AFBF President Pleased to Host President Trump

Cindy Zimmerman

The second day of the American Farm Bureau Federation convention is when the spotlight is usually on the big name keynote speaker, the secretary of agriculture, and the big award winners at the meeting. This year, YF&R, Reba McIntyre and even Secretary Sonny are being upstaged by President Donald Trump, the first time that a president has addressed the AFBF convention since 1992.

AFBF president Zippy Duvall is more than pleased to have the president of the United States at the 99th annual convention in Nashville to address thousands of farmers in attendance and many thousands more through live streaming video from AFBF and on RFD-TV, which will also have a one-on-one interview with President Trump following his address. “We are so excited about having this opportunity … to have a seat at the table,” said Duvall in his Sunday opening press conference. “That happens in a lot of administrations, it seems to be more open in this one.”

In the press conference, Duvall also talked about what he will say during his time with President Trump today. AFBF president Zippy Duvall opening press conference

Watch President Trump live from AFBF starting at 3:00 pm central.
Find links to all AFBF convention content.

2018 AFBF Convention Photo Album

AFBF, Audio

Animal Ag Bites 1/8

Carrie Muehling

  • The Public Lands Council has opened applications for the Nick Theos Scholarship Program, offering qualified college students a unique opportunity to attend the PLC 2018 Spring Legislative Conference April 10 – 12 in Washington, D.C. Two Nick Theos scholarships are available for 2018. The scholarships include a $250 stipend, hotel accommodations, and complimentary conference registration. Interested students should complete an online application by February 9, 2018. Applicants should have a demonstrated interest in public lands ranching.
  • The American Gelbvieh Association welcomes Kelsi Christian to its staff where she began her role as multimedia coordinator on January 2, 2018. Christian will manage and develop AGA social media strategies, contribute to AGA publications and marketing team, as well as assist AGA members and customers with day-to-day registry questions.
  • The National Pork Board announces the opening of the application period of the 2018 Pork Industry Scholarships. This program is open to college juniors and seniors who have plans to pursue a career in swine production management or a related field. In addition, students who will be seeking to attend veterinary or graduate school with an emphasis on swine are encouraged to apply. The guidelines for the scholarship application and the online form can be found at www.pork.org/scholarship. The deadline for application submission is Feb. 16, 2018.
  • The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, established under the leadership of dairy farmers, is accepting nominations for the seventh annual U.S. Dairy Sustainability Awards honoring exceptional dairy farms, businesses and partnerships for their socially responsible, economically viable and environmentally sound practices. Nominations are open through Feb. 12.
  • A meta-analysis of dozens of studies published in a recent issue of Bovine Practitioner assures beef cattle producers and veterinarians that they could potentially have significantly fewer repeat treatment courses for bovine respiratory disease (BRD) if they select Draxxin® (tulathromycin) Injectable Solution as the first-line choice for control or treatment of BRD. According to this meta-analysis conducted by Zoetis, efficacy of the first-choice antibiotic for treatment and control of BRD can make a difference in helping reduce the necessity for subsequent antibiotic treatment courses and could potentially eliminate the need for up to 1.8 million antibiotic therapy courses annually for BRD treatment and control in the U.S.

 

AgWired Animal, Animal Bites

Farm Bureau Excels at Instant Convention Content

Cindy Zimmerman

The communications team for the American Farm Bureau Federation is really getting a workout for the organization’s 99th annual meeting in Nashville this week with President Donald Trump attending Monday afternoon. Over 200 registered media and room for only 90, having last minute convention schedule changes, and just dealing with the logistics of a presidential presence will make Monday a challenge for even the most seasoned professionals. But, no matter what, you will be able to see the president’s speech live, or go back and watch it later – and you will have photos and audio almost immediately after it is over.

In fact, you can find the majority of the main activities at the AFBF convention live-streamed, archived, photographed, and audio filed, with multiple press releases, through the Farm Bureau convention media guide. With the help of state Farm Bureau communications specialists, the AFBF communications team has always been the best at providing content for media. Chuck was one of those state staffers at Florida Farm Bureau who was brought on the AFBF team for the 1985 convention in Hawaii. They were using some of the earliest satellite technology to send both audio and video back to the mainland for some media, but they were also shipping video stories on cassette using the latest express shipping services and getting audio content sent via telephone. News releases and photos were still mostly sent by mail but they were using some of the earliest facsimile machines at the time.

