National FFA Foundation Creates Endowment Fund

Lizzy Schultz

ffa Dr. W. Dwight Armstrong will retire as chief executive officer of the National FFA Organization and Foundation later this month, but his legacy in agricultural education and FFA will live on in a newly created endowment called “The Dwight Armstrong Legacy Endowment.”

Armstrong’s seven-year tenure with the National FFA Organization has allowed him to oversee an era of dramatic growth and success, as the organization has achieved an all-time record high membership of 629,367. Armstrong has solidified close collaboration and complementary strategic direction for both the National FFA Organization and the National FFA Foundation.

“Dwight brought vision and leadership to our organization that has inspired our members, staff and volunteers across the country,” said Molly Ball, President of the National FFA Foundation. “This fund will honor his legacy at FFA and continue his vision of growing leaders, building communities and strengthening American agriculture.”

The Dwight Armstrong Legacy Endowment has two platforms: The CEO Innovation Endowment platform, which establishes a fund that provides future National FFA CEOs with a discretionary platform to pursue unique leadership development opportunities for staff and support starter funds to further the FFA mission, and the career success platform, which helps fund the vision of “My Journey,” a direct pipeline to jobs and talent across the country available to FFA members and partners.

“With his many years of being deeply involved in the agricultural industry, we hope his friends and associates will find this endowment to be a wonderful opportunity to honor Dwight and give back to an organization they care about,” Ball said.

Most information can be found here

Ag Groups, Education, FFA

Safe Food Coalition Urges Senate to Act

Cindy Zimmerman

cfsafThe Coalition for Safe Affordable Food (CFSAF) and leaders of America’s agricultural and food industries are sounding the alarm that Congress needs to act immediately to pass a bipartisan solution before Vermont’s mandatory on-package labeling law goes into effect July 1.

As of today, there are only seven days left on the legislative calendar before the state law is implemented with the potential for costly and lasting effects on the nation’s food supply chain. “After today Congress only has six working days to pass legislation to stop Vermont’s mandatory GMO labeling law,” said Chuck Conner, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) president and CEO, during a conference call today. “We’re not here to get between the negotiations…we’re here simply to urge these members to finish their work.”

Grocery Manufacturers Association president and CEO Pam Bailey adds that the Vermont labeling law will result in stigmatizing perfectly safe foods. “We believe these on-package labels don’t provide consumers with any useful information,” said Bailey. “They will be seen as a warning.” She says the industry advocates a SmartLabel™ Initiative that allows consumers to get all of the information they could possibly need about a product with just a smart phone.

Leslie Sarasin, Food Marketing Institute president and CEO, says a state patchwork of labeling laws will be confusing to consumers. “Vermont’s law and those expected to come from Maine, Massachusetts and other states in that region will quickly make New England’s labeling laws so fragmented that a simple granola bar would be required to be labeled five different ways,” she said.

“The lack of Senate action to find and pass compromise will have serious negative consequences for our nation’s farmers,” said American Soybean Association CEO Steve Censky. “Markets for the crops our farmers are growing today will be lost and the value of farmers’ crops will be diminished.”

Conner described the final negotiations in the Senate as being “within inches” of agreement and they are hoping action will be taken today.

Listen to comments from all the above representatives here: Press call with CFSAF

ASA, Audio, Biotech, Food, GMO, Soybean

Creating Solutions – R&D in the Field with #BIVIswine

Lizzy Schultz

bivi-16-ames-tour-27-editedResearch and development in animal health is all well and good, but a strong team of professional services veterinarians to help implement and communicate to the producers is needed to ensure lab creations are effective. While visiting Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc.’s (BIVI) new R&D facility in Ames, Iowa, I sat down with Dr. John Waddell, senior associate director, professional services veterinarian.

“Many think R&D starts in a laboratory, but it really starts in the field. It starts with practitioners and producers who have a problem with no solution. Sometimes the disease hasn’t had a true pathogen identified with it yet. When I am in the field, I look for those. If I run across odd ball diseases, I help facilitate getting those samples to R&D so they can start finding out what is going on behind the clinical sign we see on the farm that doesn’t make sense.”

