West Central Enhances Yield Guarantee

Kelly MarshallAgribusiness, Fertilizer, Soil, yields

West CentralWest Central Distribution is stepping up their enhanced performance guarantee with the launch of their advanced chelating agent Levesol™, starter fertilizer Redline®, and IDC-combatting formula Soygreen®.  Designed for growers pursing new techniques, these products come with a guarantee of an increase in yield per acre.

The Performance Guarantee has also been expanded to include more products, expansion of crops and product performance on all acres.  The decision to expand stems from the success of the program this year, as well as further development of the Levesol chelation technology.  With the guarantee farmers have the opportunity to test Redline, Levesol and Soygreen for themselves, while having the assurance of a yield increase per acre minimum advantage.

Levesol is the most scientifically proven and only patent-pending chelate in the industry.
Levesol has three modes of action that make it unlike any other chelating agent on the market today. Levesol unlocks the nutrients it’s applied with in the fertilizer. It also unlocks the nutrients already present in the soil. Finally, Levesol keeps these nutrients available in the plant all season long.

“Redline and Soygreen both contain Levesol, which is the purest and highest concentration of ortho-ortho-EDDHA chelating agent that exists,” said Brian Kuehl, director of product development, West Central Distribution. “Levesol keeps nutrients in the fertilizer mixture and in the soil soluble for uptake, and makes other nutrients in the soil available to the plant. It also prevents the nutrients from binding with phosphorus, which leaves more phosphorus available for uptake. This technology is a proven method to increase nutrient efficiency and ultimately boost yield.”

“At West Central we are committed to helping growers get the maximum value from their fertility investment,” said Dean Hendrickson, vice president of marketing and business development, West Central Distribution. “We want growers to participate in the Performance Pledge guarantee to experience for themselves the impact they can have with improved yields and an increased return on their investment.”

Visit their website to learn how you can enroll in the program.

Land O’Lakes Makes Investment in Africa

Taylor TruckeyAgribusiness, Company Announcement, Land O'Lakes

land o'lakesLand O’Lakes Inc. has created a partnership with a company from South Africa.  Their new alliance with Villa Crop Protection creates a complimentary portfolio that will allow them to bring productivity-enhancing crop input products and services to their customers.  Land O’Lakes has recently accelerated their growth in global markets and this is their first investment in Africa.

Land O’Lakes now has a 52.5 percent ownership in Villa Crop Protection, but the existing Villa Crop Protection management team will remain in place.  Products and services will be provided to the company through Land O’Lakes input business, Winfield Solutions LLC.

“South Africa has a dynamic and growing agriculture industry, and we are proud to be entering this country with a local market leader in crop protection,” said Chris Policinski, president and CEO of Land O’Lakes, Inc. “We’ve been in countries across the world, including parts of Africa, for 35 years through our international development efforts. This is our first major international commercial investment in Africa. We look forward to bringing proven products from our WinField business to the South African market and investing in the research and development efforts that will provide new products to local growers that help produce more food, more sustainably.”

villa crop protectionVilla’s crop protection solutions are supported with a wide range of training programs presented by the Villa Academy Training Institute. The institute equips agriculturalists, producers and sales people with the latest knowledge, scientific facts and experience in the field of crop protection to help optimize their crop production using fewer resources. Villa Crop Protection plans to expand the institute’s reach with assistance from Land O’Lakes and provide an even-wider range of training courses for the agricultural industry both locally and in the rest of Africa to build skills that help support the economic development of farmers and the agricultural industry as a whole.

In 2014, agriculture added 109.3 billion South African Rand ($8.7B USD) to the country’s GDP according to the World Bank. Nearly 80 percent of the land in South Africa was used for agricultural production, which amounts to more than 97.6 million hectares.

