What’s Fueling Your Grill This Summer?

Jamie JohansenZimmPoll

New Holland ZimmPollOur latest ZimmPoll asked the question, “What should Congress do about COOL?”

Those who chimed in for our recent poll on Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) seem to be leaning towards the creation of a generic North American label. Followed closely by a voluntary program or a repeal for meat products. What will Congress do?…time will tell. Listen to comments from Sec. Vilsack, Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) and the House Ag Committee press conference here.

Here are the poll results:

  • Repeal for meat products – 15%
  • Make program voluntary – 21%
  • Create generic North American label – 36%
  • Delay action as long as possible – 0%
  • Ignore it – 14%
  • Other – 14%

Our new ZimmPoll is now live and asks the question, What fuels your grill?

Many parts of the country are still experiencing mild temps or overly wet conditions. But that doesn’t stop many from pulling out their grills to kick off the summer months. What’s your go to grilling method?

Apply Now for ASA DuPont Young Leader Program

Kelly MarshallAg Group, Agribusiness, ASA, Dupont Pioneer

asaThe American Soybean Association (ASA) and DuPont are seeking applicants for the 2016 ASA DuPont Young Leader Program.

The program is currently in its 30th year and has helped grow developing leaders in the field of agriculture.  There are two parts to the training program; the first at DuPont headquarters in Johnston, IA Dec. 1-4, 2015, and the second in New Orleans, LA March 1-4, 2016.

Dupont Pioneer“The ASA DuPont Young Leader program has been a game changer for not only the soybean industry but all of agriculture,” said ASA President Wade Cowan . “The program provides industry-leading training that helps unleash participant’s leadership potential while fostering collaboration among farmers throughout the U.S. and Canada. Grower participants gain experience and build life-long friendships. From the time the program began in 1984, it has recognized the important roles that women and young farmers play in agriculture and we are proud of the strength of that heritage. We’re also extremely grateful to DuPont for their longstanding support of the program.”

Grower couples and individuals are encouraged to apply for the program which focuses on leadership and communication, agricultural information and the development of a strong peer network. ASA, its 26 state affiliates, including the Grain Farmers of Ontario and DuPont, will work together to identify the top producers to represent their state as part of this program.

Applications are being accepted online now! Interested applicants should click here to apply. For additional program information click here.

BASF Opens New Research Station in India

Kelly MarshallBASF, Fungicides, Herbicides, Insecticide, Research, Uncategorized

basf-150A new BASF research station in Pune, India will focus on the areas of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and other solutions beyond crop protection products.  Experts in biology, farm managements, and workers have been hired for the new facitlity.

The center will research ares of global interest for the agriculture community, but it will also investigate issues specific to India, such as specific weeks, pests, and climate stresses.  The hope is to aid farmers in making decisions and improve production of the entire cultivation cycle.

“Raising agriculture productivity to meet the increasing demand for quality and quantity of food, is one of the most important challenges facing our country. By setting up a new R&D center in India, BASF aims to actively look into both local and global topics and develop sustainable solutions to help farmers to solve their challenges and improve food output to feed the growing population in India,” said Raman Ramachandran, Chairman and Managing Director, BASF India Ltd. and Head of BASF South Asia.

The center will contribute to tailor-made solutions for India’s agriculture while moving towards BASF’s strategic goal to innovate from Asia Pacific, for Asia Pacific and the world. “Our role is to partner with farmers and to work with them to protect the land they hold in trust for future generations and to meet the evolving expectations of society. The team in India will contribute to these goals by driving the development of new active ingredients, new formulations, and technologies,” said Markus Heldt, President of BASF’s Crop Protection Division.

With agricultural research stations in different parts of the world, BASF can conduct trials all year around, under different climate and agricultural conditions in order to get a better understanding of how its products perform in the field. Pune will become BASF’s fifth Agricultural Research Station, in addition to those already in Brazil, Spain, Germany, and the Philippines. In total, BASF spends more than €500 million annually on global agricultural R&D showing its commitment to bring sustainable solutions to the agricultural market.