AFBF has always kept up with the latest in communications technology, so now you can watch and record it live as it happens, get high resolution photos, and subscribe to audio feeds from the event via podcast. Jamie will be on the ground there for President Trump’s address Monday and we will have an AgNewsWire virtual newsroom page set up for her photos and interviews, but here are the links to various content sources from AFBF:

Convention photos
Live streaming video and links to archived videos
B Roll Video
Audio files

Farm Bureau is really the epitome of an organization that excels in providing virtually instant digital content from their conventions. AgNewsWire is a way for smaller organizations to get content from their own meetings produced and distributed to a wider audience. It’s what we do best, and we learned a lot of it from working with Farm Bureau over the years.

AFBF, AgWired Animal, AgWired Precision

SMART Farmer Podcast 2018

Cindy Zimmerman

Welcome to the first SMART farmer podcast of 2018!

In 2017, we interviewed 22 farmers and ranchers and other agriculture industry people from across the country for the SMART farmer podcast to learn how they use the latest technology in their production of food and fiber for the world, like poultry barns with environmental controls on smart phones, using GPS to plant and harvest crops in perfectly straight rows, and how crops engineered for certain characteristics have helped farmers be more sustainable. This podcast was started by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance just to tell the farmers story about why they do what they do in an attempt to connect with the non-farm public. For this podcast, I talked with USFRA CEO Randy Krotz about what they did to try and bridge the gap in 2017 and what plans they have for 2018.

If you have not yet subscribed to the podcast and this is brand new to you, you can do it today and binge listen to all 22 podcasts from 2017! Also, SMART Farmer is now on TuneIn.

Download or listen to this podcast here: SMART Farmer Podcast with
USFRA CEO Randy Krotz

Subscribe to the SMART Farmer podcast

Learn more about USFRA and SMART Farm

AgWired Animal, AgWired Precision, USFRA

ZimmCast with MN Soybean

Cindy Zimmerman

Tom Slunecka is one of the first people ever to be featured in a ZimmCast, back in 2005 when he was executive director for the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC). That organization became Growth Energy in 2008, and Tom has been executive director for Minnesota Soybean, which includes both the state Growers Association (MSGA) and the Research & Promotion Council (MSR&PC). We had the pleasure of doing a little media training for Tom and his board this week so we had some time to catch up and reminisce a bit.

Tom was also the first person to name our signature meme the ZimmComm Golden Microphone on its first event out of the box, the 2007 NAMA conference, which makes him a founding member of the Golden Mic Club!

You will find Tom on page 25 of the latest AgriMarketing magazine because the Minnesota Soybean Biodiesel Project was named 2017 Product of the Year. Congratulations to the entire Minnesota Soybean team for that honor!

Listen to the ZimmCast here: ZimmCast 570 with Minnesota Soybean's Tom Slunecka

Subscribe to the ZimmCast podcast here. Use this url in iTunes or your favorite news reader program/app.

The ZimmCast

sponsored by
The ZimmCast podcast is sponsored by GROWMARK
Locally owned, globally strong.
Soybean, ZimmCast

John Deere Reaps AE50 Awards

Cindy Zimmerman

John Deere S700 Combines, CP690 & CS690 Cotton Harvesters have been honored with AE50 Awards for innovations that improve production ag.

The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) AE50 Awards highlight the year’s most innovative product-engineering designs in the food and agriculture industry, as chosen by a panel of international engineering experts.

The John Deere S700 Series Combine was recognized for its significant innovations in “smart” technology, improved operator comfort and data capabilities, while the CP690 Cotton Picker and CS690 Cotton Stripper were recognized for innovations in precision cotton-harvesting technologies that include moisture sensing and round module weighing.

Two hay tool innovations from John Deere Ottumwa Works were also honored with AE50 awards – the BalerAssist™ feature on the large square balers and the Plus2 Bale Accumulator for large round balers, both introduced in late 2017. And the John Deere 5R Series Tractors received an award for innovative designs in product engineering. The awards will be presented at the ASABE Agricultural Equipment Technology Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, in February.

