The AgriBlogger will be on the road this week to work side by side with agricultural bloggers from around the world. It will be all about where in the world we are at #NHAgWorld. Follow that hashtag which will become more active on Wednesday.
So to give you at least some clues until then, let’s just say this involves New Holland and Turin, Italy. I’m hoping it includes some good red wine, making new friends and learning new things. Of course I’ll be sharing as much as I can.
One of the largest employee-owned businesses owns Waitrose, their supermarket division. Representing them as a sponsor of the 2014 IFAJ Congress was John Gregson, Sr. Director of Public Relations. I met him during one of our tour stops and talked about his business and how important it is to communicate and educate their customers.
John says education is really important to them. Waitrose has its own farm and they are in the process of building an education center there. He says they spend a lot of time on the road at shows telling people where their food comes from and letting people meet the farmers they work with. John also talks about the value and importance of his relationships with agricultural media.
You can listen to my interview with John here: Interview with John Gregson
Actually, misadventure is probably not the best term to describe the last few days at Pensacola Beach, FL. Gary Cooper, Kelly Schwalbe and I had put together an overnight fishing trip out to the oil rigs to fish for tuna, something that has been on our bucket list for a while. We had ten guys lined up to go with us. But Mother Nature had another idea. It was windy and unsettled weather all week and the boat had to cancel. Eight to ten foot swells is not good for that kind of fishing!
Robert, the AgWired web guru, and I decided to do a half day trip on the boat yesterday though because the weather forecast was showing declining wind and seas. The boat captain thought it was worth a try so he got about 12 people together for the trip. We tried it and I wish we hadn’t. We wound up with strong wind and 4-5 ft. seas. That is just too rough in my opinion to comfortably bottom fish in. In the picture the boat mate is giving a lesson in how to use the reels.
It was not a fun day of fishing but we did catch a mess of mingos. Vermillion snapper don’t get very big but the taste just like a red snapper which is out of season. We did catch some other out of season fish like triggerfish and hard tails. So, it was not a loss but I’ll keep a closer eye on the forecast before I go out again.
I just thought I’d update you on this since some of the AgWired community members were going to go on our trip and I’ve been receiving messages asking how it went. There you have it. Now it’s back on the agriblogging highway starting Monday. More on that then.
Join the Council of Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) today and your membership will begin immediately and extend throughout 2015.
That means you’ll enjoy three months of membership benefits for free. Benefits include Friday Notes, CAST’s weekly signature electronic newsletter, covering all things agriculture, immediate access to CAST’s highly respected publications and “members only” website and much more.
An online application form is available, as well as, a printable form. Both provide more information on CAST and all the member benefits.
Not only can individuals join, but also company’s and/or nonprofits, society and university’s. These memberships enjoy the same advantages and opportunities.
A membership with CAST would be an exceptional agricultural resource to offer your colleagues, staff and membership. And you would help ensure that CAST’s sound, scientific agricultural information continues to be available to everyone. So if your business or organization has been considering a deeper relationship with CAST, this is the time to act.
Farm Journal Media and its client New Holland shared the stage with brands like Forbes, Sports Illustrated, Jaquar and Delta at min’s annual Integrated Marketing Awards breakfast in New York City this past Friday. Farm Journal won in the “Total Integrated Program – B2B” category for its “$100 Ideas” contest, with New Holland as its exclusive advertising partner.
$100 Ideas has been a regular feature in Farm Journal magazine where farmers and ranchers submit ideas they’ve invented to improve productivity and profitability on their operations. Readers receive cash prizes and are featured in the magazine with their idea. It has been one of Farm Journal’s best read columns for years.
Partnering with New Holland and their new “SMART” campaign, Farm Journal extended the content across its broad media platform, including “AgDay” television and “AgriTalk” radio, as well as using e-blasts and text-blasts of winning entries targeted to other producers in the winner’s local area. Farm Journal also provided press releases to the winner’s hometown newspaper(s) while New Holland extended the campaign to local dealers by providing winners with a coupon to New Holland dealerships. Farm Journal’s internet portal, AgWeb.com, was used as a clearinghouse to collect entries—whether submitted in print, audio, or video. AgWeb also featured a $100 Ideas microsite that has seen triple-digit growth in traffic with this integrated campaign.
In accepting the award for Farm Journal, Steve Custer, executive vice president and chief operating officer, said to the awards audience, “This campaign was successful because of New Holland’s foresight, as a true partner, to respect our church-and-state bond with our audience. They linked their campaign message around the content without trying to influence it. That enhanced and expanded our footprint, creating a win for our audience and a win for our client.”
