Seeing lots of Earth Day messages on social media today reminding the other 98% of the population that farmers and ranchers do Earth Day every day. Here’s one from the GROWMARK FS system.
We are celebrating Earth Day today by going to the beach – it’s a gorgeous day here!
FMC Corporation has completed its acquisition of Cheminova A/S, a multinational crop protection company based in Denmark and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Auriga Industries A/S.
“Cheminova gives us direct market access to key countries in Europe and enhances our customer reach in India, Australia and throughout Latin America, bringing greater balance to our agricultural business,” said Pierre Brondeau, FMC president, CEO and chairman. “Its technology will enable us to expand FMC’s position in existing crops; accelerate access to additional crops, such as cereals; and strengthen our offerings to customers, especially in sugarcane, soybeans and cotton.”
FMC has been realigning its business portfolio in recent years to expand its position in the crop protection market. With the acquisition of Cheminova, and the divestiture of the Alkali Chemicals business completed on April 1, 2015, FMC Agricultural Solutions is expected to represent approximately three quarters of the company’s total revenue, up from less than 40 percent as recently as 2009.
Bayer CropScience is continuing a program that helps growers and beekeepers collaborate to help feed a growing planet. With more than $15 billion dollars worth of crops in the U.S. pollinated by bees each year, the CARE program, now in its third year, reflects Bayer’s ongoing commitment to product stewardship, protecting natural resources, enhancing agricultural sustainability and promoting partnerships between growers and beekeepers, which are all needed to feed a projected 9 billion people by 2050.
The CARE Program encourages growers to:
• Communicate planting activities to neighboring beekeepers when practical and be aware of beehives adjacent to the planting area;
• Be Aware of wind speed and direction during planting, particularly in areas with flowering crops;
• Reduce risk to pollinators by using Fluency Agent, a new planter seed lubricant for corn and soybeans; and
• Ensure seed is planted correctly. To help protect the environment, clean planters and seed boxes in a way to minimize dust release and ensure treated seed is planted at the proper depth.
“Growers are among the greatest stewards of our environment and Bayer CropScience supports them as they take CARE to produce the food, fuel and fiber needed for our growing world population,” said Kevin Adam, SeedGrowth strategic business lead at Bayer CropScience. “It’s our mission to help our fields and communities thrive in order to meet this challenge, and bees play a vital role in helping farmers establish a healthy harvest in a sustainable manner.”
In addition to focusing on key steps to take while planting treated seeds to sustain the environment and maximize the health of crops, CARE also champions the important relationship between growers and local beekeepers, encouraging both to maintain open channels of communication to continue to protect both crops and pollinators.
The 2015 Chicken Media Summit is being held this week in Maryland, organized by the National Chicken Council and U.S. Poultry & Egg Association. Among those in attendance is our own Jamie Johansen, along with bloggers, journalists, dietitians and leaders in the poultry industry from all over the country.
Yesterday the event featured tours of a hatchery, broiler barn and a processing plant and today panelists discussed myths and facts concerning the chicken industry and current events.
With the latest discovery of highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza (HPAI) at a commercial laying facility in Iowa with 5.3 million hens, Dr. John Glisson with the US Poultry and Egg association was asked about the impact that might have on the industry. “It’s too early to know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Those birds will have to be destroyed and that’s a significant number of birds and a significant number of eggs that will not be available.”
Listen to or download Jamie’s interview with Dr. Glisson here: Interview with Dr. John Glisson, US Poultry and Egg Association
GROWMARK has one of the oldest and most successful internship programs in the agriculture business so they were a popular stop for student NAMA attendees during the Connection Point trade show at the Agri-Marketing Conference last week in Kansas City.
“We’re going on our 56th year with the internship program,” said GROWMARK University Relations Manager Allison Stephey. “We have a variety of internships ranging from agronomy to the business aspect, to energy, logistics, grain, and seed marketing.”
GROWMARK gets 55-60 interns each year and Allison says about half of them are offered jobs with the cooperative. “We like to see the students continue on in the system,” she said, noting that they saw both past and future interns stop by the booth at NAMA last week.
Most GROWMARK interns come from their core territories of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, but in recent years they have been getting more interest from other areas as they have been working with AgCareers.com. “We have a partnership with AgCareers and participate in their internship survey to make sure our program has what it takes to be successful,” said Allison.
Find out more about the GROWMARK internship program in this interview. Interview with Allison Stephey, GROWMARK
2015 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album
Here we are in our home away from home for two days last week at the Agri-Marketing Conference. Taylor, Me, Cindy and Jamie. We had a great time and sure enjoyed getting to see and talk with so many friends and sponsors.
The convention is like a family reunion to many of us who have attended more of them than the age of the student attendees and some of NAMA’s newer members!
