On The Floor with New Holland

Chuck Zimmerman

New Holland at NFMSHello from day one of the National Farm Machinery Show. As usual, we get off to a very busy start with lots of interviews scheduled. I’ll be sharing them with you into next week I’m sure.

One of our main sponsors for coverage of the show again this is New Holland. Their exhibit area is getting more and more crowded with people wanting to see some new equipment making its first public display.

I spoke with Mark Hooper to get an overview of what New Holland has on display. You can listen to my interview with Mark here: Interview with Mark Hooper

Here’s where you’ll be able to find lots of photos from the show. We’ll be adding to them each day. National Farm Machinery Show Photo Album


Coverage of the National Farm Machinery Show is sponsored by FMC and New Holland Agriculture
Agribusiness, Audio, Equipment, National Farm Machinery Show, New Holland

Live From National Farm Machinery Show

Chuck Zimmerman

National Farm Machinery ShowIt’s the miracle with no ice. Cindy and I arrived in Louisville, KY this afternoon for the National Farm Machinery Show after traveling through Atlanta. The timing just worked out since it was only raining when we went through.

We took a quick peek inside the show as final preparations are being made at all the exhibits. Our coverage on AgWired this year is sponsored. Here are a couple of clues to who our sponsors are. The action gets started tomorrow morning.

FMCBesides the huge display of farm machinery and more the 46th Annual Championship Tractor Pull will be taking place each evening. The estimate is 70,000 fans who will pack Freedom Hall for the oldest indoor tractor pull in America.

Cindy and I will be in the stands at least one night of the event. Some of our most downloaded video clips are the short 12-13 second ones of a competitor in action.
New HollandOf course there’s a free app for the NFMS. Just search your favorite app store for “NFMS 14.” There’s a map which you have to have at this show because it’s so big. And if you’re a tractor pull fan it has the whole schedule. It also does text alerts about events happening at the show.

Also, don’t forget that the Twitter hashtag for the show is #NFMS14.

Agribusiness, Farm Machinery, FMC, National Farm Machinery Show, New Holland

New Website for ARC

Chuck Zimmerman

ARC LogoThe Agricultural Relations Council has a new website. It is built with WordPress, our platform of choice!

Good day. From all of us at ARC (board and staff) we are pleased to announce that the new and improved ARC web site is now live. http://www.agrelationscouncil.org/

Thanks to ARC members John Blue of Truffle Media and Mike Opperman of Charleston Orwig, plus staffers Barb Ulschmid and Kathy Heyda for all their work in making this happen. Our web master — Dogwood Productions (including John Strope, Steven Weber and Amy Murphy) has done a wonderful job of capturing what ARC members want to see in a web site. We also thank Dennis Lambrecht of Suel Printing for his expertise in assisting Dogwood Productions in the execution of this refreshed web site.

The website rollout includes new features which will show up in March.

Ag Groups, ARC, Public Relations

Ag PR Hall of Fame, Nominations Due March 15

Talia Goes

ARC2013Awards-500w-300x236Nominations are due March 15 for the Agricultural Public Relations Hall of Fame, an award program honoring agricultural public relations professionals who have made lifetime contributions to the industry.

The program, sponsored by the Agricultural Relations Council and AgriMarketing magazine, will recognize its third group of recipients at the June 2014 ARC annual meeting in Madison, Wis.

Nominees must be current or past members of ARC to be considered. Inductees will be selected based on criteria including:

  • Years of membership in ARC;
  • Service to ARC (president, board member, committee chair, etc.);
  • Professional accomplishments/achievements in ag communications; and
  • Awards/Recognition in service to ag communications within ARC and also outside of the organization.

For additional questions, please call the ARC office at: 952/758-5811. Use the 2014 nomination form or E-mail ARC at arc@gandgcomm.com for more information.

Agribusiness, ARC

Zimfo Bytes

Talia Goes

    Zimfo Bytes

  • DuPont and the Story County Sheriff’s Office are working together to establish the first-ever Farm Watch program in Iowa to enhance security and safety of rural residents and farmers.
  • MGEX announced that preliminary trading volume reached 26,404 futures and options contracts, breaking the previous daily Exchange volume record by nearly 12 percent. The previous volume record had been set on April 25, 2005.
  • Farm Journal Media announced the scheduled launch of “Market Rally” with Chip Flory, the first-ever long-format national radio program focused exclusively on agricultural commodity markets.
  • This week the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) honored nearly three dozen individuals for their outstanding contributions to the field of weed science.
Zimfo Bytes

More Corn for Export

Cindy Zimmerman

corn-bargeTo the surprise of traders, USDA increased the projection for U.S. corn exports this marketing year, lowering ending stocks in the latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate (WASDE) report.

U.S. feed grain ending stocks for 2013/14 are expected lower with a 150-million-bushel increase projected for corn exports.

Jack Scoville of the Price Futures Group discussed the estimates during the Minneapolis Grain Exchange conference call on the report today. “USDA did throw us some curve balls,” he said. “Even though most of the trade was expecting a pretty neutral report, we did get some surprises,” particularly the magnitude of the increase for corn exports. MGEX crop call with Jack Scoville, Price Futures Group

Jack also talked about wheat exports being increased by 10 million bushels as “railroad backlogs and other logistical problems slow Canadian wheat shipments to Pacific Coast terminals and encourage additional shipments of Hard Red Spring (HRS) wheat into the U.S. market.”

