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Welcome to Start of #NFMS15

Chuck Zimmerman

Chuck SelfieThe 50th National Farm Machinery Show is underway in Louisville, KY. Stop by the New Holland booth, South Bldg, to get your custom selfie taken. Actually, you’re supposed to take your own selfie but they have two staffers on hand to take your photo and let you pick from five backgrounds. Then you’ll get it to share out. They’re encouraging the use of the hashtag #doubleyourfunNFMS. I’ve also got to thank New Holland for sponsoring our coverage of this year’s show. This has been a great relationship for about a decade!

Cindy and I will be out and about today and tomorrow gathering sponsor interviews and others to share with you this week and next. And of course we’re taking plenty of pictures.

You can find our photos from this year’s show here: 2015 National Farm Machinery Show Photo Album

The official show hashtag is #NFMS15.

Coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is sponsored by
Coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is sponsored by FMC and Coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is sponsored by New Holland
National Farm Machinery Show, New Holland

Ag Media Perspective from CIRB

Jamie Johansen

cirb-15-sara-wyant copyAs leaders in crop insurance flocked to the annual meeting of the Crop Insurance & Reinsurance Bureau, so did members of the agriculture media. Chuck thought it would be interesting to gather their perspective on some of the important issues discussed to help chart the course for the future.

Sara Wyant, AgriPulse, shared her takeaways and a few things that stuck out to her as she sat and listened during the event. “As we all know from talking to farmers across the country, crop insurance is a very important risk management tool. And farmers have come to rely on that instead of ad hoc disaster payments. That has been a good thing both from a tax payers standpoint as well as the farmers. The last Farm Bill has just been under our belts a year and certainly increased the investment in crop insurance and it also increased the opportunity of critics of federal spending to go after crop insurance. I think the fact that crop insurance will continue to have a bull’s eye on it’s back is evident in these discussions.”

cirb-15-jerry-hagstrom copyThe weather was another hot issue during the event and it was mentioned that the weather might just be as complicated as crop insurance. Jerry Hagstrom, The Hagstrom Report, gave his perspective on the weather, “I came away with the conclusion that at the present time we are in a period of warming weather. It’s just a matter of which kind of language you are using to talk about it. I am reminded that somebody said to me recently that a lot of farmers seem to be climate change deniers. But they wouldn’t be climate change deniers if people were not asking them to make changes. It’s the changes they don’t want.”

Listen to Chuck’s complete interview with the duo here: Interview with Sara Wyant & Jerry Hagstrom

2015 Crop Insurance & Reinsurance Bureau Annual Meeting Photo Album

Coverage of the Crop Insurance & Reinsurance Bureau Annual Meeting is sponsored by
Coverage of the Crop Insurance & Reinsurance Bureau Annual Meeting is sponsored by RCIS
Ag Groups, Audio, CIRB, Farm Bill, Insurance

The Growth of Eco Agro Resources

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 465As we’ve seen in two big announcements this week alone, Eco Agro Resources, which was founded in 2013, is on a fast-paced growth curve. I talked with Andrew Semple, President/CEO, about how his company is having so much success.

Eco Agro ResourcesBy the way, Eco Agro Resources’ home office is located in my hometown of Sarasota, FL, although they already have offices around the country and the world. I hope to stop by for a visit later this spring.

Andrew says the company was started by a group of experienced ag industry individuals who share a common goal which is “a passion to feed the world.” Their products are geared to making food production more efficient in ways to help achieve that goal.

The announcements this week include the fact that Eco Agro Resources is now the exclusive North American marketers of the Ekote line of eco-friendly controlled-release fertilizers by Netherlands-based Ekompany. Additionally, Andrew says they have entered into a partnership with Solvay Novacare to develop market and product portfolio opportunities in North and South America. The partnership is part of larger discussions aimed at leveraging the companies’ combined enhanced efficiency fertilizer products (EEFs) for agricultural distributors and customers.

Learn more about Eco Agro Resources in this week’s program: Growth of Eco Agro

Subscribe to the ZimmCast podcast here.

The ZimmCast

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The ZimmCast podcast is sponsored by GROWMARK
Locally owned, globally strong.
Agribusiness, Audio, Environment, Fertilizer, International, ZimmCast

NCC Expects Cotton Acres to Decline

John Davis

cottoncouncil1A new survey says fewer acres of cotton will be planted this year. This news release from the National Cotton Council cites the group’s 32nd Annual Early Season Planting Intentions Survey that shows U.S. cotton producers intend to plant 9.4 million acres of cotton this spring, down 14.6 percent from 2014.

