ARA Conference & Expo Helps Make Connections

Chuck Zimmerman

The 2018 Agricultural Retailers Association annual Conference and Expo is kicking off today in Boca Raton, FL. I’ll be there once again to bring you some great content from the program and activities.

The annual golf tournament is being held this morning, as well as a special Everglades agricultural tour. Afterwards, a pre-conference workshop entitled, “Trade, Tariffs, and Their Impact on American Agriculture,” will be presented by Ambassador Darci Vetter. Former Chief Agricultural Negotiator at the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and Under Secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Vetter will provide an insider’s look at the current state of affairs.

ARA will also feature USDA Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service Bill Northey who will help close out the conference Thursday with updates from USDA.

From the ARA Invitational Golf Tournament to the final keynote presentation, the attendees at the ARA Conference & Expo will connect, be informed and engage with key leaders within the ag retail sector.

There will be lots of industry awards, speakers and sessions and there will be audio and photo content posted as it happens on AgNewsWire. Check out what happened last year in the 2017 ARA virtual newsroom.

Agribusiness, ARA

Smooth Transition to Bayer for Channel Seed Brand

Carrie Muehling

The move to Bayer has been seamless for the Channel Seed Brand and its seedsmen, according to Brock Helgerson, Channel Brand marketing lead.

“We launched a new tool this summer that our Channel seedsmen utilized as they conducted their field checkup series throughout the summer. It really allowed them to utilize the technology in Climate FieldView to make sure that they were really doing their field checkup series in the areas of the fields that could have a real impact for the farmer,” said Helgerson, who noted that Channel seedsmen saw fantastic performance out of Channel brand corn and soybeans this summer, despite weather challenges in some areas.

Helgerson said the 2019 portfolio includes Channel Protexus corn, which provides tolerance to five key diseases. We’ll hear more about Bayer and the Channel Seed Brand at the upcoming ASTA 2018 CSS and Seed Expo.

Listen to Cindy’s interview with Brock here: NAFB18 Interview with Brock Helgerson, Bayer

2018 National Association of Farm Broadcasting Convention Photo Album

AgWired Precision, Audio, Bayer, NAFB

Animal Ag Bites 11/26

Carrie Muehling

  • The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture has announced the winning teams in its fall Purple Plow Challenge, Cattle Ranch Riddle. Each team won a 3-D printer and a $100 gift card for classroom use. The following teams were selected as the winners in this national competition: Meadow Groves Farms, Charles R Drew Middle School in Lincoln, Alabama; White River Valley FFA, White River Valley High School in Switz City, Indiana; Girls STEM Team, Brooks County Middle School in Quitman, Georgia; Circle G Ranch, Rosalia School District in Rosalia, Washington.
  • In August, Cargill launched the #putyourherdfirst campaign to support The Great American Milk Drive. More than 65,000 people engaged with the campaign on Facebook and Cargill announced that all 200 food banks in the Feeding America network will receive 500 servings of milk.
  • Wisconsin is taking steps to boldly claim its rightful place as the state of cheese and answer the question, “Why Wisconsin?” A new video ad showcases Wisconsin cheesemakers with beautiful wheels, blocks and cuts of cheese from companies across the state. Viewers will see the ads in digital publications such as Saveur, Epicurious, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Martha Stewart, and on Food Network, Eater.com and Food52, as well as on the WisconsinCheese.com website beginning on November 19.
  • U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist Manuel Borca is the recipient of the 2018 Daniel E. Salmon Award for critical contributions to protecting world animal health against infectious diseases.
  • The National Pork Producers Council, National Pork Board and U.S. Meat Export Federation recently collaborated to arrange an international trip to Colombia for 14 delegates from the Pork Leadership Institute. The group toured the Colombian Congress, a large wet market, the country’s largest packing plant, a retail supermarket that sold U.S. pork ribs and loins and restaurants that also sold U.S. pork.
AgWired Animal, Animal Bites

Leaf Spot is FMC Disease of the Year

Cindy Zimmerman

If there were an award for crop disease of the year, it would be a tie between two types of leaf spot this year, according to FMC Technical Service Rep Nick Hustedde.

“In corn, we’ve had a tremendous amount of grey leaf spot…in soybeans, it seems like frogeye leaf spot’s the clear winner,” said Hustedde, adding that both are caused by the fungus Cercospora.

Hustedde says FMC’s new Lucento fungicide, which is expected to be approved for sale in the 2019 season, controls both grey leaf spot in corn and frogeye leaf spot in soybeans, as well as many other diseases. “It’s a premix of a new SDHI molecule that we’ve been developing for a number of years and it’s partnered with our in-house chemistry flutriafol, one of the most systemic triazoles on the market,” he said.

Listen to an audio interview with Nick here and watch the video below:
NAFB18 Interview with Nick Hustedde, FMC


2018 NAFB Convention Photo Album

AgWired Precision, Audio, FMC, Fungicide, NAFB, Video

Enogen Means Energy for Feed and Fuel

Cindy Zimmerman

The same trait that makes Enogen corn hybrids great for ethanol production is also good for livestock feed.