This is Farm Journal Media’s second min Integrated Marketing Award, having won in 2012 in the Editorial Excellence – Special Section B2B category for AgWeb’s popular Harvest maps.
As part of its strategy to strengthen its support of agriculture at the local level, global animal nutrition leader Alltech is proud to welcome Lienert Australia Pty. Ltd., a leading Australian premix manufacturer and feed ingredient supplier, to its corporate family. The acquisition of Lienert Australia Pty. Ltd., finalized on Sept. 24, has the full support of both companies and is built upon two decades of friendship and business partnership.
Alltech has purchased 100% of the shares in Lienert Australia from the Lienert family. This move solidifies their long-term partnership in providing greater local on-farm support to Australian farmers to make their operations more efficient, profitable and sustainable. Both companies’ foremost commitment is to customers throughout the food chain, providing farmers with tailored solutions and local support as they shoulder the responsibility of feeding the population.
Both Lienert Australia and Alltech are family-owned businesses dedicated to bringing nutritional solutions to the farm and food industry. For more than 40 years, Lienert Australia has manufactured, distributed and supplied ingredients, supplements and nutritional advice to the livestock and feedstock industries within Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. Their clients range from small family farms to integrated operations and commercial feed mills.
Lienert Australia and Alltech have much in common from a fervent commitment to quality, to utilizing and researching the latest technologies. These core practices are driven by another shared pledge: supporting the work of farmers as they endeavor to produce food more efficiently to supply an ever-increasing demand for safety, quality and quantity, affordably.
“Australia’s influence on the food chain extends far beyond its geographical borders, and the acquisition of Lienert Australia underscores Alltech’s long-term commitment to strong, sustainable agriculture as well as food quality and safety within the entire Asia-Pacific region,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, president and founder of Alltech.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today unveiled the new programs included in the 2014 Farm Bill to help farmers better manage risk. The new programs, Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC), represent the end of direct payments by offering farmers protection when market forces cause substantial drops in crop prices and/or revenues. Producers will have through early spring of 2015 to select which program works best for their businesses.
Stressing that the programs are “farm by farm and crop by crop” decisions, Vilsack announced that new tools are now available to help provide farmers the information they need to choose the new safety net program that is right for their business.
“One of the Farm Bill’s most significant reforms is finally taking effect,” said Vilsack. “These new programs help ensure that risk can be effectively managed so that families don’t lose farms that have been passed down through generations because of events beyond their control. But unlike the old direct payment program, which paid farmers in good years and bad, these new initiatives are based on market forces and include county – and individual – coverage options.”
Farm owners may begin visiting their local Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices starting September 29 if they want to update their yield history and/or reallocate base acres, the first step before choosing which new program best serves their risk management needs.
Learn more from Secretary Vilsack in this teleconference held with reporters this morning: Secy Vilsack announces new farm programs
The sixth annual Water for Food Conference is around the corner taking place in Seattle, Washington October 19-22, 2014. One focus will be how to produce enough food for more than the estimated 9 billion people living on the planet by 2050.
On October, 20, 2014 at 7:30 am PT, a new crop analysis will be unveiled. The results of the six-year collaborative research project, “The Global Yield Gap and Water Productivity Atlas,” will be shared. The Atlas is designed to help farmers policy makers, foundations and private sector organizations identify regions with the greatest potential to sustainably produce more food with strategic use of inputs such as water, fertilizer or better seed.
The event will bring together more than 250 world experts working to overcome the urgent food challenge of sustainably producing enough food to meet the demands while conserving natural resources and ecosystems. The conference will feature presentations by world-renowned experts, including:
Hosts for the event include Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute (DWFI) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Registration is still open. Click here for more information and online registration.
This week on the ZimmCast we are previewing the upcoming Canadian Farm Writers Federation 2014 conference in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island October 2-5. That’s just a week from now, but if you have ever wanted to learn more about eastern Canadian agriculture, this would be the event to do it – and they would be happy to welcome more attendees!
I talked to this year’s CFWF conference chairperson Allison Finnamore, who has become a good friend of ours through the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists. She has put together a great agenda that includes learning more about the island’s biggest crop, potatoes, as well as interesting farming ventures such as mussel production.
We will be bringing you coverage of the event next week, thanks to the generous sponsorship of our friends at CASE IH, and the capable freelancer abilities of Canadian Trudy Kelly Forsythe of Cultivating Communications. But, if you’d rather see it in person and you’ve got the time next week – check out the registration information on-line.
Listen in to this week’s program here: Canadian Farm Writers Federation conference preview
Subscribe to the ZimmCast podcast here.