Vilsack Dedicates Additional Acres to CRP

Kelly MarshallCRP, USDA

USDA_logo_svgSecretary Tom Vilsack has revealed that an additional 800,000 acres of highly environmentally sensitive land may be enrolled in CRP.  Under certain wetland and wildlife initiatives owners may be eligible for multiple benefits on the same land.  Sign-up for the program is scheduled for Dec. 1, 2015- Feb. 26, 2016.  Current program participants whose contracts expire in Sept. 2015 will be offered a one-year extension.  Farmers and ranchers who desire to plant grasses or trees for soil erosion, improve water quality and restore wildlife habitat on sensitive land currently in agriculture production are encouraged to enroll.

“For 30 years, the Conservation Reserve Program has supported farmers and ranchers as they continue to be good stewards of land and water. This initiative has helped farmers and ranchers prevent more than 8 billion tons of soil from eroding, reduce nitrogen and phosphorous runoff relative to cropland by 95 and 85 percent respectively, and even sequester 43 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, equal to taking 8 million cars off the road,” said Vilsack. “This has been one of most successful conservation programs in the history of the country, and today’s announcement keeps that momentum moving forward.”

“CRP protects water quality and restores significant habitat for ducks, pheasants, turkey, quail, deer and other important wildlife. That spurs economic development like hunting and fishing, outdoor recreation and tourism all over rural America,” said Vilsack. “Today we’re allowing an additional 800,000 acres for duck nesting habitat and other wetland and wildlife habitat initiatives to be enrolled in the program.”

Vilsack encourages all farmers and ranchers to consider a CRP initiative that targets their specific resource concerns. “Financial assistance is offered for many practices including conservation buffers and pollinator habitat plantings, and initiatives such as the highly erodible lands, bottomland hardwood tree and longleaf pine, all of which are extremely important,” he says.

Farmers and ranchers may visit their FSA county office for additional information. The 2014 Farm Bill authorized the enrollment of grasslands in CRP and information on grasslands enrollment will be available after the regulation is published later this summer.

USDA Releases Apps to Maximize Productivity

Kelly MarshallGovernment, technology, USDA

USDA_logo_svgThe USDA is expecting the release of a suite of mobile phone apps that can connect producers around the world.  The apps will allow growers to share knowledge about productivity and sustainability.

The first two apps, “LandInfo” and “LandCover,” were released recently and will allow smart phone users to collect and share soil and land-cover information and access global climate data.  Jeff Herrick, a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist and cooperators developed the apps as part of a project called the “Land Potential Knowledge System” (LandPKS).

“The LandPKS is a global network of open-source databases and computer simulation models that anyone with a mobile phone and a wireless or cellular data connection will be able to access,” explained Herrick, with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

LandInfo and LandCover are currently available on Android and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. Availability on other platforms, including iPhones, is planned by the end of the year.

LandInfo’s primary objective is to make collecting soil data easier for non-soil scientists; however, the app does provide some useful feedback, including how much water the soil can store for plants to use, average monthly temperature and precipitation, and the length of the growing season based on the user’s location.

LandCover simplifies collecting data for land-cover inventories and monitoring. In fact, a yard or meter stick with five notches is all that’s needed to document tree, grass, bare ground and crop-residue cover. The app automatically generates basic indicators of these cover types on the phone. Once a connection is established, the app sends the data to servers, where it will be stored and accessible to users worldwide.

A future app (LandPotential) will use the LandInfo information together with Internet cloud-based models and additional knowledge bases to help users identify and select management systems that increase production while reducing soil erosion.

Sharing knowledge becomes specially important as we work towards meeting the needs of 2050.  To learn more you can visit LandPotential.org.

Paul Ryan Visits CNH Plant

Kelly MarshallAgribusiness, Case IH, Dealers, Government, New Holland

ryan-caseU.S. Congressman Paul Ryan toured CNH Industrial‘s plant in Racine, WI last week.  He met with management, toured the plant, and attended a town hall forum.

