InfoAg 2014 on Track in St. Louis

Leah Guffey July 29, 2014

For the first time in its 14 year history, the InfoAg Conference is being held at the historic Union Station in St. Louis, instead of in Springfield, Illinois, and they have the largest number of attendees pre-registered and more registering on site. InfoAg continues to be the premier precision agriculture event for producers, consultants, and the crop production industry, featuring four tracks of concurrent sessions plus a workshop track.

Dr. Steve Phillips, Conference Chair and Director for the International Plant Nutrition Institute, welcomed attendees at the opening general session on Tuesday morning. I caught up with Steve during one of the snack breaks this afternoon and he says that after outgrowing their past location the move to the Gateway City still keeps them centrally located in the heart of the corn belt. He also noted that the conference is now an annual event instead of every two years. Interview with Steve Phillips, InfoAg Expo conference chairman

We are getting lots of interviews from the Expo this week that will be featured here on AgWired and also on Precision.AgWired.com.

InfoAg 2014 Photo Album

Coverage of the InfoAg Conference is sponsored by

Agribusiness, Audio, Precision Agriculture, Technology

Ag Media Summit Community Service Project

Chuck Zimmerman July 29, 2014

For several years now the Ag Media Summit has conducted a community service project that allows members of the AAEA and LPC to donate items to a good cause. This year that cause is the Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health.

Members donated books, toy tractors and many other items which were delivered today by AAEA President Holly Spangler, LPC President Christy Lee and AMS Chair Jennifer Carrico. While we were there it was very uplifting to see all the children coming and going with their parents and knowing that hopefully we helped bring a smile to many of them.

Thank you to everyone who donated to make this a successful project and I hope we do it again next year.

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

Coverage of the Ag Media Summit is sponsored by

ACN, Ag Media Summit, LPC

Zimfo Bytes

Talia Goes July 29, 2014

Captain Keith Colburn, one of the stars of the hit television series Deadliest Catch on Discovery Channel, has become an Ambassador for the nonprofit organization Seafood Nutrition Partnership (SNP).
On Wednesday, Aug. 20 from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., The Center for Food Integrity, in cooperation with the Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska, will host the Forum for Sustainable Water Management in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Dow AgroSciences LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, announces the launch of its redesigned U.S. website, dowagro.com/usag.
CropLife International has re-launched the online database, biotradestatus, a global resource which provides data on the commercial status and national authorizations of plant biotech traits for cultivation, food and feed use, and importation worldwide.

Zimfo Bytes

New Holland Ag Journalist Italy Trip Contest

Chuck Zimmerman July 29, 2014

Hey ag journalists. Want to win a trip to Italy courtesy of New Holland? Here’s what you have to do.

Go to the New Holland booth and pick up a cap or tractor and then make a creative selfie and tweet using the hashtag, #Time2Shine. Yep, it’s that easy. I did it with this selfie as I interviewed New Holland’s Rebecca Gunderson about it. I’ll let her explain further. The lucky winner will get a trip to Milan, Italy in 2015 for the World Expo Milano.

You can listen to my interview with Rebecca here: Interview with Rebecca Gunderson

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

Coverage of the Ag Media Summit is sponsored by

Ag Media Summit, Agribusiness, Audio, New Holland

AAEA Update from the President

Chuck Zimmerman July 28, 2014

The President of the American Agricultural Editors Association is Holly Spangler, Associate Editor, Prairie Farmer. She’s pictured here with the current board of AAEA. They met yesterday and I sat down with her to talk about how AAEA is doing and what was on the agenda.

Holly says that the board talked about the structure of the organization with several ideas being proposed. One that they have decided on is expanding the Executive Committee to include more Past-President involvement. Listen in to learn what’s going on with AAEA.

You can listen to my interview with Holly here: Interview with Holly Spangler

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

Coverage of the Ag Media Summit is sponsored by

ACN, Ag Media Summit, Audio, Media

LPC and AAEA Student Awards

Chuck Zimmerman July 28, 2014

During the Ag Media Summit several students were honored with some recognition and awards.

The Livestock Publications Council presented the Forrest Bassford Award to Logan Britton, Kansas State University. Logan gave us a very touching emotional thank you in which he mentioned that he doesn’t have a farm background but is passionate about a careen in ag communications. I told him afterward that I have done just that and encouraged him to keep at it.

Sponsoring the award is Alltech and on hand to present the award is Ann Hess, Alltech.

The American Agricultural Editors Association presented the Jim Evans Scholarship to Courtney Leeper, University of Missouri. On hand to present it was Mr. Jim Evans himself! Three other scholarships were also presented.

The scholarships are sponsored by the AAEA Professional Improvement Foundation.

