Ag Relations Council Annual Meeting News

Chuck Zimmerman

Golden ARC AwardsI can’t make them all. Just wish I could. Here’s the news from the recent Agricultural Relations Council Annual Meeting. First up are Golden ARC Award winners.

The Golden ARC Awards contest honors the stellar work created by professionals in the agricultural industry. The entries for the 2014 contest were many with 74 entries – 22 campaigns and 55 tactics. Entries were judged by public relations professionals outside of the ag industry, all of whom are members of the Maine chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

Congratulations to the 2014 Golden ARC de Excellence Winner – Ketchum on behalf of Zoetis – “Zoetis Achieves Global Company Debut in Eight Months” in the category of Public Relations Campaign – Global Communications.

You can find all Award winners here (pdf) and Merit winners here (pdf).

ARC Hall of FameNext up are the “Third Class” of Honorees Named into Ag PR Hall of Fame.

The Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) is pleased to announce two new members into the Agricultural Public Relations Hall of Fame: Richard Howell and Gary Myers, APR. Both will be recognized on Thursday, June 26, at the annual meeting of ARC in Madison, Wis. This is the third class of inductees since the program was instituted in 2012.

Howell and Myers will join previous inductees Don Lerch, Lyle Orwig, John Harvey and Paul Weller in the Hall of Fame, which is sponsored by the Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) and Agri Marketing magazine.

Ag Groups, ARC

Marrone Bio Opens Michigan Manufacturing Facility

Chuck Zimmerman

Marrone Bio Innovations Ribbon CuttingMarrone Bio Innovations, Inc. celebrated the official opening of its Marrone Michigan Manufacturing (M3) facility today with a ribbon cutting ceremony and plant tours. Pictured are the speakers from the program listed below.

Today’s event features a facility tour which highlights the benefits of MBI’s bio-based products for pest management and plant health and gives attendees a firsthand look at the updates and expansions to the production facility. Speakers at the ribbon cutting event include:

Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture
Administrator Lillian Salerno, USDA Rural Business-Cooperative Service
Director James Turner, State Director, USDA-Rural Development
Senator John Proos and Representative Aric Nesbitt, Michigan Senate and House of Representatives
Mayor Nick Householder, Mayor of Bangor, Michigan
Dr. Pamela Marrone, CEO and Founder, Marrone Bio Innovations

I recorded the program since Marrone live streamed the event. Marrone Michigan Manufacturing Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Agribusiness, Audio

BASF Merivon Fungicide for Specialty Crops

Cindy Zimmerman

basf-walkerWe learned more about BASF Merivon® fungicide at the company’s recent media event from Scott Walker, biology project leader.

“We have gotten federal registration for expansion of Merivon on specialty crops,” Walker told us during a stop on the tour of the BASF research farm in North Carolina. “It includes strawberries, fruit and tree nuts, leafy vegetables like lettuce and spinach, the brassica group such as broccoli, as well as onions and the bulb vegetables.”

Walker says Merivon, which is one of the BASF products powered by Xemium, offers broad spectrum disease protection as well as plant health benefits such as stress tolerance and improved growth efficiency. During the event, he talked specifically about its use on apples and almonds.

Learn more in this interview: Interview with Scott Walker, BASF

2014 BASF Ag Media Summit Photo Album

Audio, BASF, Crop Protection, specialty crops

Illinois Corn Interns Summer Promotional Videos

Chuck Zimmerman

Illinois CornLet’s put those interns to work. That’s what Illinois Corn is doing. Interns Tim Marten, a student at SIU-Edwardsville, and Elizabeth O’Reilly, a student at ISU, have been tasked with creating short videos that promote corn. The internships are funded by two communications scholarships from the Illinois Corn Marketing Board. Here’s an example of one of them below. You can find others here.

In this video Captain Cornelius learns more than he intended about the difference between regular corn and popcorn!