The higher levels of the alpha-amylase enzyme in these hybrids help break down sugar into energy more efficiently which benefits both ethanol producers and cattle. “The Enogen technology and how it gains efficiencies and makes the ethanol plant money is similar in the rumen of a cow,” said Chris Tingle, head of commercial operations for Enogen at Syngenta, at the 2018 NAFB Convention Trade Talk. He says recent data from Kansas State and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln shows about a five percent increase in feed efficiency. “Which is critical when we see the tensions of those markets now and every penny counts.”

Meanwhile, Enogen’s ethanol plant footprint continues to grow. Learn more in this interview –
NAFB18 Interview with Chris Tingle, Syngenta

2018 NAFB Convention Photo Album

AgWired Animal, AgWired Precision, Audio, Corn, Ethanol, Feed, NAFB, Syngenta

Farmers Mutual Hail Partners with Climate Corporation

Cindy Zimmerman

The Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Bayer, is partnering with Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Company of Iowa (FMH) on a platform expanding Climate FieldView™ for crop insurance reporting.

“We are excited about working with The Climate Corporation to add an easy-to-use reporting option for our policyholders who use FieldView and agents utilizing FMH Precision Crop Insurance Solutions™,” said Ron Rutledge, FMH President and CEO. “Not only will connecting our two systems enhance reporting processes, the data collected through FieldView can be used for adjusting crop losses, resulting in an enhanced claim experience for our policyholders.”

With Climate FieldView, farmers across millions of acres are experiencing fast, easy field data collection and the ability to gain analytics-based insights from their data for increased productivity. With the addition of FMH as a partner, planting and harvest data captured in a farmer’s FieldView account will seamlessly flow into FMH systems at the farmer’s request for faster completion and delivery of planting and production reports. Ultimately, this will provide farmers and their agents a more simplified reporting experience, eliminating the need for manual data entry. In addition to enabling easy, digitized insurance reporting for farmers, Climate and FMH will be identifying further collaboration opportunities to partner in the area of digital risk management for farmers in the future.

AgWired Precision, Bayer, Crop Insurance, Precision Agriculture

FMC Wins Big at Agrow Awards

Cindy Zimmerman

FMC Corporation took top honors in several categories at the 2018 Agrow Awards, an international competition honoring the top advancements in agriculture.

FMC won Best R&D Pipeline and Best Application Technology for its at-plant 3RIVE 3D® application system. In addition, Dr. William E. Barnette, retired director of Discovery Chemistry for FMC, was recognized with the prestigious Agrow Lifetime Achievement Award.

Over his 30-year career with FMC and DuPont Crop Protection, Dr. Barnette has been an industry leader in identifying new crop protection active ingredient development candidates.

Dr. Kathleen Shelton, FMC chief technology officer and vice president, said the company is honored to be recognized for its crop protection discovery research which is critically important to helping farmers produce an abundant and safe food supply for a growing world population. “Our R&D pipeline is focused on new active ingredients and new modes of action to address growers’ insect, disease and weed challenges around the world, including resistant pests, which are a serious threat to crop production.”

Rick Ekins, FMC Precision Platforms lead, accepted the award for FMC’s patent-pending 3RIVE 3D® application system, designed to deliver low volumes of crop protection solutions to the furrow during planting. Currently used in corn and soybeans, 3RIVE 3D technology is being tested in sugar beets, cotton, dry beans, sunflowers and more. New 3RIVE 3D formulated products are in development, like Ethos® 3D insecticide/fungicide just introduced to the market this month.

AgWired Precision, Crop Protection, FMC

Corn Growers Request Changes in Trade Relief Package

Cindy Zimmerman

The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) is urging Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to consider changes to the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) ahead of the second round of payments.

In a letter to Perdue, NCGA president Lynn Chrisp said that many farmers are “disappointed in USDA’s approach to calculating the first round of MFP payments because it was too narrow in scope and did not capture the real-time impacts of trade disruptions on our markets.”

Producers of oybeans, sorghum, corn, wheat, cotton, dairy, and hogs impacted by retaliatory tariffs, resulting in the loss of traditional export markets are the commodities eligible for payments, with soybeans getting the majority of the compensation package in the first round.

NCGA is asking Perdue to add ethanol and distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) to the calculation of damages for corn. Using USDA’s methodology, gross trade damages for ethanol and DDGS amounts to $254 million, which was not accounted for in the first MFP payments. Chrisp also asked the Secretary to allow farmers who suffer production losses from disasters to use an alternative to 2018 production for their MFP calculation. This would ensure farmers suffering from drought, hurricane-related losses or other natural disasters would not be penalized twice.

Corn, Ethanol, Exports, NCGA, Soybean

Ethanol Report from 2018 NAFB Convention

Cindy Zimmerman

The new president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) met with farm broadcasters from around the country recently at the annual National Association of Farm Broadcasting Trade Talk. While Geoff Cooper has been with RFA since 2008, it was the first time he had the opportunity to talk with the ag media as CEO.

Among the topics he discussed were the process of getting E15 approved year round, record production and exports for 2018, and the crazy year it has been for the industry.

Listen here – Ethanol Report from 2018 NAFB Convention

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Audio, Ethanol, NAFB, RFA