2015 Alltech Commonwealth Cup Winner

Chuck Zimmerman May 16, 2015

During the Alltech Craft Brews & Food Fest Dr. Pearse Lyons presented the Alltech Commonwealth Cup 2015 to Dayton Beer Company. Receiving the award in the picture with Dr. Lyons is John Wiley. The winning beer is a Belgium style golden strong ale.

I asked John if Dayton Beer Company is The Ohio Craft Brewery. He says that they say, “Drink local, drink craft.” He says that Dayton now has 12 craft breweries.

Dr. Lyons told me that there were 300 entries from 100 countries in the Alltech Commonwealth Cup competition. He says a message that comes from this is that people are going to unique beers. Forty percent of all the beer taps in America are now serving craft beers.

Listen to my interview with Dr. Lyons and John here: 2015 Alltech Commonwealth Cup Winner

Don’t forget to let us know your favorite craft beef in our latest ZimmPoll!

You can find some photos from the event here: Alltech Craft Brews & Food Fest Photos

Alltech, Audio

Meet Another New Holland Next Gen Winner

Jamie Johansen May 15, 2015

It’s time to meet another of the New Holland Voice of the Next Gen Contest winners. Will Bundy is from Lebanon, Va. and found out about the contest while scrolling through his Facebook newsfeed. Music is a passion of his family’s, stemming back to his grandpa’s clan playing bluegrass. He has since got the country bug and enjoys singing and writing his own music.

Will posts Instagram videos all the time and has an avid following of nearly 9,000. He said it was easy to decide to enter the contest and used his social media following to collect the votes.

“It’s been a really cool experience to come here and be with people interested in music and agriculture.” Will raises over 300 head of beef cattle on his family’s farm in Virginia and runs a lawn mowing business on the side. We wish Will the best of luck with his future in music and agriculture.

You can listen to Chuck’s interview with Will here: Interview with Will Bundy

New Holland Voice of the Next Gen Photo Album

Agribusiness, Audio, New Holland

Are You Ready To Be A REBEL?

Jamie Johansen May 15, 2015

Who’s ready to be a REBEL? Tomorrow Chuck and I will head to Lexington, KY for Alltech’s REBELation. This once-in-a-lifetime conference is merging science, agriculture, entrepreneurship, business and marketing to inspire and re-engergize lives and businesses.

Keynote speakers will include General Colin Powell, U.S. Army Retired, former United States Secretary of State; John Calipari, Head Coach of the University of Kentucky Wildcats; Lisa Bodell, founder and CEO of futurethink and Author, Kill the Company and of course, Alltech’s very own Dr. Pearse Lyons, President and founder of Alltech.

Breakout tracks on business, food & beverage and agriculture will bring over 3,000 people from across the globe together to be REBELs and be innovative. Chuck will cover the business side of things and sit on a panel to discuss the “Changing Face of Media.” Some of the questions the panel will tackle include: The end of newspapers? The reemergence of talk radio? Where will consumers get their information? Who will they trust?

And I get to cover all the happenings on the agriculture track. I will be focusing on the animal side of things attending sessions on beef, dairy, poultry, pork and maybe even aquaculture.

The world-class lineup of speakers will keep us busy, but we will bring you all the highlights via audio and a ton of photos. Follow #REBELation and @AgWired, @AnimalAgNews, @AgriBlogger or @MyLifeNtheHills on Twitter and AgWired and Animal.AgWired’s Facebook pages to keep up with it all.

Agribusiness, Alltech, Animal Agriculture, Events, Marketing

A Summary of FarmPolicy.com

Chuck Zimmerman May 15, 2015

After years of providing us with daily farm policy news, Keith Good has decided to spend more time with his family. Since we have hosted his website all these years I have been receiving lots of questions. So, I thought I’d ask him to send me a note about his decision to stop his daily newsletter and website update. Included below are some comments from hundreds of people that he has received since making his decision.

Keith was one of the first people we worked with when we got ZimmComm started and he was an AgWired contributor for a while early on before his newsletter really ramped up to full time work. We’re going to keep in touch. Cindy and I wish him and his family all the best.

Keith is keeping his website up and running and may or may not add some updates from time to time. But for now, he’s taking a well deserved break!

From Keith:

The only thing I would note is that I wish I had quit about two years ago, and I have absolutely zero regrets about winding the newsletter down- it was great while it lasted and am very grateful that people found it useful, but the regular sleep and quality time with the kiddos has been fantastic. I thought I might miss it, but I don’t.

I am very grateful for the generosity of the reporters and broadcasters in the ag community who always let me use their material- like so many people involved in agriculture, the farm reporters and broadcasters are just great people. FarmPolicy would have never existed if these folks hadn’t been so generous with me citing their hard work.

Thanks too for all of your help over the years, putting together the web page and providing the benchmark and gold standard for what agricultural blogging should look like.

Take care,
Keith

From Keith’s audience:

“Keith Good wrapped up his FarmPolicy web coverage this week. For the last 12-plus years he has kept the agricultural community informed about the latest developments in Washington and farm-related trends in the U.S. and abroad.

Through the years, he tracked down thousands of articles and pieces of analysis, summarized them in a keen, precise way and then gave his readers the links needed if they cared to read more.

