USDA Forecasting Record Corn and Soybean Yields
The latest Crop Production report from USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is forecasting record corn and soybean yields this year, with higher total production for soybeans and slightly lower for corn.
Corn production is expected to be down 1% from last year at 15.1 billion bushels while soybean production is forecast to be 10% higher than 2023 at a record high 4.59 billion bushels.
Average corn yield is forecast at record high 183.1 bushels per acre, up 5.8 bushels from last year. NASS also forecasts record high yields in Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin. As of Aug. 4, 67% of this year’s corn crop was reported in good or excellent condition, 10 percentage points above the same time last year.
Soybean yields are expected to average a record high 53.2 bushels per acre, up 2.6 bushels from 2023. If realized, the forecasted yields in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio will be record highs.
All wheat production is forecast at 1.98 billion bushels, up 9% from 2023, and in the first NASS production forecast of the season for cotton, all cotton production is forecast at 15.1 million 480-pound bales, up 25% from last year.
EPA’s Ag Office Head Steps Down
Snyder addresses ethanol stakeholders in Washington DC, March 2024
Rod Snyder became senior adviser for agriculture at EPA in October 2021 after serving as president of Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture for seven years. EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced the new office and Snyder as head of it at Commodity Classic in March. “With Rod’s leadership and with the establishment of this new office, we will ensure agriculture and rural stakeholders have a continual seat at the table at EPA for many years to come,” said Regan.
In an exclusive interview with Agri-Pulse, Snyder said he had no “specific plans for his next career move” but will be focusing on his family and personal life. There has been no statement from EPA yet regarding a replacement for Snyder in the ag office.
ACN Awards at Ag Media Summit
So many awards are presented at the Ag Media Summit it gets hard to keep track of them all!
The Agricultural Communications Network presented awards for writing, design, photography, MarComm and digital & social media. All of the photos can be found here.
Of the Year Winners:
Communicator of the Year: Katrina Huffstutler, Grant Company
Designer of the Year: Rachael Davis, Noble Research Institute
Story of the Year: Mike Wilson, Farm Progress
Writer of the Year: Mike Wilson, Farm Progress
Photo of the Year: Steve Werblow, The Furrow
Photographer of the Year: Katie Knapp, The Furrow
Service Award Winners:
Distinguished Service Award – Posthumously awarded to George Rehm, University of Minnesota (U of M) Extension Soil Fertility Specialist
Lifetime Achievement Award – Kelly Schwalbe, Retired PR Professional
Andy Markwart Horizon Award Winner:
Wyatt Bechtel, broadhead.
For a complete list of all the winners, click here.
Industry Ag News 8/12
2024 Ag Media Summit Awards
A big part of the Ag Media Summit are the awards. There are many of them from each organization represented including Livestock Publication Council, The Ag Communicators Network, and National Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow. There are photos of all of them in the online summit photo album.
I want to highlight two of our best friends that received awards starting with Cindy Cunningham, Public Relations Managing Supervisor at Woodruff. Cindy received the LPC Ed Bible Distinguished Service Award. Like a lot of these awards it can be very emotional not only for the recipient but also many, many of us in attendance.
Also, receiving an award is Kelly Schwalbe, Retired PR Professional. Kelly received the Ag Communicators Lifetime Achievement Award.
Cindy (Zimmerman) and I have made so many friends over the years and we’re very blessed for that. We’ve not only worked with these two professionals but we’ve spent lots of other social time from trips to the Lake of the Ozarks to pheasant hunting in South Dakota. Congratulations to them and all who have received awards.
You will be able to find the full lists of winners on the organizational websites.
Talking Retirement at Ag Media Summit
During this year’s Ag Media Summit I talked to a variety of folks about retirement. This included members who have retired, members who retired and went back to work, people who are considering retiring (asking me, “When are you going to retire?”), and one of our keynote speakers, Dr. Chris Kuehl, Armada Corporate Intelligence. He is an economist who not only had great information but a sense of humor that kept us laughing. I would recommend him as a speaker anywhere.
I picked out an excerpt of his talk since it was about extending retirement. He says, “If we use the same demographics that we used in the 1930’s when we set 65 as retirement age, the retirement age now would be 85.” Yeow!
You can listen to him here:
Dr. Chris Kuehl Excerpt on Retirement
The Greg and Gregg Show at AMS
Greg Henderson and Gregg Hillyer at AMS
Henderson says AMS basically began when the ag publishers got together and decided not to send their editors to two separate meetings. “They were going to the Ag Editors meeting in October, and they were going to the Livestock Publications Council meeting in July. And so the idea was, let’s bring these two together,” and it became his job to make that happen.
Hillyer says it was a little tricky to start. “Even though we had some cross membership between the two organizations, we both kind of had different viewpoints in terms of sponsorships and code of ethics and things of that sort, so there was really a lot of originally disagreement in those earlier discussions,” he said.
Listen here:
Gregg and Greg Show - Look back over the years of Ag Media Summit
Alltech Honors Young Leaders at Ag Media Summit
(right to left) Breanna Selsor, Iowa State; Hannah Hudgens, Texas Tech; Allie Herring, Texas Tech; and Ryan Hess, Texas Tech; with Jenn Norrie (far left), Alltech
“Alltech is proud to support the next generation of agricultural communicators as the ambassadors and voice of our industry,” said Jenn Norrie, Alltech’s communications manager for North America and Europe. “These young leaders are playing an instrumental role in sharing stories of farmers and ranchers and are helping to educate the urban population on where and by whom their food is produced.”
Three of the four finalists for this year’s Forrest Bassford Student Award, presented by the LPC, were from Texas Tech University – Allie Herring, Ryan Hess, and Hannah Hudgens – with the fourth, Breanna Selsor, from Iowa State University.
Following a competitive application and interview process, the award was presented to Herring, a senior studying agricultural communications and agri-business at Texas Tech.
The Forrest Bassford Student Award was established in 1992 to honor Bassford’s contributions to the Livestock Publications Council and his passion for supporting young people in the field of agricultural communications.
Feedstock Management Group Debuts at Tech Hub LIVE
The North American Bioeconomy Data Alliance (NABDA) is a new working group focused on feedstock management that debuted at the recent Tech Hub LIVE event in Des Moines.
Spearheading the group are Joyce Hunter with Mission Critical and Kathleen Glass with AquaSpy, who also led a Roundtable Discussion on the topic at THL. NABDA is engaging industry partners help the U.S. and Canada improve data literacy and standardization to optimize the production, processing, and utilization of biological feedstocks.
“It’s looking at all of the feedstock that’s available and how we are going to compensate farmers for what they are growing,” said Hunter. “We’re looking for input from farmers, producers, technology companies…we want all voices included.”
The working group plans to gather input over the rest of this year and present findings at the VISION Conference in January.
Hunter, who served in the Obama administration USDA, also spoke to the Women in Ag Tech group which met for the third time at Tech Hub LIVE about the importance of being involved in public policy and government relations.
Learn more in this interview.
2024 THL WiAT speaker Joyce Hunter, Mission Critical 7:04