Ag Groups, Biofuels, Corn, Video

Ninth International Conference on Climate Change

Chuck Zimmerman

The Heartland InstituteI would love to cover this event. Anyone want to be my sponsor? I have no doubt that I would get some great “factual” information on climate change. Because of course we have climate change. Man-made? Not so much. Changes in our climate are vital to agricultural production. Always have been, always will be. And changes in climate happen. But I get so angry at the alarmist bullcrap we get fed by wacko activists and other power and control hungry politicos. Just like with food misinformation, energy misinformation and all kinds of environmental misinformation, today’s social media world makes it easy for all of that to be spread by the activists and the people who believe everything they read on Facebook. So, I’d love to go and publish a different perspective.

Thirty-two organizations, including several well-known think tanks and advocacy organizations, are cosponsoring an event billed as “the world’s largest gathering of global warming skeptics” in Las Vegas July 7–9. The Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (#ICCC9) features 60 of the world’s leading scientists and policy experts who are skeptical of man-caused global warming.

The sponsoring groups represent a wide swath of organizations working to advance free markets and sound science, including The Heritage Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and George C. Marshall Institute.

“This is a great show of unity in opposition to the global warming alarmism of President Obama and radical environmental groups,” said Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute, the leading organizer and host of the event. “Having all these organizations endorse this conference means skepticism about man-made global warming continues to spread and gain respectability.”

BlueWhile looking into this conference I found a link to Blue – For Earth, For Humanity, For Freedom. A documentary by Director, JD King. Thought I’d share it here since from watching the trailer, it has some interesting related content. I look forward to seeing it.

BLUE is more than a film, it’s an idea. Ideas have the power to change the way we think, begin movements, and even change the world. One of the most prominent idea of our time today is the Green Movement, which says that the Earth is threatened by the activity, even the existence, of mankind, and that the noble response is to restrict our freedom in order to save the planet. The movie BLUE challenges that idea. BLUE is an independently funded and filmed documentary by director, JD King.

Video

Bayer CropScience Announces Expansion

Cindy Zimmerman

bayer-cropscienceBayer CropScience is investing $29.6 million in the expansion of its North American and global Seeds headquarters in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina.

The company announced this week that the expansion includes the construction of a 29,500-square-foot greenhouse and state-of-the-art research facility for seed trait research, insect testing, nematode trait research, and plant disease research.

The RTP site has experienced significant operational growth in recent years. This expansion marks the beginning of the development of land acquired in Dec. 2012. Work on the greenhouse, or GH1, is scheduled to begin in the late summer of 2014, with completion scheduled for late 2015. GH1 is the second greenhouse constructed at Bayer CropScience’s North American and global Seeds headquarters in the past two years. The $20 million, 60,000-square-foot Greenhouse 5 was opened in July 2012 to support company sustainability and productivity efforts focused on soy, corn and other broadacre crop research.

“The construction of this greenhouse represents our continued commitment to RTP and to leaving a better world for the industries and communities we serve through advanced agriculture and bioscience research and development,” said Jim Blome, president and CEO of Bayer CropScience LP. “Our new facility will allow our scientists and other researchers to discover innovative solutions to the world’s ever-changing agricultural issues, and will help us feed a growing planet in need of plentiful food sources grown without threat from dangerous insects and other pests.”

Read more here.

Agribusiness, Bayer, Research

Celebrate Food Independence Day

Cindy Zimmerman

AFBF_July_4th_Survey-smWhile you are celebrating our nation’s birthday this weekend, take a minute to be thankful that your 4th of July feast is safe, abundant and affordable. Where else in the world can you gobble up hot dogs and hamburgers, ribs, potato salad, baked beans, and more for less than $6 a person?

The American Farm Bureau Federation tallied up the cost for an all-American Fourth of July picnic for ten people – including hot dogs, cheeseburgers, pork spare ribs, potato salad, baked beans, lemonade and chocolate milk. The bottom line is slightly more than last year, but at $5.87, it’s still an all-American bargain.

Farm Bureau’s informal survey reveals the average cost for a summer picnic for 10 is $58.72, or $5.87 per person. That’s about a 5-percent increase compared to a year ago. “Despite some modest price increases over the past year or so – meats, especially – most Americans should be able to find summer picnic foods at prices close to the averages found by our volunteer shoppers,” said John Anderson, deputy chief economist at AFBF.

