hogs and Pigs report on December23, followed by the Annual Crop Production Summary and other reports on January 10.

Corn, Harvest, USDA

Precision Ag Bytes 11/26

Carrie Muehling

  • The Soil Health Partnership and the National Corn Growers Association co-hosted a field day for U.S. Senate and House Agriculture Committee staff at Harborview Farms in Rock Hall, Md. Staffers had the opportunity to learn more about soil health management practices being implemented at Harborview Farms.
  • Syngenta and Simplot Grower Solutions are working together to increase efficiencies for growers through software integration. Growers can now pull recommendations from Simplot’s centralized agronomic data hub, Simplot Advisor®, and insert them directly into the Land.db® software provided with AgriEdge®, Syngenta’s whole-farm management system.
  • Golden Harvest corn beat key competitors in 2019 trials across the Midwest. For example: In the upper Midwest, Golden Harvest corn G02K39-5122 E-Z Refuge® brand outyielded Pioneer® products by 10.4 bu/A in 84 comparisons. In Nebraska, Golden Harvest corn G11B63-3010A brand outyielded Pioneer products by 9.9 bu/A in 70 comparisons. In central Illinois, Golden Harvest corn G13Z50-3220 E-Z Refuge brand outyielded Pioneer products by 3.5 bu/A in 87 comparisons.
  • FMC Corporation took top honors in the Best New Biological Product category of the 2019 Agribusiness Intelligence Crop Science Forum & Awards for its Presence® and Quartzo® bionematicides. FMC was also commended for Best R&D pipeline, Best Application Technology Innovation and Best Stewardship Program.
  • To give farmers the best control of tough and resistant weeds, Corteva Agriscience and BASF are recommending the use of Liberty® and Enlist One® herbicides on Enlist E3™ soybean and Enlist™ cotton acres. These two leading herbicides offer exceptional control of broadleaf weeds including waterhemp, pigweed, kochia, marestail and ragweed species.
  • Granular, a leading agriculture software and services company, announced that it has released 67 new or improved features to its software in 2019 to-date, in addition to its field agents having logged over 1 million miles helping farmers to improve their profit margins by better using their on-farm data.
  • Old World Specialty Products, LLC, a subsidiary of Old World Industries, LLC, has announced a joint venture with Meristem Crop Performance, LLC — a provider of specialty crop products designed specifically to drive both yield and value for corn, soybean and wheat farmers. The joint venture will be called Meristem Crop Performance Group, LLC.
  • At its annual conference in New Orleans, AgGateway honored exemplary individuals who have made outstanding contributions in advancing the industry’s transition to digital agriculture. Eric Hoefing, Manager of Applications Development at ACS, received AgGateway’s Ron Storms Leadership Award, the organization’s top honor.
AgWired Precision, Precision Ag Bytes

New Soy Based Motor Oil Now Available

Cindy Zimmerman

Soy-based motor oil is a new opportunity to drive demand for U.S. soybeans in almost any vehicle on the road.

Biosynthetic Technologies’ high-performing biobased synthetic motor oil, using high oleic soybean oil from soybeans grown by U.S. farmers, is now on commercial shelves, thanks to a partnership with the United Soybean Board (USB).

Both USB and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have supported the soy-based, drop-in synthetic alternative to petroleum-based motor oil. The biobased alternative is well-suited for high-temperature automotive and industrial applications. Biosynthetic Technologies’ motor oil is also recognized as a USDA Certified Biobased Product in the agency’s BioPreferred Program.

“Our motor oils are certified by the American Petroleum Institute, and not only do they reduce sludge and varnish, they improve fuel economy and provide environmental benefits for renewability and biodegradability as well,” said Biosynthetic Technologies Executive Vice President Jakob Bredsguard. “Our revolutionary new class of biobased synthetic compounds have enabled us to commercialize an automotive engine oil that is biodegradable while delivering the highest levels of performance.”

The company will market both 5W-20 and 5W-30 through Amazon.com and direct from their website.

Biosynthetic is also offering farmers a limited-time 20% discount to purchase the synthetic oil. They can use code BioTrialFarm available only at motoroil.biosynthetic.com through January 31.

Learn more about Biosynthetic® Performance motor oil powered by soybeans in this interview:
Interview with Jakob Bredsguard, Biosynthetic Technologies

Audio, Soybean, USB

Inaugural Heart of America Agricultural Hemp Classic Announced

Chuck Zimmerman

Heart of America Agricultural Hemp ClassicThe inaugural Heart of America Agricultural Hemp Classic has been announced for January in Independence, MO. The event is organized by the Missouri Hemp Association which formed earlier this year.

Bill Cook is the Executive Director of the Missouri Hemp Association and he is calling hemp a potential “miracle crop.” I spoke with him to get a preview of the event and will be working with the organization at the first time conference helping promote it and create some great content using our AgNewsWire service.

Missouri Hemp Association LogoBill has extensive experience in crop production including corn and soybeans. Speaking about growing hemp he says, “Of all the commodities it has the most opportunity of any commodity that I’ve seen in my lifetime.” He also says they’ve coined a phrase, “The hemp highway, which you can enter and exit and every piece of that elevates your community, the end user, the grower and the environment.”

The Missouri Hemp Association was started about nine months ago by some business entrepreneurs who want to help farmers and others involved in the business to obtain the best laws and regulations to be successful. He says it’s a new frontier which some people call the gold rush or hemp rush. Membership is available in several categories. The organization intends to be a resource for farmers to network and become actively involved in the development of the business.

Registration for the Heart of America Agricultural Hemp Classic is scheduled to start on Black Friday, November 29. You’ll be able to register online. There is a trade show component of the event and companies and other organizations need to contact the association office for more information on that.

The Classic is scheduled for January 15 and 16 with the 15th being open for members and the 16th to anyone who would like to attend. The location is the Stoney Creek Hotel & Conference Center in Independence, Missouri.

You can listen to my interview with Bill here for more information, including the tentative agenda: Interview with Bill Cook, Missouri Hemp Association

Audio, hemp