If R&D finds a new agent we take a clean pig and attempt to recreate the clinical signs found in the field. If they are successful, they determine if it is worth creating a vaccine for the pathogen. Dr. Waddell said there are numerous steps in getting that vaccine through FDA testing and then to market.

A simple theme for the professional services vet team was ‘creating solutions.’ Dr. Waddell said it always goes back to that. “We help producers design clinical studies. Find out what their current status is and then what their constraints are. Not all can take advantage of all the tools that come down the pike. When we understand their goals, we can help them formulate a plan to manage that disease.” But they don’t stop there. The team also plays an active role in monitoring progress to see if treatment is working and the producer is achieving their goals. If they aren’t, Dr. Waddell said they cycle back to step one.

Listen to my complete interview with Dr. Waddell to learn more about how the field service vets use a team approach throughout the entire process with the producers: Interview with Dr. John Waddell, BIVI

View and download photos from the tour here: 2016 BIVI HMC Media Tour Photo Album.

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Ag Groups, Animal Health, Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Swine, World Pork Expo

FFA Hosts Washington Leadership Conference

Lizzy Schultz

ffa-leadership-dc More than 2,100 FFA members from throughout the country will head to Washington, D.C., this summer for the 2016 Washington Leadership Conference, an opportunity to analyze their personal skills and interests, develop leadership skills, and create a meaningful community service plan that will make a difference in their home communities.

The student leadership event has been hosted by the National FFA Organization since 1969, and is held annually in Washington, D.C. This year’s conference began June 7 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

Until the conference ends on July 30, members will spend a week under the guidance of professionals, counselors and FFA staff members. In workshops, seminars and small groups, students will work to identify and develop their personal strengths and goals, undergo comprehensive leadership training, and will analyze the needs of their communities back home while developing a wide-ranging and high-impact community-service initiative.

In recent years, students have promoted agricultural literacy, brought awareness to abuse, collected and distributed shoes to individuals in Haiti, and created an awareness plan on hunger, among others.

Ag Groups, Education, Events, FFA

Clariant Lanches Unique Weed Control Boosters

Kelly Marshall

ClariantClariant is showing the world they truly are a leader in specialty chemicals with an innovative, all-in-one crop spraying system.  Synergen ME is a product line designed to improve weed control and achieve better yields by being optimized for use in combination with other herbicides. The new product contains methylated seed oil, ammonium sulfate and specific surfactants to increase the effectiveness of herbicides in a sing product, making at least one thing on the farm a little easier.

As herbicides differ widely in their properties, so do their needs. The new Synergen ME family therefore offers various products optimized for best fit to particular important herbicides and their combinations. The Synergen ME microemulsions provide an efficient and sustainable new tool that eliminates the need for farmers to mix several products with their chosen herbicide in order to optimize spray behaviour and achieve outstanding field performance. The systems have no negative impact on spray drift and are gentle to crop plants. Key for modern farming, the tank-mix adjuvants are also based predominantly on renewable products, are biodegradable and require no hazard labeling.

“Synergen ME provides an eco-friendly solution for modern agriculture that limits crop losses and reduces the amount of product needed, while delivering a new level of quality and performance to the crop protection segment. The multifaceted approach from one product takes crop protection to a higher level, improving the field performance of acid herbicides, and does so with a good environmental profile,” comments Ralf Zerrer, Head of Strategic Marketing Industrial and Consumer Specialties at Clariant.

Clariant is the main sponsor at the 11th International Symposium on Adjuvants for Agrochemicals (ISAA 2016) this week.  They are launching the Synergen ME product there, along with several additives and adjuvant innovations.

Agribusiness, Herbicide, weed management

Are Drones the Future of Ag?

Kelly Marshall

TerrAvionIt’s a little mind-blowing, really. Robert Morris served in the U.S. Army as a Technical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TUAV) Platoon Leader in Afghanistan.  His ground-breaking work helped uncover intelligence that made critically important strategic decisions, but after returning to the states Morris realized drones were the wrong choice for agriculture.