“The data is clear: Agriculture and production are critically important to South Africa,” said Andre Schreuder, managing director of Villa Crop Protection. “With Land O’Lakes’ investment in Villa Crop Protection and WinField’s capabilities, products and people, we are even more confident entering this exciting period in our business. We are positive that this deal will enhance our capabilities, build on distinctive and complementary product offerings and bring new technologies, international insights and Land O’Lakes’ years of value-added agricultural knowledge to help meet local growers’ needs today and into the future.”

Neither company expects negative impacts for their workforce.

Cambridge Consultants Develops Breakthrough Robot

Kelly MarshallAgribusiness, Fruit, Robot, Vegetables

cambridge consultants robotThe product design and development firm, Cambridge Consultants, has created a breakthrough in the food chain.  The team there has created a robot designed to handle complex tasks like sorting fruits and vegetables or removing specific weeds from a field.

“Traditional robots struggle when it comes to adapting to deal with uncertainty,” said Chris Roberts, head of industrial robotics at Cambridge Consultants. “Our innovative blend of existing technologies and novel signal processing techniques has resulted in a radical new system design that is poised to disrupt the industry.”

While robots have been an integral part of many industries for a long time, they’ve specialized in doing repeated tasks over and over with great accuracy.  Where they fail is at adapting a routine to accept small changes or variations.  For example, robots are a great help in a factory where parts are always identical and things move in repeated ways.

Contrast this with the task of picking up fruit and vegetables in a warehouse. To succeed at this, robots must be able to work around people, cope with irregular items, and adapt to a changing environment. Designing a robot that is able to pick a number of different items like fruit requires many tasks to be performed – from recognising the correct objects and calculating what order to pick them in, to planning the grip, and the lifting and placing of the items.

“Our world-class industrial sensing and control team has combined high-powered image-processing algorithms with low-cost sensors and commodity hardware to allow ‘soft’ control of robots when the task is not rigidly defined,” said Roberts. “The system is capable of handling objects for which no detailed computer-aided design (CAD) model exists – a necessary step to using a robot with natural objects which, although they share some characteristics, are not identical.


“The robot system demonstrates what is possible when you bring together experts from different fields to solve a problem. We’ve combined our programming, electronics and mechanical engineering expertise with our machine vision and robotics skills to demonstrate the kind of smart system that could transform a variety of industrial and commercial processes,” Roberts says.

Syngenta Webinar on Soybean Cyst Nematode

Taylor TruckeyPesticides, Soybeans, Syngenta

unnamed (1)Soybean cyst nematode (SCN) has been steadily expanding its U.S. presence since the 1950s and now, as the No. 1 pest for U.S. soybean growers, SCN accounts for $1.5 billion of lost yield annually. Despite the extensive use of SCN-resistant seed, SCN expansion has not slowed. This is due, in part, to the reliance on a single source of genetic resistance, PI88788. With SCN now in every major soybean-producing state, growers and researchers alike are looking for new solutions. Syngenta offers a unique management tool for fighting SCN: Clariva® Complete Beans seed treatment, a combination of separately registered products.

The nematicide active ingredient in Clariva Complete Beans provides more sustainable SCN management, enhancing the performance of SCN-resistant varieties and reducing damage from SCN-related diseases such as soybean sudden death syndrome. Through lethal activity against SCN, Clariva Complete Beans has proven to be effective and last all season long, giving growers a new tool to help them grow more soybeans.

Join in as we learn more about the effects of SCN during this free webinar on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015 @ 2 PM ET!

Speakers:
George Bird, Ph.D.
Professor, Michigan State University

Dale Ireland, Ph.D.
Technical Product Lead of Seedcare for U.S. Soybean and Corn, Syngenta

Moderator:
Robin Siktberg
Custom Content Editor, Meister Media Worldwide

REGISTER HERE

Iowa Dept of Ag Recieves $227K Grant for Monarch Habitats

Taylor Truckeyenvironment, Honeybees, pollinators, USDA

iowa-ag-deptThe National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) gave the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and Pathfinders RC&D a grant totaling $227,400 to establish monarch habitat in their state. Privately owned land totaling 3,311 acres in Iowa will utilized for the monarch habitats. The Department and Pathfinders RC&D will provide $227,500 in matching funds to support the project.

