Soy-Biobased Products Compete in Solar Decathlon

Cindy Zimmerman

Team REC decathletes working together to prepare a CFP panel

Team REC decathletes working together to prepare a CFP panel

Students from Appalachian State University (ASU) are heading to France with a “reimagined” row house using soy-biobased products to compete against 20 global teams in the Solar Decathlon Europe 2014.

According to the United Soybean Board, soy-based, formaldehyde-free plywood as well as durable floor matting are important features of Maison Reciprocity, ASU’s solar-powered row house developed with their partner school, the Université d’Angers (U d’A). The Boone, North Carolina University is one of three U.S. schools chosen for this complementary competition to the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon.

“We congratulate these students on their innovation and leadership for sustainability,” said United Soybean Board Customer Focus Action Team Chair John Motter, a soybean farmer from Ohio. “People around the world will learn from their example.”

Students used 1,700 square feet of Columbia Forest Products’ PureBond® hardwood plywood made with its soy-based formaldehyde-free adhesive on floors, walls and stairs. EcoPath™ and the USB provided the mat backed with EnviroCel™, which uses soy as well as recycled plastics. The mats are widely used at the Pentagon and other major facilities with very heavy foot traffic.

Ag Groups, Soybean, USB

USDA Outlook Board Chair to Retire

Cindy Zimmerman

After 43 years with USDA and 20 years as chairman of the World Agricultural Outlook Board, Dr. Gerald Bange has decided it’s time to retire.

gerry-bangeUSDA Chief Economist Joseph Glauber announced today that Bange will retire at the end of this month and Dr. Seth Meyer will become Acting Board Chair. Dr. Meyer is currently a Senior Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) and will assume his new duties June 1.

“USDA has benefited enormously from Bange’s distinguished leadership as Chair of the World Board,” Glauber said, “where he was responsible for the monthly forecasts of the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report and the Joint Agricultural Weather Facility.” Bange also served as Program Chair for USDA’s respected, largest annual meeting, the Agricultural Outlook Forum.

Dr. Bange joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1971 as an agricultural marketing specialist for the Agricultural Research Service. In 1975, he transferred to the Foreign Agricultural Service as an agricultural economist where, in 1981, he became Director of the Foreign Production Estimates Division and, in January 1983, he was appointed Deputy Assistant Administrator for International Agricultural Statistics. In October 1983, he transferred to the World Agricultural Outlook Board where he served as Deputy Chairperson until March 1994 at which time he was appointed to his present position as Chairperson of the Board.

USDA

Farmers Use of Electricity on the Rise

Joanna Schroeder

According to a recent Today in Energy, published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), farmers make up a large share of electricity use in the industrial sector. A significant portion of a growers’ electricity needs is for farm irrigation systems, which are categorized by electric utilities as industrial load.

Farmer electricity useFor example, Nebraska is largely rural and agricultural, but it has the third-highest count of industrial electricity customers in the U.S. The same factor drives up the number of industrial electricity customers in Idaho and Kansas, which are also among the top 10 states in number of industrial electricity customers. States with a large agriculture industry also tend to have among the lowest industrial sales of electricity per industrial customer.

EIA has found that because of the high cost of connecting dispersed systems to the electric grid, along with the high cost of adequate capacity available during peak load, farm irrigation systems can be costly to serve. For example, in keeping in line with electricity use in Nebraska, Dawson Public Power District, a rural electric cooperative in an agriculture-heavy region of Nebraska, accounted for less than 3 percent of statewide industrial electricity sales in 2012 but had one of the highest average prices for industrial power. In general, the highest industrial electricity prices in Nebraska tend to be located in the rural southern and western portions of the state.Read More

Agribusiness, Energy, Irrigation

Panera Bread and Millennials

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 438How many of you remember the Panera EZChicken campaign? If so, you know that it sparked a social media response from the agriculture community due to the way farmers were portrayed who did not farm the way Panera wants their food ingredients farmed. Panera did issue an apology and you’ll hear another one in this week’s program.

aaa-14-10During the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit I sat down with one of the panelists, Dan Kish, Head Chef & VP of Food, Panera Bread. He participated in a panel titled, “What’s the Antibiotics Endgame.” Dan is pictured speaking with John Stika, Certified Angus Beef on the left and Joe Dorsthoffer, Perdue Farms on the right.