Congressman Ryan chairs the Ways and Means Committee in the US House.  He met with chief officers and members of CNH Industrial’s North American management team to discuss manufacturing and trade issues.

“Our employees around the world are tied together by a common purpose, to be a leading provider of products and services to professional industrial equipment and commercial vehicle customers,” said Richard Tobin, Chief Executive Officer of CNH Industrial. “Congressman Ryan is attuned to the needs of our company and has been a supporter of trade policies that will continue to allow our products to compete in both our domestic and export markets.”

“There is robust demand for Wisconsin-made goods across the globe and we need to make sure our businesses and workers successfully reach the 96 percent of consumers that live outside the U.S.,” said First District Congressman Paul Ryan. “There is no doubt that Wisconsin’s manufacturers, including CNH Industrial, will benefit from expanded trade policies.”

The Racine plant manufactures equipment for CNH Industrial’s agriculture brands, including Case IH and New Holland Agriculture.  They employ approximately 2,400 workers, who were able to voice opinions and ask the congressman questions during a town hall meeting that followed the plant tour.  Participants discussed manufacturing, trade issues, and economic issues.  The congressman was also treated to a ride and drive in a new Case IH Magnum Rowtrac.

Keep MOM in Mind with Nutrient Management

Cindy ZimmermanAudio, Conservation, Fertilizer, Growmark, Nitrogen, Nutrient Management

howard-brownMother’s Day was last month but Howard Brown tells farmers they should keep MOM in mind on the farm every day.

“It’s all about MOM and if we embrace that philosophy, we’d all be better off,” says Dr. Brown, GROWMARK director of nutrient management and environmental stewardship. “Agriculture’s MOM is Minimizing environmental impact by Optimizing harvest yield and Maximizing input utilization.”

Brown says every year is a new year when it comes to nutrient management on the farm and this year the amount of available nitrogen is lower in many areas as a result of consecutive record crops. “Last year’s crop did a great job from the standpoint of harvest yield for most farmers, at the same time it did a great job harvesting nutrients,” said Brown. His advice to farmers is to manage environmental risk like they manage economic risk, and spread nitrogen out over time.

Tn-watchhe N-Watch program was developed by Dr. Brown as a tool to estimate the concentration of plant-available N throughout the year. The program started with 45 sites in Illinois and continues to grow. “Currently we are looking at over 900 sites from Nebraska to southern Ontario,” said Brown. “The purpose is really to help farmers understand the nitrogen cycle better.”

Farmers can see how that information can be helpful through a new N-Watch affiliated program with the Illinois Council on Best Management Practices (C-BMP) called Sentinel Sites that provides abbreviated and anonymous local farmer N-WATCH Reports to learn more about the dynamics of N in the soil profile.

Learn more in this interview with Dr. Brown. [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/growmark/growmark-may-howard.mp3″ text=”Interview with Howard Brown, GROWMARK”]

The Farmers Business Network Mission

Chuck ZimmermanAgribusiness, Apps, Cloud, Data

ZimmCast 476In a very short amount of time the Farmers Business Network (FBN) has not only registered a lot of farmers as members but also millions of acres. This means there is a big and growing amount of data in the system.

fbnIn this week’s ZimmCast you can listen to Charles Baron, co-founder, talk about what the Farmers Business Network has been created to do. He also talks about the recent $15 million in funding the company has received, led by Google Ventures. The company has caught the eye of some serious Silicon Valley investment! Charles is pictured below.

FBN Farmer Launch Party in Davenport, IA.

FBN Farmer Launch Party, Davenport, IA.

FBN intends to use the new funding to grow its platform nationally and work with more farmers. “Farmers have been advising each other for thousands of years. FBN gives them a platform to do so with real information on a massive scale, so they can make the most informed decisions,” said FBN Co-Founder Charles Baron. “This funding will allow us to reach even more farmers in more crops, so they can make the best decisions for their land.” Charles says they’re holding a series of launch parties across the corn belt right now to introduce themselves to more farmers.

