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

MGEX Records Highest Volume in 2017

Carrie Muehling

MGEX recorded its highest calendar year volume in 2017 at 2,803,549 contracts. This number broke the previous record set in 2015.

In addition, MGEX options volume for 2017 nearly doubled the preceding record of 61,226 contracts set in 2002. The Exchange also set a new annual electronic volume record with numbers 22 percent higher than the previous one. The best month was June 2017, with a record daily electronic volume happening on June 29 with 34,917 contracts.

Markets

ZimmDot by Echo

Chuck Zimmerman

“Alexa, where in the world is the Golden ZimmComm Microphone?” No, that’s not an Alexa skill yet. But we’re looking into skills for the hottest product of the latest holiday season – the Echo Dot (and the rest of the Echo family).

We’re affectionately calling this one you see, the ZimmDot. There are actually quite a few ZimmDots being activated as we speak. I think we’re up to four just in ZimmComm World Headquarters!

Voice activated, internet connected, technology is just the latest way we’re going to be seeing more and more applications in the agricultural sector. It’s not brand new but growing as these devices develop more capabilities. And like with smart phones, agribusiness will be making innovative use of a “consumer” technology to farm smarter. Of course, that’s just my opinion. But in 2018 I think we’re going to see more and more of this technology.

In fact, there are already agricultural skills on Alexa. Here are a couple:

Hoosier Ag Today
Successful Farming
CropInfo Choupal

Would your company like to partner up on an Alexa skill? I’m open to ideas at this point. Just let me know

Apps, Technology