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

Coverage of the Ag Media Summit is sponsored by

ACN, Ag Media Summit, Education, LPC, University

Welcome to the MapShots AgStudio Expo

Cindy Zimmerman July 28, 2014

The 2014 InfoAg Expo kicks off tomorrow at St. Louis Union Station, but prior to that event, MapShots has brought in about 140 farmers and crop consultants for an AgStudio Expo today.

“Little day session that goes through some of the aspects of AgStudio and that line of products from the farm version to the pro version,” said Clint Ingram of MapShots. Interview with Clint Ingram, MapShots

This event is all about Big Data management and we will be learning about variable rate management, agronomic data management, and tools to simplify the complex business of managing a farming operation. Full coverage of today’s event, as well as continuing coverage of InfoAg Expo this week, will be posted on Precision.Agwired.com.

AgStudio Expo Photo Album

Coverage of the InfoAg Conference is sponsored by

Audio, data, Precision Agriculture, Technology

Serious Thoughts from a Funny Guy

Cindy Zimmerman July 28, 2014

Damian Mason is a seriously funny guy.

Chuck interviewed him twice last year – at the NAMA conference and then again at the O.H. Kruse event – but the first time I have seen him was over the weekend at the Southern Peanut Growers Conference, and I suspect it won’t be the last. He is making a name for himself as “Agriculture’s Professional Funny Man” and has a growing client list of agricultural companies and organizations. If you haven’t seen him yet, you probably will soon and you won’t be disappointed.

“I’m a farm boy and a farm owner, I have an agricultural economics degree, raised on a dairy farm,” Damian said after his SPGC luncheon keynote sponsored by BASF. “I make people laugh and I talk about industry issues.”

Weaving his thoughts about serious agricultural issues within his comedy, Damian hammered home the importance of communicating with the fragment of our population that knows nothing about food production. He suggests that agriculture learn from the National Rifle Association and be more aggressive in defending our industry. “They are emotional, they are patriotic and they also talk about self-interest,” said Damian.

He also contends that using the argument for cheap food is ineffective. “It’s not really a selling point to at least the upper half (of the population),” Damian said. “If they cared about cheap food why would they spend $12 billion dollars on plastic bottles of water … food is an emotional decision in the United States, not a sustenance and physical decision.”

Listen to more serious thoughts from this funny guy in my interview here – and watch one of his YouTube clips below to see one of the bits he did talking about farmers.
Interview with Damian Mason, Agriculture’s Professional Funny Man

You can also learn more about Damian, find out how to book him at an event, and buy some of his cool stuff like “Agriculture – Because Starvation Sucks” t-shirts – at DamianMason.com.

2014 SPGC photo album

Ag Groups, Agribusiness, Audio, BASF, Peanuts, SPGC, Video

GROWMARK Picks AgIntegrated for Info Platform

Cindy Zimmerman July 28, 2014

GROWMARK has teamed up with AgIntegrated (AGI) for the development of FS Advanced Information Services (FS AIS), a suite of tools to “connect data, analysis, insight, and application into one complete user experience for advanced field optimization.”

AgIntegrated is an independent provider of ag information management consulting and technologies based in Pennsylvania and President Duane Reese says they are excited to be working with GROWMARK.

“GROWMARK shares our vision of a modern, connected system that enables the best of today’s technologies from across the industry, while maintaining a close eye on usability and future information needs,” said Reese. “I am particularly thrilled that FS AIS will be using a majority of our Onsite platform for their data movement, processing, and storage needs”

GROWMARK manager of Agronomy Information Services Sid Parks explains their goals for FS AIS. “The basic product is to provide a tool to our members that allows them the ability to have field boundaries to store data like soil tests, as-applied maps, yield maps, all sorts of data being collected,” said Parks, noting that precision farming really started for GROWMARK some 20 years ago. “We wanted something that could provide a suite of tools in one place that allows access to multiple types of data … and further have that spatial data be able to talk to our accounting systems so we can have an integrated solution there.”

Parks says they already have beta versions of the software being tested and they hope to have it finished by the fall. Interview with Sid Parks, GROWMARK

Audio, data, GROWMARK, Technology

Gators Revved up in Indianapolis

Chuck Zimmerman July 27, 2014

How about them Gators? They found me. Not sure how. I was kind of hard to spot.

However, University of Florida ACT students did find me during the Ag Media Summit Famous Welcome Party. We did a little Gator Chomp and had a great conversation. That’s part of what AMS is all about.

I took a few photos during the reception while handing out ZimmComm swag from my Uf gym bag. It got lighter and lighter and then was finally empty. It is great seeing so many friends here. I hear that we have a record crowd at AMS this year. If you can’t be here then keep checking back and we’ll give you a look at all the activity we can.

Ag Media Summit Photo Album

Coverage of the Ag Media Summit is sponsored by

Ag Groups, Ag Media Summit

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