Sustainable Ag Expo Educates Growers

Kelly Marshall November 4, 2015

The 11th Annual Sustainable Ag Expo will be held November 16-17, 2015, at the Madonna Inn Expo Center in San Luis Obispo, California. The expo, hosted by the Vineyard Team, promises educational information for growers of many crops.

“The Expo started as a way to explore various issues affecting different types of ag professionals,” said Kris Beal, Executive Director for The Vineyard Team. “It is a chance for farmers and researchers to come together, learn from each other, and engage in conversations with some of the brightest in the industry. Not only do we address production practices, we’re exploring initiatives from buyers like Campbell and Cisco that are influencing behavior.”

Begun 11 years ago, the Sustainable Ag Expo started when the Vineyard Team saw crop industries using various innovations and felt growers could benefit from learning from each other. The Expo was developed to share information about energy and water conservation, holistic management, integrated pest management and soil conservation.

With 40 speakers, session highlights include focusing on water availability and quality; access to affordable labor; and new federal air quality standards that may have significant impacts on farming operations in the future presented by Dr. Jay Lund, Director for the Center for Watershed Science and Professor at UC Davis, Bryan Little, Director Employment Policy, California Farm Bureau Federation and Nancy Levin, Air Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 9. Additionally, Dr. Michelle Moyer, Washington State University, will present new research on powdery mildew monitoring, detection and management along with Dr. Renaud Travadon of UC Davis and Larry Bettiga, University of California Viticulture Farm Advisor.

Learn more about the event, view exhibitors and vendors or register for the event now.

Ag Groups, Education, Energy, Events, pesticides, Soil, Sustainability, Water

The FFA Hunger Games

Jamie Johansen November 4, 2015

Inspiring young people to take action was the central theme of the National FFA Organization’s Food For All booth at the 88th National FFA Convention. As students entered the FFA Hunger Games they were challenged to a number of optical courses and educated on two program’s they can take part in at home to help fight hunger.

I spoke with Michele Sullivan with the National FFA Organization to help walk me through their message to members. “The FFA Food for All grants is a competitive grant application for FFA chapters to apply for up to $2,500 to develop, implement and evaluate a year-long service learning project that focuses on hunger.”

Michele said the other program they highlighted was the FFA Heroes Challenge. Last year they challenged members to raise 2.5 million meals to impact hunger across the country. Not only did they meet that goal, but they raised a little over 3 million meals. The National FFA Organization has issued another challenge this year and is asking members to raise 3.5 million meals in the 2016 calendar year.

Learn more about what the FFA members are doing across the country to fight hunger in their local communities in my complete interview with Michele. Interview with Michele Sullivan, National FFA Organization

Find photos from the event here: 2015 National FFA Convention Photo Album

Coverage of the National FFA Convention is sponsored by

Ag Groups, FFA, Food

Does Mass Media Impact Consumer Food Opinion?

Jamie Johansen November 4, 2015

Our latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “How do you pass the time flying?”

The ZimmComm Team takes to the skies quite a bit throughout the year, so it was fun to see what others do to pass the time. I like to read and it looks like I am in the majority. It looks like we had a wide variety of answers. A few commented that they liked to watch movies and we even had a pilot chime saying he stuck to simply flying.

Here are the poll results:

Sleep – 30%
Read – 33%
Play games – 6%
Work – 13%
Other – 18%

Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, What’s mass media’s impact on consumer food opinion?

Throughout the last few weeks food has been the center of mass media. Whether it was Subway’s announcement about antibiotics or the World Health Organization’s claim of meat causing cancer, it seems positive messages about agriculture don’t make mainstream news. How big do you think mass media’s impact is on consumers opinion on food? Share your thoughts with us.

ZimmPoll

Senate to Vote on Second WOTUS Bill

Cindy Zimmerman November 4, 2015

After failing to invoke cloture on a bill that would require EPA to re-work the Clean Water rule known as WOTUS, the Senate did vote to allow debate on a resolution of disapproval, sponsored by Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, that would scrap the WOTUS rule entirely.

“My legislation is the necessary next step in pushing back against this blatant power grab by the EPA,” said Sen. Ernst. “We will send this to the president, where he will be forced to decide between the livelihood of our rural communities nationwide and his unchecked federal agency.”

President Obama has already said he will veto any bill passed by Congress that makes changes in the water rule which has already been put on hold by court cases against it. A vote on Sen. Ernst’s bill will be held on Wednesday.

Listen to Sen. Ernst here: Sen. Ernst on WOTUS disapproval

Audio, EPA, Water

Senate Fails to Take WOTUS Rework to Vote

Cindy Zimmerman November 3, 2015

Forty-one senators voted against moving forward with debate on a bill that would require EPA to rework the controversial Clean Water rule known as Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), which was enough to keep the bill from a vote on the floor.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Barrasso (R-WY), would instruct EPA to craft a WOTUS rule that “takes into consideration positions held by folks like farmers, ranchers, manufacturers and small businesses.” The bipartisan legislation was backed by a number of Democrats, including Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) who spoke in favor of the bill on the floor. “Uncertainty of #WOTUS rule affects everyone,” she tweeted. “Working 2 give certainty 2 farmers & #smallbiz w/ our bipartisan bill.”

Floor speech from Sen. Heitkamp: Sen. Heitkamp on WOTUS

The Republican senator from North Dakota also gave an impassioned floor speech against the WOTUS rule. “The federal government should be doing all that it can to empower those who grow our food and create jobs,” said Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND). “Instead regulators are stifling growth with burdensome regulation that generates cost and uncertainty.”