Upland cotton intentions are 9.2 million acres, down 15.2 percent from 2014, while extra-long staple (ELS) intentions of 236,000 acres represent a 22.8 percent increase. The survey results were announced last week at the NCC’s 2015 Annual Meeting in Memphis.

Dr. Gary Adams, the NCC’s vice president Economics & Policy Analysis, said, “Planted acreage is just one of the factors that will determine supplies of cotton and cottonseed. Ultimately, weather, insect pressures and agronomic conditions play a significant role in determining crop size.”

He said that with average abandonment for the United States at 12.8 percent, Cotton Belt harvested area totals 8.2 million acres. Weighting individual state yields by 2015 area generates a U.S. average yield per harvested acre of 817 pounds. Applying each state’s yield to its 2015 projected harvested acres generates a cotton crop of 14.0 million bales, with 13.3 million bales of upland and 694,000 bales of ELS.

The group went on to say that low futures prices are driving the downturn in acres to be planted.

Ag Groups, Agribusiness, Cotton

Millennials’ High Standards for Animal Welfare

John Davis

usfra-dairy-forum1More than ever before, millennials have higher expectations of animal welfare practices being carried out by today’s producers. This news release from the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance says the group hosted a recent Food Dialogues panel, with this one focusing on on dairy operations, and the group attending in-person and online was told by Bruce Feinberg, global animal health and welfare officer with McDonald’s, that social media has allowed consumers to reach out and self-educate around agricultural issues, and companies must understand the relevance to consumers.

Elisabeth Leamy, 13-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, author and Dr. Oz consumer investigative correspondent moderated the panel, “Animal Care and Consumers’ Emerging Expectations,” which was the 26th installment of USFRA’s signature panel series.

A portion of the discussion focused on the responsibility that everyone across the food chain has when it comes to animal care. As Dr. Marcia Endres, D.V.M., Ph.D., professor of dairy science at the University of Minnesota explained, “When humans domesticated animals, they entered into a contract to provide food, water, shelter and protection – to provide them a good life.”

Robin R. Ganzert, Ph.D., president and CEO of the American Humane Association expanded on what a “good life” means and explained that humans’ contract with animals provides five essential freedoms: freedom from pain and suffering; freedom from fear; freedom from discomfort; freedom from hunger and thirst; and the ability for animals to express their natural behaviors.

“Now consumers simply demand that our contracts with animals must include humanely-raised,” said Dr. Ganzert. “It’s a core value so many of us share and now what I love to see is consumers moving together and actually becoming that voice for the animal. And what they are also looking for in humanely-raised is to make sure the humanely-raised definition of better treatment of animals is transparent.”

The group also addressed the issue of transparency and the use of undercover videos. Panelists stressed the importance of condemning the very small minority of producers who are depicted abusing their animals, and the time to communicate with the public comes well before something like that surfaces.

The U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance® (USFRA®) hosted the event during the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) Dairy Forum 2015.

Ag Groups, Agribusiness, Dairy, USFRA

Fresh New Look for the FFA Emblem

Jamie Johansen

Screen Shot 2015-02-10 at 3.09.18 PMThe National FFA Organization’s website got an overhaul giving it a fresh, clean new look. This also lead the FFA to think about updating their brand and the FFA emblem is the center of that. The old emblem format was out-of-date and caused problems in digital production efforts.

With approval from the National FFA Board of Directors, FFA staff began a process to update the mark with a clear intention of preserving the elements and emotion that the mark has long held. The goal was a final product that both reflected the heritage of the FFA brand and was capable of reproduction in perfect quality, every time.

You’ll notice that the refreshed emblem has been digitally enhanced to highlight the crisp, well-defined eagle, shield, arrows, owl and plow. On the eagle, the wings have been made symmetrical, while the the kernels of corn and rays of sun are new equally proportioned.

Over the next year, you’ll see the new mark deployed in more and more places. It will make its way to the FFA jacket with an accurate, more vibrant stitched embroidery, and will also begin to appear on other Shop FFA merchandise.

The emblem will also be more accessible for those who desire to use it non-commercially through the new FFA Brand Center on the redesigned FFA.org. There you’ll find a comprehensive set of downloads and guides for how to best display it in a way that illustrates the tradition and pride in the mark.

Find a detailed description of the changes to the FFA emblem on the National FFA’s Official Blog.