I asked him about the changes the company has made to its food and supply chain ingredients. He says they are “not the norm.” But there is a business case for those changes he says.

“We like to think we do really great things with those ingredients and that’s why people love ’em but there’s something beyond the taste of the food. There’s a connection to food that we find that our core customer, the customer that we most seek to satisfy finds food meaningful in their life and their attributes that there will probably never be science for. This is feeling based and not enough research to ever give you the answer.”

He says he participated in the panel because he wanted to be part of the conversation even if it’s not easy to have. He talks about standing up for what you believe in. I think you’ll be interested to hear his comments.

Listen in here: Panera and Millennials

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsor, GROWMARK, locally owned, globally strong, for their support.

Subscribe to the ZimmCast podcast here.

Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Food, ZimmCast

Silent Auction Benefits Interns & Aggies

Chuck Zimmerman

AAA Silent AuctionIt’s a familiar sight at a lot of conferences. The silent auction. This one is for the Animal Agriculture Alliance and took place at the Stakeholders Summit

About $4,000 were raised this year. There were some great agnerd items like an iPad mini, Mophie phone charger and more. The funds are used to support the AAA summer intern program and College Aggies Online initiative.

I was wearing ZimmGlass so I shot a short video clip of the silent auction in process with some well known celebrities.

2014 AAA Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

Coverage is sponsored by Sensible Table

Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture, Audio

KernelQuest for Your Smart Phone

Cindy Zimmerman

kernel-questLook down on your smart phone! It’s a bird, it’s a plane – it’s Captain Cornelius!

The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) just launched a new smartphone/tablet game featuring beloved character Captain Cornelius. “KernelQuest is a game of skill, maneuverability and all-around corniness. Join Captain Cornelius, our a-maize-ing superhero in green spandex, as he defies gravity and weaves his way across the Midwest. Just don’t get creamed… Beware the mob of cobs! Set a new high score, challenge friends and learn corny facts along the way.”

NCGA developed KernelQuest in response to the popularity of the 2014 World of Corn comic book Captain Cornelius: Corn Day Celebration, which was released earlier this spring in Farm Futures. The story takes readers on an exciting and educational journey to explore a variety of topics including biotechnology, ethanol, livestock feed and sustainability. The new video game component will introduce a larger audience to Captain Cornelius and, in spreading his popularity, inspire new audiences to find out more about the world of corn.

Can KernelQuest beat Candy Crush? Download it today. KernelQuest is now available for free through Google Play and the iTunes store.

Ag Groups, Corn, NCGA

AAA College Aggies

Chuck Zimmerman

AAA College AggiesThe Animal Agriculture Alliance presented scholarships to several of the members of the current College Aggies Online group. Last November the Alliance announced the winners of the fall competition.

Members of the University of Wisconsin, Madison Association of Women in Agriculture formed the top-scoring club with 229,820 total points, earning $5,000.00.

Louisiana State University Les Voyageurs came in second place with 182,103 points and will receive a $2,500 prize. LSU was closely followed by clubs at both Oklahoma State University and Montana State University.

With 28,016 points, the individual high score went to Jessy Eggerling, a student at South Dakota State University. Nikki Little of Auburn University came in second place with 27,077 points. In third place was Katherine Griswold, of University of Wisconsin. Each of the three top individuals will earn scholarships valued at $2,500, $1,000 and $500 respectively.

I interviewed the College Aggies attending last week’s Stakeholders Summit to receive their awards. They are pictured with representatives from program sponsors Lallemand Animal Nutrition, Tyson Foods, National Pork Board and the AgChat Foundation. I asked them how that got involved with the program and what they do as College Aggies Online.