Instead a conversation with a buddy led Morris to start TerrAvion, an aerial imaging service for agriculture that uses planes instead of drones. And while drone-based businesses are booming, ($3.4 billion forecast for agriculture applications) Morris says the economics just aren’t there for a grower. “Electric drone collection uses 20 times more labor per acre than planes,” says Robert. “And a typical drone can collect aerial images for just 4,200 acres in one day versus 500,000 acres for a plane. The economics are pretty clear,” he says.

Regulations are another overwhelming factor. “While drone usage has been approved in select areas for select applications, it will be a long time before they have the broad clearance required for wide scale adoption,” says Robert.  His company can fly planes at required 8,000 foot elevation in every state and South America right now.

A subscription service means a grower receives birds-eye view images of a farm each week.  Multiple wavelengths mean information can be used to plan scouting, management actives and interventions.

Currently TerrAvion is focused almost exclusively on agriculture and it’s simple to get started.  While many farmers choose to go through retail partners, its also possible to go to the website, upload field information, pick a subscription plan and start receiving images right away.

“The thing that has been promised is here,” Morris assures us.  “It doesn’t look exactly like the hype, but it’s even better.  There’s no work required on the grower’s part beyond learning how to use the data to farm better on a larger footprint.”

Listen to Chucks interview and learn more about TerrAvion’s services here: Interview with Robert Morris, TerrAvion

Agribusiness, Audio, data

Statistically Defendable Data from the Field at #BIVIswine

Jamie Johansen

bivi-16-ames-tour-26-editedResearch at Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. (BIVI) doesn’t stop in the lab. They are dedicated to taking research to the field to provide support for the BIVI swine sales and marketing team. The Field Research Services team answers customers’ product questions through field trials, diagnostic support and data management. Roy Edler, heads up that team as manager and he sat down with me to share more about BIVI’s ‘value behind the bottle’ approach.

“Questions never cease so there is always plenty to do. When a customer has a question that we can organize in a trial design so we can defend them statistically, we have a team that can help implement that. We are involved in that trial design. We are involved in collecting the data and we are involved in analyzing that data.”

As Roy mentioned, their goal is to find statistically defendable data from the field trials. The boots on the ground trials are also a key element in determining effectiveness of the drugs administered. Efficacy trails are the largest trials conducted and might include reporting average daily gain or feed conversations.

“Efficacy is a lot of what we are out investigating. How well do our products perform against non-vaccinated animals, against different protocols and even competitors products.”

Listen to my complete interview with Roy to hear more about their team approach to diagnostics and how they relay results back to their clients. Interview with Roy Edler, BIVI

2016 BIVI Media Tour Photo Album.

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Agribusiness, Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Research, Swine

NCGA Takes Farmers to Trade School

Lizzy Schultz

tpp-ncga-trade-school Last week’s National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) Trade School brought more than 50 farmers, ranchers and representatives of state agriculture associations to Washington in order to deepen their knowledge about trade issues and drum up support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on Capitol Hill.

“Trade policy has a significant impact on me as a farmer. The success of my business and the livelihood of my community depend on expanding markets for U.S. agricultural products,” said John Linder, a farmer from Edison, Ohio who serves as chairman of the NCGA Biotechnology and Trade Action Team.

Trade school attendees listened to public and private sector experts discuss the importance of trade to the agriculture sector, global population and dietary trends and their implications for agriculture, the growing ethanol export market, and the current state of play for TPP.

“The biggest thing I learned in trade school is, the world is not waiting for us. Our competitors have negotiated regional and bilateral trade agreements that put American farmers and ranchers at a disadvantage in the global marketplace,” said Linder.