That was discussed on a MGEX call when the Stats Canada field crop report was released on February 4 by Wayne Palmer and Brian Voth of Agri-Trend. “Canada is experiencing a transportation debacle,” said Palmer. “We cannot get grain from the country to the port in a timely fashion. We are so far behind we will likely not catch up until the end of this year.” MGEX Canada crop call with Agri-Trend

Audio, Corn, Exports

MapShots and AgStudio Growing Fast

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast 427You often get the best perspective on what a company does and what its culture is like by talking with the founder. I had that pleasure last week at the MapShots Customer Conference to visit with founder Ted Macy. MapShots, Inc., is a software development company that provides crop management applications for the agriculture industry and is now a subsidiary of Dupont Pioneer. Their AgStudio software provides clients with powerful, yet easy to use tools for managing large amounts of agronomic crop production data.

Ted MacyTed says he and his wife Nancy started the company “a long time ago.” He says a milestone moment was the introduction of the Ag Leader Technology yield monitor back in 1993. That provided them with a vision of what the software would look like to be able to work with “iron of any color.”

AgStudio was the main topic of many of the presentations at the conference. Ted says they built the product from the ground up to be a total crop record keeping solution. It is now a very comprehensive product that is being integrated into all aspects of managing a farming operation. MapShots brought in representatives from many partner companies to talk about their services and how they are working to integrate them into AgStudio.

You can listen to this week’s program to learn more about MapShots here. MapShots and AgStudio

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

Agribusiness, Audio, Precision Agriculture, ZimmCast

New Beef Board Chairman

Chuck Zimmerman

Kim BrackettThe Beef Board has a new Chairman. She’s Kim Brackett, Idaho cow/calf and stocker producer.

Here’s what it means to her. You can also listen to her describe her goals in the audio clip below:

“That has been such a phenomenal evolution for me to go in what seems like a handful of years, not a long timeframe at all, to not having a very thorough understanding of the checkoff to now feeling like I understand the ins and outs of it. It’s amazing – I never fully appreciated how hard the checkoff works for me and my family and our ranch. I never understood, until I got on the Idaho beef council, I didn’t understand the scope of the checkoff working in foreign markets, I didn’t understand how they reached so many consumers on the eastern seaboard with just my dollars that I paid here in Idaho, I didn’t have a good understanding of the partnerships like I do now. And now to be stepping up and leading that, people tell me I’m the face of the checkoff and I kind of laugh that off but I take a lot of pride in that too because I’m so proud of the checkoff programs and how hard they work for us.”

Comments from Kim Brackett

Other Beef Board officers include:

Vice Chairman: Jimmy Maxey, California
Secretary/Treasurer: Anne Anderson, Texas

Ag Groups, Audio, Cattle Industry Conference

DuPont Launching Farm Watch in Iowa

John Davis

dupontfarmwatchDuPont is partnering with a county sheriff’s office in Iowa to establish the state’s first Farm Watch program to enhance security and safety of rural residents and farmers. DuPont and the Story County Sheriff’s Office will work together in this off-shoot of the National Sheriffs’ Association’s Neighborhood Watch and Farm Watch.

“Farm Watch helps reduce opportunities for crime to occur in farming and rural communities,” said Paul Fitzgerald, Story County Sheriff. “Essential to this is encouraging people to report suspicious incidents to law enforcement officials as they occur and also share the information with other Farm Watch members. As well as helping to deter crime, this strengthens community spirit with everyone working together to protect their property.”

“Farmers often have a great deal of capital spread over a large expanse of land,” explained John Pieper, director of the DuPont Cellulosic Ethanol Development Program Office. “Some stock and equipment is portable and can be relatively easy to steal. While property can never be made totally secure, becoming a Farm Watch member undoubtedly reduces the risk of becoming a victim of farming or rural crime. DuPont has a vested interest in central Iowa and wants to help enhance the safety and security for all community members.”

DuPont says the goals of the program include: reducing opportunities for crime to occur in farming and rural communities; strengthening community spirit; improving communication between the farming community and the police; and encouraging people to report suspicious incidents as they occur.

Farm Watch will also offer practical crime prevention advice to farmers and landowners, to help ensure their property and goods are as secure as possible, as well as providing a marking system and signs to indicate participation in the program.

There will be an informational meeting on March 6, 2014, at the Gates Memorial Hall in Nevada, Iowa from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.

Agribusiness

State Cattle Groups Earn New Holland Equipment

Cindy Zimmerman

New Holland Agriculture is rewarding two state cattle industry organizations for their superior membership recruitment efforts in 2013.

ncba-newhollandThe Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association each earned use of a piece of equipment from New Holland for their efforts to recruit new members to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Each NCBA affiliate will get their choice of a one-year lease on a New Holland Roll-Belt™ 560 Specialty Crop round baler or a one-year lease on a New Holland T6 175 tractor. The organizations received their awards during the Best of Beef Breakfast at the 2014 Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show in Nashville Feb. 8.

“New Holland is proud to support state and national membership efforts in cattle industry organizations,” said Mark Hooper, New Holland Director of Marketing. “We know that it takes all of us working together to keep the cattle industry strong and viable for future generations of farmers and ranchers, and are honored to work with NCBA and its state partners on this important campaign to build a strong voice for beef producers in the United States.”

Thanks to MCA executive VP Mike Deering for the photo of his president Jim McCann getting the award from the New Holland representative.

Ag Groups, Cattle Industry Conference, New Holland