The funds will be used in partnership with four current programs to establish monarch habitat as part of conservation efforts. The programs that will be part of the grant are the Buffer Initiative Program, Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, Abandoned Mine Land Program, and Urban Conservation Program.

“These funds will allow us to better incorporate habitat into our existing conservation programs that will benefit monarchs and other pollinators,” said Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey.

In 2015 the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) established the Monarch Butterfly Conservation Fund to protect, conserve, and increase habitat for these insects and other pollinators. The Fund supports efforts for growth of monarch butterfly population numbers, with a goal of stabilizing the population and continuing its migratory phenomenon.

NFWF received 115 proposals, with a total request of more than $19.5 million. The 22 projects chosen represent a total award amount of $3,310,668, which will be further influenced by $6,691,153 in grantee matching contributions for a total on-the-ground impact of $10,001,821. The full release from NFWF can be found here.

Agribusiness CEOs Launch Council on Sustainability and Innovation

Taylor TruckeyAg Group, Agribusiness, Dupont Pioneer, Land O'Lakes

bipartisan policyLeading agribusiness CEOs, with the assistance of the Bipartisan Policy Center, have announced a new joint effort aimed to identify and promote innovative approaches to improving sustainability in agriculture and food production.

The CEO Council on Sustainability and Innovation will officially be launched on Thursday, October 29 by leaders of DuPont, Elanco, Kellogg Company, and Land O’ Lakes. Over the next several months, the council will research, collect and amplify innovative approaches within the agribusiness industry to combat and adapt to the realities of a changing climate and its impacts on food production.

As the event is open to the public, the details are below for the official launch.

WHO:
Jeff Simmons
President, Elanco
@JeffSimmons2050

John A. Bryant
Chairman and CEO, Kellogg Company
@KelloggCompany

Chris Policinski
President and CEO, Land O’ Lakes
@LandOLakesInc

Secretary Dan Glickman
Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
Senior Fellow, BPC
@DanRGlickman

WHEN: Thursday, October 29th 2015 02:00 p.m. to 03:00 p.m. ET
WHERE: Bipartisan Policy Center, 1225 Eye St. NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC, 20005

NCGA Member Earns National Recognition

Taylor TruckeyAg Group, NCGA, sustainability

Nicholas Goeser, SHP, with Tim Smith, award recipient

Nicholas Goeser, SHP with Tim Smith, award recipient

The Champions of Change award recognizes ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things in their communities. The diverse group of farmers, ranchers, researchers and educators were recognized for their exemplary leadership in supporting change in their communities through innovation in agricultural production and education.

In recognition of Tim Smith’s commitment to adopting new practices and teaching others, Smith received the White House Champions of Change award yesterday in Washington. The Soil Health Partnership and Iowa Soybean Association nominated Smith, who also is a member of the National Corn Growers Association.

“Tim Smith truly believes in creating lasting change, and has generously used the knowledge he’s gained to teach others,” said Nicholas Goeser, director of the SHP. “He has shown hundreds if not thousands of farmers, students and others how environmental stewardship can protect the watershed, optimize yields, enhance profits and improve the soil’s overall profile for years to come.”

Smith was one recognized in the “Sustainable and Climate-Smart Agriculture” category. He remembers driving a Model G two-cylinder tractor to plow his family’s farm in North Central Iowa. Today, still farming that same land, Tim is a leader in adopting advanced agricultural practices to improve soil health. Doing so protects the water that ends up in the Gulf of Mexico.

