Biofuels Advocates Testify at EPA Hearing

Cindy Zimmerman

The Environmental Protection Agency held a hearing Friday on proposed regulatory changes related to retail sales of 15% ethanol blended fuel (E15) and the renewable identification number (RIN) compliance system Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.

Biofuels advocates, organization representatives and company officials testified at the hearing about the proposal and other related topics. Below are links to audio files from some of the witnesses.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds
EPA Michigan hearing - Iowa Gov. Reynolds

Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) president and CEO Geoff Cooper.
EPA Michigan hearing - RFA CEO Geoff Cooper

American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) Senior Vice President and Market Development Director Ron Lamberty
EPA Michigan hearing - ACE Senior VP Ron Lamberty

National Corn Growers Association First Vice President and Iowa farmer Kevin Ross
EPA Michigan hearing - NCGA 1st VP Kevin Ross

Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor
EPA Michigan hearing - Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor

ACE, Biodiesel, Biofuels, Corn, Ethanol, NCGA, RFA

Zimfo Bytes 3/29

Carrie Muehling

  • Two business leaders from the People’s Republic of China visited the National Corn Growers Association’s St. Louis office to discuss the U.S. corn industry and NCGA’s role in working to create opportunities for corn farmers.
  • The National Agri-Marketing Association has named Zippy Duvall,President of the American Farm Bureau Federation, as the 2019 Ag Association Leader of the Year.
  • The California Antique Farm Equipment Show® kicks off Friday, April 12 at 8:00 a.m. at the International Agri-Center® show grounds in Tulare, CA. The show runs Friday, April 12, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Saturday, April 13, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sunday, April 14, 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
  • In an effort to improve mental health support for farmers, ranchers and farm workers, National Farmers Union and a broad coalition of leading farm and rural advocacy groups are urging Congress to fully fund the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network in fiscal year 2020.
  • The American Farm Bureau Women’s Leadership Program has launched “Women in Ag,” an online survey that aims to gauge the goals, aspirations, achievements and needs of women in American agriculture in a variety of areas. All women who are farmers, ranchers, farm/ranch employees, employed in agricultural businesses, pursuing ag-related higher education or supportive of agriculture in other ways are invited to participate in the survey at fb.org/women. Respondents must reside in the United States. Farm Bureau membership is not required to participate.
  • The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers are currently collecting comments on their proposed rule of the term “Waters of the United States (WOTUS).” The draft comments are intended for you to easily submit to the agencies before the deadline of April 15th. Submit comments here.
  • Potatoes USA, the Marketing and Promotions Board for the U.S. potato industry, concluded its 47th Annual Meeting on March 14. Phil Hickman of Horntown, Virginia will serve a one-year term as Chairman, making him the board’s first Chairman from Virginia.
  • EnviroMonitor is an award-winning sensor platform that helps farmers measure, monitor, and manage crops at every stage of the growth cycle. With the Davis Mobilize app farmers can monitor soil moisture and soil temperature to help plant with confidence, track growing degree days for each field by crop and plant date, and improve daily decisions with real-time field conditions.
  • NewLeaf Symbiotics announces the hiring of three experienced agriculture leaders to its business development team. Dave Coorts has been named Director of Field Biology; Brad Walkup joins as Technical Sales Lead for the Western Region; and Caroline Currie will serve as Technical Sales Lead for the Eastern Region.
  • At the Farm Foundation Forum on Tuesday, April 23, 2019, a panel of educators and industry leaders will discuss the innovative approaches they are taking to meeting the sector’s human capital needs. The Forum, Human Capital Challenges in the Food and Agriculture Sector, will be 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. EDT. CLICK HERE to register to attend the Farm Foundation Forum at the 4-H Center and/or the Ohio Agricultural Council gathering. To participate in the Farm Foundation Forum via the live webcast, register HERE. The webcast is made possible by a grant from Farm Credit.
  • David Delaney has joined Farmer’s Business Network as Chief Commercial Officer. Farmers Business Network is an independent and unbiased farmer-to-farmer agronomic network that provides unbiased and democratized analytics to its 8,000+ American farmers, and now 500+ Canadian farmers.
  • When it comes to what we eat at Major League Baseball parks, the top dogs for well over a century have been hot dogs and sausages—and once again, they will reign supreme in 2019. According to a survey by the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, MLB fans this season are expected to consume about 18.3 million hot dogs and nearly four million sausages.
  • New Ag International is looking forward to taking two conferences to Brazil in August 2019. InfoAg International Conference & Exhibition, a three-day event jointly organized with the International Plant Nutrition Institute, will run in Campinas, São Paulo State, Brazil from 26-28 August 2019.
Zimfo Bytes

New Ag International Brings Two Events to Brazil in August 2019

Cindy Zimmerman

New Ag International is hosting two conferences to Brazil in August 2019.