AgWired Precision, Equipment, John Deere

Zimfo Bytes 1/5

Carrie Muehling

    • Farm Journal has announced that ‘AgriTalk’ has expanded to a new two-hour format. The company’s afternoon radio program, ‘Market Rally,’ is now ‘AgriTalk After the Bell.’ ‘AgriTalk’ will continue to air each weekday morning, with Chip Flory hosting both hours of the nationally syndicated talk show.
    • Beck Ag, Inc. is expanding its new business acquisition efforts and its market intelligence competency through the promotion of Kari Spaan to vice president of business development, and Monica Phillips to vice president of strategic intelligence.
    • The Association of Equipment Manufacturers has announced its purchase of Minneapolis-based data processing and business analytics company Hargrove & Associates, Inc.
    • Farmers are feeling better about their current situations despite flat grain prices and the signs of lower livestock prices, according to the most recent DTN/The Progressive Farmer Agricultural Confidence Index. The November 2017 survey posted an overall score of 113, up nine points from August and 15 points higher than the “Trump Bump” survey of a year ago.
Zimfo Bytes

Media Training with Minnesota Soybean

Chuck Zimmerman

The ZimmComm Team is on the AgriBlogging Highway early in 2018. Cindy and I conducted a session on media training for Minnesota Soybean yesterday in Naples. Cindy was the friendly/not-so-friendly reporter who conducted interviews while I was the videographer. I estimate that we conduct between 1,000 and 2,000 interviews/year and we got started in this business back in 1980 so we have a lot of fun being teachers and speaking from long experience about things to do and not to do.

The best way to get better at doing interviews is practice, so the bulk of our media training focused on doing interviews on different topics with different scenarios. Most of the farmers on the boards of MSR&PC and MSGA had already had media training at some point so we focused more on letting them see and critique themselves, so we recorded and played back interviews with each participant.

Thanks to my brother-in-law for providing the projector equipment, and to FMC for the Boxanne that provided good quality audio!

Media, Soybean

‘Farm Town Strong’ Campaign to Address Rural Opioid Epidemic

Carrie Muehling

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and National Farmers Union (NFU) are working together to raise awareness about the nation’s opioid epidemic and its impact on farming communities. The “Farm Town Strong” campaign aims to provide resources and information to rural Americans and to encourage farmers to support one another when affected by the crisis.

The joint campaign comes in response to a recent survey commissioned by the nation’s two largest farm groups that showed staggering statistics regarding the opioid crisis and its impact on American farmers, farm workers and farm families.

“Farm country has been hit hard by the opioid crisis – even harder than rural America as a whole, or big cities,” said AFBF President Zippy Duvall. “It’s going to take everyone working together to combat this crisis to make a difference. That’s why Farm Bureau and National Farmers Union are teaming up to show unity on this issue and encourage farm families to help their neighbors. If you or a family member has been affected by opioid addiction, it’s important to talk about it so that others will know they are not fighting this alone.”

The groups have launched a website at FarmTownStrong.org with information and resources to help farm families and rural communities affected in any way by the opioid epidemic. AFBF President Zippy Duvall and NFU President Roger Johnson will lead a discussion on overcoming the opioid crisis on Monday, Jan. 8, at the 2018 AFBF Annual Convention & IDEAg Trade Show in Nashville, Tennessee.

AFBF

Agrilyst’s 2017 State of Indoor Farming Report

Jamie Johansen

We first met Allison Kopf, founder and CEO of Agrilyst, at Alltech’s 2017 ONE. There she took part in the first Pearse Lyons Accelerator program. As a reminder, Agrilyst is a “web-based software platform that helps indoor farms manage their crops and gain data-driven insights to make more profitable production decisions.”

Allison and her team have now released a 2017 State of Indoor Farming report to recap how the industry grew last year and the outlook for the future. Emerging trends, challenges, and benefits of farming indoors are just a few highlights the report tackles. Agrilyst received over 150 responses from growers in 8 countries.

Top five takeaways:
1. Yields for hydroponic leafy greens grown in a greenhouse are about 12.6x that of conventionally grown lettuces.
2. Leafy greens grown hydroponically in a greenhouse can have a 46% profit margin.
3. 56% of the operating expenses of an indoor vertical farm are due to labor.
4. Automation topped the list of technologies growers are most excited about.
5. Container farms topped the list of technologies growers are least excited about.

Agribusiness, AgWired Precision, Alltech, Farming, Precision Agriculture