“American agriculture is more advanced and efficient than ever, but making deeper changes in the business of farming will enable us do even better for long-term sustainability,” Smith said. “Losing precious soil is not sustainable. Farmers are becoming more aware of this and the impact it has.”

aWhere to Provide Data to SageInsight’s MyAgCentral

Kelly MarshallAgribusiness, Cloud, Data, Software

aWhere“Farmers don’t need more data, they need smart data delivered to them in an understandable format[…]” says John Corbett, CEO of aWhere.  And smart data is exactly what aWhere and DN2K are working together to accomplish.  aWhere’s weather data and agronomic modeling services will now be avaliable to SageInsight‘s MyAgCentral customers.

As a key contributor of meaningful agricultural big data, aWhere provides high resolution weather data and agronomic modeling services to solutions such as MyAgCentral, a feature rich SaaS solution that manages day-to-day operations for ag retailers, service providers and enterprise growers within a single, visually robust interface.

“aWhere provides high-quality dependable data, which is critical for agricultural decisions and risk management,” said Susan Lambert, CEO of SageInsights, “especially when our customers have their livelihoods on the line due to weather variability and crop health” she added.

USB Appoints 17 New Farmer-Leaders

Kelly MarshallAg Group, Soybeans, USB

Soycheckoff_4CTom Vilsack has appointed 17 farmers from across the country to serve as directors on the United Soybean Board (USB).  The appointees will be sworn in at the upcoming annual meeting in St. Louis.

Five of the directors are newly added, 12 are returning members.  The USDA has also announced that the USB will be increasing their farmer-leaders from 70 to 73 as soybean production in the US increases.  The three new members will be appointed from Missouri, New Jersey, and Wisconsin.

This year’s new volunteer farmer-leaders invest soy checkoff funds on behalf of all U.S. soybean farmers in projects to improve farmer profit potential. With unpredictable prices, growing production worldwide and more competition, U.S. soybean farmers will need more innovation, such as improved seed varieties and technology, new ways of generating demand and new methods for increasing the value they receive from soybean meal and oil.

“We are thrilled to have these farmer-leaders be part of a new chapter with the United Soybean Board,” says Bob Haselwood, USB chairman and soybean farmer from Berryton, Kansas. “The checkoff is dedicated to using advancements in technology to help U.S. soy remain a top choice for our customers, and these farmer-leaders will be instrumental in helping us accomplish that.”

Methane Prototype Hints At Future of Farming

Taylor TruckeyNew Holland, sustainability, Tractor

CNH Industrial - Behind the Wheel - The New Holland Agriculture Methane Power Tractor at Expo 2015 copyA new video produced by CNH Industrial, parent of global agricultural machinery brand New Holland Agriculture, looks at its prototype Methane Power tractor, and what it is capable of achieving during the the Sustainable Farm Pavilion at the 2015 Expo in Milan, Italy.

The alternative fuel technology powering that tractor is a promising cue towards the future of agricultural mechanization, one where farms will be energy independent as well as being able to fundamentally reduce their environmental footprint.


The T6 Methane Power tractor is a second generation prototype based on a standard New Holland T6 tractor. What makes it different from present day machines used for farming is that it is powered by a natural gas engine manufactured by FPT Industrial, also part of CNH Industrial’s brand portfolio. It is a demonstration of the type of innovation and technology that CNH Industrial and its brands are pioneering to increase agricultural productivity and make sustainable farming easier to help feed the world.

In the video, CNH Industrial speaks to representatives from New Holland about the Methane Power tractor’s presence at Expo 2015 as well as its real world testing at the ‘La Bellotta’ farm in Venaria, Italy, where it is undergoing field trials. La Bellotta is the farm where New Holland Agriculture is deploying its “Energy Independent Farm” concept. The objective is to generate the energy it needs from the crops it already grows, alongside recycled waste byproducts, to run its operations and farming equipment. “With biogas innovation, we’ve been able to restart investment and re-employ people. This is the result of a virtuous process,” says Luca Remmert, Owner of La Bellotta Farm in the video.