InfoAg International Conference & Exhibition, a three-day event jointly organized with the International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI), will run in Campinas, São Paulo State, Brazil August 26-28.

This is the ideal event to learn how digital revolution is changing agriculture in South America. After years of success in the USA, the organizer of InfoAG is partnering with New Ag International and coming to South America to create the premier event for discussion and advancement for precision agriculture looking at field centric monitoring with imagery and sensors, seamless connectivity with IoT, data analytics and prediction modelling, variable rate technology, precision plant nutrition and irrigation management, prescription platforms and digitalization.

This event will be followed by the largest biocontrol event in Latin America – the Biocontrol LATAM Conference and Exhibition, scheduled for Campinas August 28-30.

The event is co-organized by 2B Monthly, in conjunction with IBMA and with support from the host association ABCBio. Topics to be covered include regulation in Latin American countries; new and emerging technologies in microbials, natural extracts and semiochemicals; the current status of the biocontrol market; the integration of biocontrol solutions in IPM programmes; case studies of adoption by growers; and novel approaches to formulation and production.

For more information about the events, contact marketing manager Carmen Hernandez.

AgWired Precision, Biotech, Events, New Ag International

Managing Bollworms with Prevathon® Insect Control

Cindy Zimmerman

Research conducted at Texas A&M University has shown wide-spread bollworm/earworm resistance to the majority cotton and corn Bt technologies and that cotton bollworms have developed resistance to pyrethroids to some degree in most of Texas. One of the insecticides recommended for growers to manage cotton bollworm populations is FMC Prevathon.

At the recent Mid-South Farm and Gin Show, we talked with FMC senior technical service manager Don Johnson about Prevethon and how it fits in with what has changed recently in bollworm control and the new guidelines for treatment with a foliar insecticide. Listen here: Interview with Don Johnson, FMC Prevethon


2019 Mid-South Farm and Gin Show Photo Album

AgWired Precision, Audio, Cotton, Farm & Gin Show, FMC, Insecticides, Video

ZimmCast 612 – Happy 15th Agri-Pulse

Cindy Zimmerman

2004 was a pretty good year to start a company.

ZimmComm was born the same year as Agri-Pulse so we are both celebrating our 15th anniversary this year. Our friendship with Agri-Pulse founder and president Sara Wyant is at least twice as old, and we have known her husband and partner Al Johnson about the same length of time.

We have been proud to be part of the Agri-Pulse team over the years, from consulting on their website, to taking over the daily audio reports when Stewart Doan passed away suddenly in 2012, to daughter Chelsea now compiling the Daily Harvest newsletter. We also get to be the photographers at the annual Agri-Pulse policy summit, which just happened last week.

It was too crazy to sit down with Sara and talk in person last week, but we did catch up by phone this week to talk about the success of Agri-Pulse and the great people behind it all.

Listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 612 - Agri-Pulse 15th Anniversary

Agri-Pulse, Podcasts, ZimmCast

President of World Food Prize to Retire

Cindy Zimmerman

Ambassador Kenneth Quinn will retire as president of the World Food Prize Foundation on January 3, 2020 after 20 years leading the organization.

Quinn made the announcement earlier this week at the Hall of Laureates in Des Moines during a reception commemorating the 105th anniversary of Dr. Norman Borlaug’s birth. “Leading the World Food Prize and endeavoring to fulfill the vision of Dr. Norman Borlaug and John Ruan Sr. has been an extraordinary privilege,” he said. “What at first seemed an impossible quest, to have the World Food Prize come to be seen as the ‘Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture,’ has over the last twenty years become a dream come true.”

When Amb. Quinn assumed leadership of the World Food Prize in January of 2000, he had a one-person staff and the World Food Prize was a one-day event, drawing only 25 to 30 participants from outside of Iowa. He was given the goal of fulfilling two dreams:

Norman Borlaug’s vision that the World Food Prize would become recognized globally as the “Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture;” and

John Ruan’s idea for a prize that would promote central Iowa as the “food and agricultural capital of America.”

In endeavoring to fulfill these goals, Amb. Quinn has built the annual World Food Prize Laureate Award Ceremony and the Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium into the “Davos of Global Food Security,” an event that has been attended annually by over 1,200 people from 40 to 50 different countries.

A national firm has been hired to search for a successor while Quinn will have the title of President Emeritus of the World Food Prize Foundation for his lifetime.