AAA College Aggies

2014 AAA Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

Coverage is sponsored by Sensible Table

Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Education, University

Grow it, Kill it, Melt it with Conserv FS

Cindy Zimmerman

conserv-fs-turfThe GROWMARK FS System is well known in the Midwest agricultural world for grain, energy and agronomy services, but maybe not so well known is its turf products and services.

“If you want to grow it, kill it, or melt it, the turf division would be who you would talk to,” says Jim Coens, Turf Department Manager for Conserv FS in Woodstock, Illinois. “If it’s a non-edible crop, we have sales people that sell into it – from golf courses, municipalities, park districts, school districts. If you play on it on the outside, we can help you with it.”

Conserv FS and at least eight other FS member companies in the GROWMARK system have turf programs with certified turf specialists like Don Michaels. “We don’t sell just ourselves as a person, we sell the concept of a team effort,” said Michaels, who stresses the importance of customer service in their business.

Conserv FS has turf accounts with some big names, like the Chicago Cubs and Bears and the Milwaukee Brewers, who have big needs. “Their fields are on show every day,” said Michaels. “So they cannot afford to have a slip up. That field always has to play safely and look pristine.”

“In GROWMARK, corn and beans rule the world, but in our world it’s playability and aesthetics,” said Coens, who says they really got into the business about 15 years ago when they noticed how much agricultural acreage was being lost to urban sprawl. “So we looked at alternatives and other markets we could get into … and we took all the wonderful things we knew in the agricultural world and brought them to people growing turf.”

The wide variety of products and services offered by the turf division include aeration and aquatics, bulk salt and ice melters, seeds, herbicides, fungicides and even fencing supplies.

Find out more in this interview with Jim and Don. Conserv FS Turf Division interview

Audio, FS System, GROWMARK

Millennial Staffers on the Hill

Chuck Zimmerman

Millennial StaffersThe first panel discussion of the 2014 Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit focused on millennial staffers on the hill. Moderating the discussion was Chandler Keys, The Keys Group. The panelists each spoke first with ideas for approaching elected officials effectively, especially since the first step is often with a millennial generation staffer like themselves. I selected a quote from each of their comments to share.

First up is Grant Colvin, Policy Analyst for the Senate Committee on Agriculture. He says when visiting with your elected officials not to “overthink it.” He often sees people coming in with a chip on their shoulder and even using hostile language. He suggests using some finesse and sensitivity.

Grant Colvin

Next is Joe Williamson, Legislative Director for Congressman Cory Gardner, CO. He says he had to learn about farm policy on the fly when he got into his position and that the only way to reach millennials is to “dumb it down.” Simplify the message because a lot of people don’t have the background in agriculture that you do.

Joe Williamson

Then we heard from Alexandria Igleheart, Legislative Assistant for Congressman Mac Thornberry, TX. She is a numbers person and says you can’t argue with numbers. So have some good local data for the district of who you’re visiting with. She also says to start small by building a relationship and realize that things don’t often move fast on the Hill.

Alexandria Igleheart

2014 AAA Stakeholders Summit Photo Album

Coverage is sponsored by Sensible Table

Ag Groups, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Farm Policy

Farmland: The Student Perspective

Kristin Liska

farmland-posterOn May 8, the documentary Farmland was shown in Ames, Iowa and many Iowa State students were able to attend the showing. I was able to catch up with Brady Zuck, a senior in animal science, afterwards and ask him what his thoughts were on the film.

In the interview, that you can listen to fully below, Brady talks about how he was able to relate to the movie on a personal level and really enjoyed how it showed all aspects of agriculture and not just one side. He continued to talk about how important this movie is for people outside of the agriculture community to watch this movie.

Have you seen the Farmland film? If so, what did you think about it?

Farmland: Brady Zuck
Ag Groups, Audio, USFRA