This year our goal was to help you better understand the AgWired community which we also refer to as the ZimmComm News Network. From a beginning with just one blog (AgWired) to today we’ve added several news sites, Energy, Animal Ag, Precision Ag and AgNewsWire. These websites are interactive with each other, mobile friendly, distributed by mobile apps and all have associated social media channels where we also engage with our audiences.
So to help show how our network is structured we created this ZimmfoGraphic. Click on the link to see the full graphic which shows some statistics about the impressions we make and the content we create. We think you’ll be interested to see the reach of little ole ZimmComm!
During the convention we conducted a drawing for an awesome Anker Astro E7 mobile charger. Our winner is Randi Walden, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. Congrats Randi and we hope you keep all your gadgets charged all the time.
2015 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album
Stories from the 2015 Agri-Marketing Conference continue as this week’s ZimmCast features a conversation by world famous farmer Derek Klingenberg.
Derek made a surprise stage appearance during a general session as you can see from this photo. The only thing he told the audience was, “Shhh.” Then he sat down in his lawn chair and we watched his cattle serenade video. It is awesome and you should watch if you are not one of the almost 9 million people who have already. It’s also kind of amusing to read some of the troll comments from animal rights wackos.
Derek was attending the Agri-Marketing Conference courtesy of Carbon Media Group and hung out in their Connection Point booth.
Learn more about Derek and what motivates him in this week’s program: Derek the Trombone Man
2015 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album
Subscribe to the ZimmCast podcast here.
Soybean farmers in Iowa are cutting back on expenses as they see their farm incomes drop for a second year in a row. The survey by Agri-Pulse and conducted in partnership with the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) shows nearly three out of four farmers (73 percent) expect their farm financial outlook to worsen in 2015 – with more than 53 percent expecting it to worsen “slightly” while almost 20 percent think it will worsen “a great deal.”
“The simple truth is margins are going to be tighter this year,” says ISA President Tom Oswald of Cleghorn, Iowa. “This poll confirms what farmers, ag manufacturers and biotech organizations have already been feeling.”
Seventy-seven percent of poll respondents also expect farmland values to decline in 2015, up slightly from 75 percent in 2014.
About the same percentage of farmers as last year said they plan to purchase more or continue to carry about the same level of crop insurance this year (86 percent in 2015 compared to 87 percent in 2014).
Almost 54 percent said they’d cut back on equipment expenses compared to 58 percent last year. One-third of respondents will reduce fertilizer expenses while 15 percent said they would scale back on purchases of crop chemicals.
Twenty-three percent of farmers will cut back on seed expenses compared to 8 percent a year ago.
The gloomy outlook by Iowa farmers seems to track with what the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is projecting: a drop in net farm incomes of 32 percent – from $108 billion in 2014 to $73.6 billion this year. That would make 2015 net farm income the lowest since 2009 and a drop of nearly 43 percent from the record high of $129 billion in 2013.
Agri-Pulse says the news also underscores the need for a supportive farm safety net in the 2014 farm bill.
The poll was taken April 5 with 112 Iowa farmers responding to the unaided 11-question poll.
The new policy handbook from the National Farmers Union (NFU) underscores the group’s longstanding commitment to family farmers, sustainable farming practices, and its strong grassroots underpinnings.
“NFU policy is the result of a grassroots development process – with some of the policies in this handbook starting on the county level – that culminates every year at the organization’s annual convention,” said NFU President Roger Johnson. “This year’s policy reaffirms NFU’s strong support for Country-of-Origin Labeling (COOL), the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and fair trade policies,” said Johnson. “Initiatives like these support family agriculture’s ability to provide food, fuel and fiber to our nation and the world.”
NFU’s policy-setting process began in late January with the meeting of the NFU Policy Committee, comprised of members who are all considered outstanding leaders in their state/regional Farmers Union organizations and were nominated by their respective state’s president to serve on the committee. These members began the process of revising NFU’s policy handbook and brought their recommendations to the delegate body at the NFU’s 113th Anniversary Convention, March 14-17, for consideration, amendment and adoption.
Full text of the adopted policy manual is available here.
Russell Nimitz of the Northern Ag Network was the host for our industry’s version of the Oscars – the 56th annual Best of NAMA.
A total of 62 awards were presented, topped off with the overall Best of Show:
Advertising: Syngenta – Martin/Williams
Public Relations: Driscoll’s Berries – The Baddish Group
Zoetis walked away with a total of seven awards while Bader Rutter was a big winner in the agencies with nine awards. All the winners in all the categories are listed in the latest issue of AgriMarketing Magazine and you can find all the photos of all the winners in our NAMA photo album.
2015 Agri-Marketing Conference Photo Album