It looked simple enough, but anyone who’s ever tried to do that kind of reportage will tell you it’s arduous work. Keith did it well and did bushel baskets of it year after year.” – Owen Taylor

“Everyone always says ‘make sure you get the farm policy update’ because everyone knows it’s the best.”

“You’ve been a must-read for thousands.”

“I’ve shared your site with dozens of people over the years, always saying ‘sign up for Farmpolicy.com. It is the very best source for ag news anywhere.’ This is one of the few places where information is gathered and shared without commentary.”

“Your willingness to provide this early-morning update day after day, without fail, has been a wonderful contribution.

Farm Policy

Zimfo Bytes

Talia Goes May 15, 2015

As part of its 2015 Effie North American awards program, Effie Worldwide, Inc. has selected Miller Electric Mfg. Co. to receive a 2015 North American Effie Finalist Award.
The American Meat Science Association (AMSA) has announced that Dr. Jim Claus, Professor and Director of the Meat Science and Muscle Biology Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the recipient of the 2015 Distinguished Teaching Award.
Kubota Tractor Corporation (KTC) and Kubota Credit Corporation (KCC) announced that they will relocate their headquarters to Grapevine, Texas.
Following the recent release of the new report, Healthy Food for a Healthy World: Leveraging Agriculture and Food to Improve Global Nutrition, The Chicago Council of Global Affairs is pleased to highlight each of the report’s recommendations in a weekly series on the Global Food for Thought blog.

Zimfo Bytes

Talking to Cal Poly

Chuck Zimmerman May 14, 2015

Today I had the honor to speak to Dr. J. Scott Vernon’s class at Cal Poly. We Skyped. So much easier than flying!

I got to talk about the transition from traditional to new media and social media. Questions included what kinds of skills and/or programs a student needs today to successfully enter an agricultural communications career. My answer included having an active social media presence with a Facebook account, Twitter profile and even a blog. But not just to have them, have active ones so I can see how you engage and show your understanding of these tools. I think good writing skills is a must. As many know, I’m not fanatical on stylebooks but good grammar and clear messaging is critical.

I also think that anyone looking for that career job needs to be an expert on their smart phone. This includes taking good photos, using productive apps for social media and even shooting and editing video clips. From an equipment standpoint if you can afford it I would own a notebook computer (not just an iPad), camera and smart phone. With those tools you can do just about everything you’ll need to do.

I look forward to seeing Dr. Vernon at the Ag Media Summit. I’ll probably have a written critique coming from him. We’ll have to review it over a beer!

Education

Ag Urges Senate to Pass TPA

Cindy Zimmerman May 14, 2015

Senate Republicans and agriculture industry leaders held a press conference in Washington today to discuss the ways new trade deals could benefit the agriculture community and urge passage of the bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation.

Senators speaking on behalf of TPA included Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (R-SD), Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) and Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO). “I am hopeful that the Senate can find a path forward to pass this legislation, which is essential to securing free and fair trade agreements and providing access to new markets for American farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers,” said Sen. Thune in advance of an afternoon vote to proceed with the legislation. “We’re going to have a spirited debate, there are going to be a lot of amendments offered…hopefully we’ll be able to keep it in as close a form as we had coming out of the committee.”

California Farm Bureau president Paul Wenger

The senators were joined by agricultural representatives American Soybean Association First Vice President Richard Wilkins of Delaware, Virginia Cattlemen’s Association President Jeff Slaven, and California Farm Bureau President Paul Wenger.

“Last year we had a record $152 billion in exports for American agriculture,” said Wenger, speaking on behalf of American Farm Bureau. “We’re on pace this year to drop back by $9 million because we have not been a part of many agreements going on around the world. If we do not meet the demand, somebody else will meet that demand.”

Listen to comments from all participants here: Senators and ag groups urge TPA passage

AFBF, ASA, Audio, Exports, NCBA, Trade

A Day for Pictures

Melissa Sandfort May 14, 2015

In social media, we have #TBT (Throwback Thursday), where people share photos from the past; we also have “Wordless Wednesday”, where stories are shared in pictures. This isn’t a “throwback” unless you are being very literal about the past as this photo was just taken yesterday.

You see, working from home, I see the same fields along my 3-mile walk and 12-mile drive to town every day. However, my significant other travels all across southwestern Nebraska for Landmark Implement, fixing drills, tractors, sprayers you name it. So he has many the opportunity to grab pictures for me.

Here’s a photo of local Cambridge cattle producer and farmer Bill Moore Farms with Marc Rasmussen operating a 16-row planter and tripper. We won’t hold it against him that he has a red tractor and our four kids prefer reading “Johnny Tractor” books.

Just another busy day for agriculture in Nebraska!

Until we walk again …

Uncategorized

New Holland 1st Cut Competition

Chuck Zimmerman May 14, 2015

Have you made your 1st cut of hay? About to, weather permitting? Consider entering the New Holland 1st Cut Competition. Following a successful Voice of the Next Gen contest New Holland has launched a new online promotion.

To enter, upload a picture of YOUR first cutting at NHfirstcut.com. The prize is a FREE one-year lease of a genuine Roll-Belt round baler.

New Holland is the undisputed leader in hay tools and now, the Gold Standard has been raised. To New Holland, SMART means smooth, clean cutting with faster dry down and plug-free conditioning. The competition ends July 31st.

Rule here.

View and Vote here.

Agribusiness, Hay, New Holland

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