Ag Groups, Corn, Exports, NCGA, politics, Trade

Huge Disservice to the Organic Industry

Chuck Zimmerman

I like to use images and especially video to help tell a story. In this case, however, there is just no need to do so. The folks at the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance brought to my attention the rather disgusting work of the Clif Bar Family Foundation demonstrated by their Seed Matters initiative that features a profanity spewing animated seed video produced by the Butler Brothers. Yes, these folks have a serious agenda that doesn’t care about things like facts. Here’s a response to their video from USFRA:

The Clif Bar Family Foundation recently released a video titled “Seed Matters” which uses a foul-mouthed lead character and inappropriate imagery to not only attack conventional farming practices but also insult science, agronomic research and all farmers who choose to implement modern farming practices.

U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance CEO, Randy Krotz, issued a rebuttal to the video. Please read his piece and share with your agriculture community. It’s time for all of agriculture to come together and respond in a collective and united voice.

Foul-Mouthed ‘Mr. Seed’ Sells With Scares

It saddens me to say that the organic food industry has reached a new low. U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance has always been an organization that promotes and encourages diversity in food production practices, but we find ourselves speechless, mouths hanging open. The atrocity of the Seed Matters video created for the Clif Bar Family Foundation, and the messages within, have crossed the line.

In an attempt to scare the public about GMO crops, the video uses unrealistic imagery (think skeletal fish, seeds on steroids) to promote an organic agenda. The website of the film’s creators (http://thebutlerbros.com/work/mr-seed/), states the main character, Mr. Seed “educates people about seed issues and the benefits of organic seed.” But Seed Matters actually perpetuates some of the greatest myths of agriculture using a foul-mouthed character and inappropriate imagery. The main purpose of the video is supposedly taking a stance on biotech and its ability to feed the world. The mark really couldn’t have been further missed.

There are millions of people who work in the agricultural industry around the world. At a time when we should be united for the common good of feeding the world, we are fighting instead, using unethical and non-factual propaganda as the weapon. Food companies are using junk science driving people away from sustainable practices like GMOs to manipulate consumers for the sole purpose of market gain. The bottom line is: no matter your approach to farming, or how you view various farming practices, the outright demonization of conventional agriculture and family farms is despicable.

Read More

Ag Groups, Organic, USFRA, Wackos

BIVI’s Swine Diagnostics Revolution

Joanna Schroeder

There is a swine diagnostics revolution and Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc.’s is leading the way. The company’s Health Management Center (HMC) in Ames, Iowa is where Wayne Chittick, as manager, takes swine diagnostics to the next level.The swine diagnostic lab is part BIVI’s technical services group and was on display during this year’s World Pork Expo. Chittick said the lab is designed to help the vet and account teams explore problems that matter to the client. They conduct diagnostics in their lab as well as send samples to other labs to ultimately answer questions that clients have on the farm.

bivi-16-ames-tour-6-editedOne area of expertise for BIVI and the lab is quality control. “We know its very important that the results we generate are creating evidence that is used to make decisions on the farm and these decisions can be very high dollar, high consequence decisions,” explained Chittick. “So we’ve done a lot over the years to assure that the test results we generate are accurate and right the first time. We do that in part through what we call a quality system which is all the procedures, policies and ways of doing work that help us ensure accurate results go out the first time.”

Chittick said their quality system is recognized through third-party accreditation so the tests they offer have been American Association of Lab Accreditation accredited since 2004 to the ISO 17025 standard.

Today the swine diagnostic lab can analyze samples within 24 hours, said Chittick. When asked what the future of diagnostics looked like he said that today their lab network is pretty unprecedented. “Besides having same day PCR results, within a few days we can have sequence results to tell you what strain is present.”

And the future? “Things I think we’re hearing about in the future are methods in the lab that allow you to get more information from a single sample such as multiplex assays that let you detect more targets in each sample.” Chittick added that in the field he believes they will be able to get diagnostics from the pen, literally right on the farm, so the producer wouldn’t have to send the samples in to a traditional lab to get immediate results.

To learn more one day in the life of a sample and the future of swine diagnostics, listen to Jamie’s interview with Wayne Chittick: Interview with Wayne Chittick, BIVI

2016 BIVI HMC Media Tour Photo Album.

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Agribusiness, Animal Health, Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Research, Swine, World Pork Expo