World Food Prize

Precision Ag Bytes 3/27

Carrie Muehling

  • The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers are currently collecting comments on their proposed rule of the term “Waters of the United States.” Agricultural Retailers Association has prepared draft comments that are supportive of the proposed rule. The draft comments are intended for you to easily submit to the agencies before the deadline of April 15th. Submit comments now on the Clean Water Rule.
  • Feed a Bee, the national pollinator forage initiative by Bayer, announced it has reached its goal of awarding grants supporting diverse forage for honey bees and other pollinators in all 50 states. The 50th recipient awarded recently was Gateway to the Arctic Camp in Talkeetna, Alaska.
  • As the Soil Health Partnership heads into its fifth year of long term data collection on working farms, the organization is hiring for several roles to support its expanding footprint. Open roles include Development Director, a Michigan Research Manager, Soil Health Kansas-Nebraska Field Manager, and Soil Health Minnesota Field Manager.
  • EnviroMonitor is an award-winning sensor platform that helps farmers measure, monitor, and manage crops at every stage of the growth cycle. With the Davis Mobilize app, farmers can monitor soil moisture and soil temperature to plant with confidence, track growing degree days for each field by crop and plant date, and improve daily decisions with real-time field conditions.
  • NewLeaf Symbiotics announces the hiring of three experienced agriculture leaders to its business development team. Dave Coorts has been named Director of Field Biology; Brad Walkup joins as Technical Sales Lead for the Western Region; and Caroline Currie will serve as Technical Sales Lead for the Eastern Region.
AgWired Precision, Precision Ag Bytes

Nation Seeing #NebraskaStrong

Cindy Zimmerman

The images of dead and dying cattle and calves as a result of the blizzard and flooding in Nebraska are hard for people in the livestock industry to see. As USDA Under Secretary Greg Ibach said last week at the Agri-Pulse Policy Summit, “It’s almost like losing family.” Ibach is former Nebraska Director of Agriculture who says he is, “first and foremost, a rancher from Nebraska.”

Ibach is in Nebraska this week and participated in a Facebook Live roundtable on Monday to discuss flood relief for ag producers. Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, state Director of Agriculture Steve Wellman, and other members of the state cabinet also took part in the roundtable. Listen to their opening remarks:
Nebraska Gov. Ricketts, USDA Under Secretary Ibach, Ag Director Wellman

Many organizations and individuals are working to assist cattle producers impacted by the weather disasters. Nebraska Cattlemen has a new disaster relief fund in place for the industry.

In the latest Beltway Beef podcast, Pete McClymont of the Nebraska Cattlemen gives us an update on the situation, and discusses how you can help those affected. “When you get down to the personal stories, loss of ground, loss of livestock…it kind of overwhelms you,” says McClymont. “We’re doing our best

In addition to monetary donations for the disaster relief fund, donations of hay, feed stuffs, fencing materials, volunteer help, equipment, and more are being coordinated by the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. On Thursday, President Trump declared that a major disaster exists in the Nebraska counties of Butler, Cass, Colfax, Dodge, Douglas, Nemaha, Sarpy, Saunders, and Washington.

Additionally, Nebraska Cattlemen is keeping an updated list of federal disaster assistance resources as well as other pertinent state regulations to consider during times of emergency.

AgWired Animal, Audio, Livestock, NCBA, Weather

Dr. Adrian Percy Joins Finistere Ventures

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmComm congratulates Dr. Adrian Percy, former head of R&D for the Crop Science Division of Bayer, for his new role as Chief Technology Officer for Finistere Ventures. Adrian will provide strategic, technical and regulatory guidance for current portfolio companies. He will also support Finistere’s continued investment efforts, working with the team to identify and evaluate potential opportunities. Adrian is pictured with Arama Kukutai, a co-founder and partner at Finistere Ventures.

As part of the appointment, he will be joining the Boards of two Finistere-backed companies, BioLumic and Hi Fidelity Genetics (also based in Research Triangle), and will play a pivotal role in helping shape their ongoing research and development strategies, as well as supporting their partnership and commercialization efforts.

Adrian Percy noted: “We need to completely transform our agricultural and food production systems so we can ensure food security for all, meet evolving consumer demands and conserve our planet’s precious resources for many generations to come. I am excited to continue to contribute to this ecosystem by helping talented and passionate entrepreneurs drive meaningful change in the food and agriculture space through technology innovations.”

I spoke with Adrian just now as he is on his way to the first of what sounds like many flights around the world in his new job with Finistere Ventures. Interview with Dr. Adrian Percy

AgWired Precision, Audio, Technology

Text 24365 to Donate to NAMA Foundation

Chuck Zimmerman

With the NAMA (National Agri-Marketing Association) Foundation serving 33 student chapters, your support has never been more important. Here is a new way to donate.

Please text “NAMA” to 24365 to donate to the foundation and support Student NAMA!

That will text you back a link to click on and donate via Paypal. Simple. Quick. Try it now.

AgWired Animal, AgWired Precision, Education, Marketing, NAMA