Charles BaronA unique element of FBN is the independent nature of their network which provides data from real farmers solely for member use and their advisors. Right now the network has been focused on the midwest but with expansion plans it will soon be coast to coast and perhaps in the future, worldwide.

One FBN member says:

“FBN is exactly what I was looking for,” said Steve Pitstick, a farmer in Maple Park, IL. “It gives me the ability to see information from top producers on so many more acres so I can learn quicker and make decisions with more confidence.”

Here’s what FBN members get:

  • advanced analytics
  • comprehensive yield benchmarking
  • real world seed performance
  • matching on over 490 varieties
  • practice analytics and more

FBN can integrate over 35 different formats of farm data. They will clean and standardize it and then network thousands of fields together. In just six months, FBN has analyzed 7 million acres of data in the United States, and has been growing at 30% per month.

Farmers can become a member of FBN by registering online for a simple $500 annual fee.

Learn more about Farmers Business Network in this week’s program: [wpaudio url=”http://www.zimmcomm.biz/zimmcast/zimmcast476-5-28-15.mp3″ text=”Farmers Business Network”]

Subscribe to the ZimmCast podcast here.

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Iteris Announces Decision Support for Growers

Kelly MarshallAgribusiness, Apps, Iteris, technology

IterisLogoClearAg is the name of the new informations solution that is now avaliable from Iteris, Inc..  ClearAg offers a feature that supports precision farmers in the decision-making process.  Crop Health Advisory Services assists in clarifying what is happening in fields, with endpoints for planting and harvest timing, pest and disease emergence, crop nutrition, crop canopy conditions, and irrigation.

This program is accessible through the web or by a programmatic data service via APIs that integrate with other third-party ag software.

“With the production release of our ClearAg APIs and ClearAg App, we look forward to equipping the agriculture industry with the highest quality, field-level weather, water, global soil and crop health information for effective farm operations,” said Tom Blair, senior vice president of Iteris’ Performance Analytics Division. “Following positive and constructive feedback from our ClearAg beta program, general availability of our ClearAg App and ClearAg APIs enable agribusinesses and growers to understand what is going on in their fields at any given moment. Whether they are in the field or in the office, whether they use the ClearAg App, or their own App empowered by ClearAg APIs, we are committed to empowering our customers with the best information so they can make better, faster, and more informed decisions from seed selection to planting and harvest timing.”

The new ClearAg precision farming services follow previous product launches of ClearAg Select field-level precision weather and ClearAg Prime global soil application services. Together, ClearAg decision support products optimize crop production, maximize farm management resources, increase crop yield, and improve field operations.

ClearAg’s patented technologies combine global, multi-sensor weather analyses, ensemble-based weather forecasting, customized soil modeling, and a staff of expert meteorologists to create what we believe to be the most accurate, science-based environmental information available. ClearAg leverages Iteris’ precision weather and global soil content with the power of agronomic models to solve complex agricultural challenges.

Grand Opening for John Deere Museum on June 13

John DavisAgribusiness, John Deere

jdmuseum1It opened its doors last December, but next month, the John Deere Tractor & Engine Museum will celebrate its official grand opening. This company news release says the museum in Waterloo, Iowa, will have various activities including a ribbon cutting ceremony, demonstrations, food vendors and a temporary outdoor display of more than 60 tractors Saturday, June 13 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and coincides with the city’s My Waterloo Days.

“We are thrilled to commemorate the opening of this museum and what better time than during a community-wide celebration showcasing Waterloo’s cultural and recreational opportunities,” said Dawn Hendershot, Project Manager of the John Deere Tractor & Engine Museum. “Our Museum is located on the original site of the Waterloo Tractor Works, and our exhibits highlight the rich history and dynamic growth of the tractor business at John Deere. The community of Waterloo plays a big role in that history and in the success of the world’s largest provider of agricultural equipment. We look forward to celebrating our history with residents and guests of Waterloo and the surrounding community.”

All events taking place outside the facility on June 13 are free of charge. Guests wanting to tour the museum will receive two dollars off their admission price during the grand opening if they wear a My Waterloo Days button.