“Retail meat prices are higher compared to a year ago because the nation’s cattle herd is now at a historically small level,” Anderson said. “The total number of hogs farmers across the nation are raising is also down, which has contributed to higher retail prices for pork products.”

Get the details here from AFBF.

AFBF, Food

Zimfo Bytes

Talia Goes

Zimfo Bytes

  • The Livestock Production Council (LPC) has announced that four United States agricultural journalism students will be rewarded for their talent with the 2014 Forrest Bassford Student Travel Award.
  • Syngenta held a grand re-opening for its newly expanded Clinton, Ill., corn and soybean research and development (R&D) facility.
  • July is National Hot Dog Month and as Americans prepare to eat more than 150 million hot dogs during the Independence Day holiday, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) is setting out to answer the most common hot dog question of them all: how are hot dogs really made?
  • Valent BioSciences Corporation (VBC) marked the official opening of its new $146 million biorational manufacturing facility in Osage, IA in a ceremony that included more than 130 international dignitaries, state and local VIPs, and media personnel.
Zimfo Bytes

A New Look for Farmers Market Vendors

Cindy Zimmerman

The popularity of farmers’ markets has skyrocketed in the last decade, but most vendors still use generic, light-weight white canopies that have to be creatively anchored to the ground since stakes are not allowed. That could change someday soon thanks to some imaginative architects with new ideas for farmers markets.

aia-market-winnerThe American Institute of Architects (AIA) just selected the winners of the 2014 Pop Up Project Design Competition, developed to re-imagine the farmers market canopy pop-up booths so vendors can more easily transport canopies and produce while attracting new customers through their sleek designs.

The winning design was the “G Model” (right) designed by Bart Shaw Architect. The simple stable structure “provides a platform for custom printed fabric to be wrapped. When transported it serves as a hand truck, so goods and the canopy can be moved simultaneously.”

aia-market-2The project was built on the expo floor of the 2014 AIA National Convention last week and is now being donated to the local non-for-profit partner, Growing Home Chicago, for use by their clients and program participants.

Honorable mention went to “Box It Up” (left) designed by Robin Osler of EOA/Elmslie Osler Architect. A series of plywood boxes serve not only as canopy weights, but also as table, stool, and multipurpose display fixtures. The simple box shape offers maximum flexibility as the elements can be stacked and arranged in various configurations depending on the needs of each farmer. Finally, a colorful canopy of re-purposed billboard vinyl provides shelter from the elements.

Uncategorized

IFAMA Shows GLIMPSE of Africa’s Future

Chuck Zimmerman

Aidan ConnollyThe Agribusiness and Food World Forum by the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association and Corporate Council for Africa has completed. One of the speakers was good friend, Aidan Connolly, vice president, corporate affairs for Alltech. He shared his “GLIMPSE” of the future; A lens through which to view Africa’s rising.” GLIMPSE is an acronym developed by Connolly that identifies the seven biggest obstacles to providing enough food to feed an increased population. The paper places agribusiness alongside governments, non-governmental organizations and charities as important players in addressing the problem of feeding a growing population, and identifies specific areas where agribusiness can make a difference in the world and Africa.

“Although ‘Africa’ is sometimes referred to as a single unit, in fact it is arguably the most diverse of all the continents,” said Connolly. “The GLIMPSE framework, developed to help break down the ‘wicked’ problem of food supply and security, is a useful way to address how to feed one billion more people in Africa.”

“The expertise and resources of agribusiness firms, brought to bear on the GLIMPSE factors, can be an important part of the transformation of agriculture across the continent,” Connolly said. “Working with the best asset any country can have- its people- creates stronger economies that are resilient through commodity booms and busts.”

The cases presented during the conference focused on opportunities for discussions on topics such as the impact of technology for African farmers and future projections for African markets, and described a wide range of businesses currently at work in Africa, including:

Small holder livestock farms
Indigenous plant products
Tropical fruit snack products
Trade, import and export businesses

Here’s a video clip from the IFAMA website from the conference opening:

Ag Groups, Agribusiness, Alltech, International, Video