Floor speech from Sen. Hoeven: Sen. Hoeven on WOTUS

Audio, EPA, Water

Deere to Acquire Precision Planting & Monosem

Chuck Zimmerman November 3, 2015

This morning John Deere announced that the company has acquired Precision Planting from the Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Monsanto. Also included in the announcement is an exclusive agreement with Climate Corporation for near real-time data connectivity between certain John Deere equipment and Climate Corporation’s FieldView Platform.

Making the announcement at the Develop with Deere conference was Pat Pinkston. You can listen to his announcement below.

Yesterday Deere made another announcement that it is acquiring Memosem, a leading manufacturer of precision planters in Europe. Also announced is a joint venture creating SageInsights with DN2K’s cloud software platform. Yep, lots of announcements from Deere!

Listen to Pat’s comments here: Pat Pinkston, John Deere

The Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Monsanto Company, held a press conference this morning to discuss the new agreements.

“To maximize the value of digital agriculture, farmers need solutions for simple and seamless collection of in-field agronomic data,” said Mike Stern, president and chief operating officer for The Climate Corporation. “As a result of these milestone agreements, farmers will experience the fastest, most frequent and highest resolution third-party connectivity between John Deere’s equipment and the Climate FieldView platform.”

Stern was joined in the press conference by Climate senior vice president for agronomic services John Raines, and Illinois farmer Steve Moffitt. Climate Corp/Deere press conference

Agribusiness, Audio, John Deere

Developing with Deere

Chuck Zimmerman November 3, 2015

Hello from Kansas City, MO and the Develop with Deere conference. John Deere has once again brought together application developers to learn and to discuss opportunities with John Deere’s open API system.

I’m learning to and will be bringing you stories as they happen. I know there is going to be an announcement this morning and hopefully I can provided you with a very personal look at that very soon.

John Deere

There is a Future for Agriculture

Kelly Marshall November 3, 2015

Rachel Greig has been part of the FFA program for 7 years and intends to make it part of her life for many years to come. She attended the 2015 National FFA Convention this year as Pennsylvania’s State FFA Secretary and you can hear her passion for the future of agriculture in her interview with Jamie Johansen.

Pennsylvania State FFA Secretary Rachel Greig

“My passion about agriculture is advocating for younger people or our future generations because not everybody knows what agriculture is all about, or even what FFA is all about, so its very important we know where our food comes from and who does all the work to put into our food,” Rachel says.

Her future plans are to attend college and become a speech and language pathologist, hopefully in an elementary school, and coming home to beef cows, pigs, and sheep after the bell rings. She’d like others involved in FFA to know there’s a place in agriculture for them when their time in high school is over.

“I’d like them to know there is a future for agriculture. And here [at the convention] you can go and visit many colleges– ag colleges, and they are amazing. So it doesn’t just end after high school. You can move forward and keep moving forward. It just never stops.”

Find photos from the event here: 2015 National FFA Convention Photo Album

Coverage of the National FFA Convention is sponsored by

Ag Groups, Audio, FFA

Agri-Pulse Partners with Tom Davis

Kelly Marshall November 3, 2015

The well-respected source of farm and rural policy information, Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc., has grown substantially in the last year. With their online presence experiencing a boom the company has reached an agreement with respected publisher, Tom Davis. The plan is to enhance the strategic planning, marketing and sales efforts of the fast growing company.

“We are very pleased to have someone with Tom’s publishing experience and industry networking skills join the Agri-Pulse team,” said Sara Wyant, Agri-Pulse President. “As we continue to expand our paid circulation and develop an even stronger web presence, we wanted to add another experienced media professional to provide strategic insight and work with prospective subscribers and advertisers.”

Davis brings a wealth of previous publishing experience, including 37 years with Meredith Corporation where he served as Publisher of Successful Farming magazine. Most recently, he served as Vice President/Group Publisher for several of Meredith’s consumer media products.

Tom graduated with a Bachelor of Science from Purdue University and has been recognized as a Distinguished Agricultural Alumni. He has held leadership positions in a number of industry organizations, including the National Agri-Marketing Association, Alpha Gamma Rho Fraternity, American Business Media’s Ag Council and the National FFA Organization.

Visit Agri-Pulse.com or sign up for Agri-Pulse Daily Harvest to keep up with policy affecting rural America.

Agri-Pulse, Agribusiness, politics

Nominate a Farm Credit 100 Fresh Perspectives

Jamie Johansen November 2, 2015

Farm Credit is looking for an individual or group of individuals whose leadership and vision is changing the future of agriculture and rural America for the better. They are searching for 100 leaders who are positively shaping what is next for rural communities and agriculture to award Farm Credit 100 Fresh Perspectives.

Whether the leader is a “farm kid” who speaks to youth in urban areas about the importance of agriculture; a business leader respected for commitment to their community and the thriving future of rural America; an agriculture educator who may have inspired thousands throughout the years; or a farmer or rancher dedicated to progress and innovation on their farm or ranch, we invite you to help us identify these dynamic visionaries. Please consider submitting a nomination today.

Following your nomination, a panel of experts on rural matters, including Farm Credit leaders and representatives from around the agriculture industry, will evaluate and help select the top 100 honorees. We will announce the Farm Credit 100 Fresh Perspectives honorees in March 2016.

Farm Credit 100 Fresh Perspectives honorees will have the opportunity to share their stories and inspire with their vision throughout the Farm Credit centennial year in 2016 and beyond. Additionally, ten distinguished Farm Credit 100 Fresh Perspectives honorees — one from each nomination category — will receive a $10,000 award to help further their contributions to thriving rural communities and agriculture. These ten honorees and a guest also will be invited to Washington, D.C. to participate in a special Farm Credit recognition event in 2016. Nominations will be accepted through December 18, 2015. Please see the Farm Credit 100 Fresh Perspectives official rules for further details. Doesn’t have to be a farm credit borrower to be nominated or win.

Agribusiness, Farm Credit

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