Agribusiness, Education, FFA

Data Is Available & It Is Accurate

Jamie Johansen

cirb-15-deb-casurellaDuring the 2015 annual meeting for the Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau, a panel was formed to talked about the impact of big data on crop insurance. One of those panelist was Deb Casurella with MyAgData and Chuck caught up with her as she shared her insights into this rapidly evolving industry.

“We take data from the tractor and tie it to a crop insurance policy and the land to allow a crop insurance agent or producer to have an accurate acreage report for USDA program participation.”

Deb said they are in the early stages of using the data so early adoption is small, but once farmers see the results they expect it to takeoff similar to the technology of auto steering. “People will understand that it’s accurate, it’s audible, it can stand up in compliance review and they are going to want to use the data that is collected on the farm.”

She also added that she believes that the farm technology is ahead of where the USDA is. Data privacy was also discussed along with how adaptable their system is when it comes to the color or type of equipment the farmer is using. Listen to those topics and more in Chuck’s complete interview with Deb here: Interview with Deb Casurella, MyAgData

2015 Crop Insurance & Reinsurance Bureau Annual Meeting Photo Album

Coverage of the Crop Insurance & Reinsurance Bureau Annual Meeting is sponsored by
Coverage of the Crop Insurance & Reinsurance Bureau Annual Meeting is sponsored by RCIS
Agribusiness, Audio, CIRB, data, Insurance

New Leadership for CBB

Jamie Johansen

Maxey, Jimmy - Fresno, CA - for posting(1)Cattle feeder Jimmy Maxey from Fresno, CA., was elected by fellow Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB) members to serve as CBB chairman in 2015. The vote came during the 2015 Cattle Industry Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas. Melissa Sandford sat down with him to find out what he hopes to accomplish in his year as chairman. Interview with Jimmy Maxey, New CBB Chairman

Other new leadership to the CBB includes Brett Morris of Ninnekah, OK, who will serve as secretary/treasurer helping to lead the national Beef Checkoff Program throughout the coming year.

The Beef Board also elected members to serve on the CBB Executive Committee: Vice Chairman Anne Anderson, who will serve as chairman of the Executive Committee; and members Jimmy Maxey (CBB chairman); Brett Morris (CBB secretary/ treasurer); Laurie Bryant, an importer representative; Sarah Childs of Florida; Dave Edmiston of Texas; Robert Fountain of Georgia; Barbara Jackson of Arizona; Laurie Munns of Utah; Kent Pruismann of Iowa; and Gary Sharp of South Dakota.

CBB members elected to the 2015 Beef Promotion Operating Committee during the annual meeting in San Antonio include: Chairman Jimmy Maxey; Vice Chairman Anne Anderson; Secretary/Treasurer Brett Morris; Marty Andersen, Wisconsin; Jeanne Harland, Illinois; Brittany Howell, Kansas; Joe Guthrie, Virginia; Chuck Kiker, Texas; Stacy McClintock, Kansas; and Joan Ruskamp, Nebraska.

Ag Groups, Beef

National Farm Machinery Show Celebrates 50 Years

Cindy Zimmerman

nfms-50The National Farm Machinery Show (NFMS) will celebrate 50 years of farming this year, starting with a ribbon cutting ceremony at the opening of the show on Wednesday in Louisville.

Kentucky Lt. Governor Crit Luallen, and the daughter of former governor Ned Breathitt, Linda, will perform the ribbon cutting. Gov. Breathitt cut the ribbon to begin the first NFMS in 1966. Charter members who have exhibited at all shows will be honored during an exhibitor reception.

What is now the country’s largest indoor farm show grew out of an electricity demonstration and exhibit in Lexington in 1963. Still held at the Kentucky Exposition Center, this year’s show Feb. 11-14 will again feature the latest in farming technology and equipment from 860 exhibitors in over 1.2 million square feet of exhibit space. This year’s seminar topics include unmanned aerial vehicles, cloud-based data handling and weather and commodity trends.

And carrying on a 47 year tradition this week is the Championship Tractor Pull, sponsored by Syngenta, and held in conjunction with NFMS. Each year 500 teams apply to pull in the prestigious event and 180 are chosen to contend for $250,000 in prize money. This year’s teams include all reigning Grand Champions and a record number of women drivers.

We will be there once again, thanks to the generous sponsorship of New Holland and FMC, as well as John Deere on Precision.AgWired.com. Hope to see you there!

Coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is sponsored by
Coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is sponsored by FMC and Coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is sponsored by New Holland
National Farm Machinery Show