Email Us
Subscribe in Reader
Browse the Archives
Comment Policy
« February 2008 | Main | April 2008 »
The National Institute for Animal Agriculture, NIAA, is meeting this week in Indianapolis, Indiana. Dave Russell, our Indiana Farm Director, will be there covering the event and representing Brownfield Ag News. Steve Kopperud, our Inside D.C. blogger is a featured speaker at the event.
We are big fans of animal agriculture. So much so that Brownfield Ag News is a Diamond Level sponsor for the NIAA annual meeting.
This has been one of those rare weeks when the Brownfield ag journalists kept noses to the grindstones in their respective studios instead of reporting from 9 different locations in a single day! Other than John and Pete each taking a day or 2 off, the entire team worked "in house" (albeit different houses, as we are scattered across the Midwest.)
Things change rapidly next week as Dave Russell covers the National Institute for Animal Agriculture in Indianapolis and Bob Meyer reports from the WPS Farm Show in OshKosh, Wisconsin. Stay tuned or check the website for coverage!
Each of the past 23 years, anyone who listens to KMMO is invited to lunch on an area farm to celebrate National Agriculture Day. This year's event was held at the Larry and Beverly Holland and Daughters Farm near Marshall, Missouri. The youngest daughter, Lynn Thompson, farms with her parents, growing row crops - corn and soybeans - and backgrounding cattle.
The 23rd Annual KMMO Agriculture Day Celebration was a huge success. I LOVE this event. Brian Sowers, Farm Director at Brownfield affiliate KMMO is a true ambassador for the ag industry and serves his listeners very well year-round. Huge crowds show up. They are fed well and hear from a top-notch line up of speakers. (Brian always invites me to speak, too, which is an honor.)
This year, the keynote speaker was Missouri Director of Agriculture Katie Smith. The execs for Missouri's state pork, cattlemen, corn and soybean associations spoke as did several local dignitaries.
The Holland's posed for a picture with the speakers immediately following the event.
Brownfield Affilliate Relations Manager Mike Cady paid a visit Monday night to Waitt Agribusiness Farm Director Peter Shinn at his home office in Omaha Monday, but not without a little trouble. Pete lives in Midtown Omaha, which is, shall we say, a transitional neighborhood, where some blocks are nice, and some blocks not so nice. Mike ended up in the parking lot of a bar in a not-so-nice block and figured Mapquest had given him the wrong directions, so he called Pete.
"Mike calls me and tells me, 'I think I'm in the wrong neighborhood,'" Pete recounted. "And I told him, 'Oh no, you're right on track. If you want, I'll walk down and get you.'"
So Mike found his way to Pete's home office, which is on a nice block, by the way, and Mike was actually a few minutes early. That turned out to be a problem for Pete, who hadn't yet changed out, shall we say, more casual attire.
So how many professional dairy producers are there in the state of Wisconsin? I'm not sure. I do know that a total of 1,486 attendees from 26 states attended the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin Annual Business Conference. Oh, and Brownfield's Bob Meyer was there, too. He's filed several stories that we have aired on Brownfield affiliate radio stations and featured on the Brownfield website.
Two time Indy 500 champion and television’s Dancing with the Stars winner Helio Castroneves along with NASCAR great and designer of the Iowa Speedway at Newton, Rusty Wallace, made a three stop flying tour of the Midwest on Wednesday. The two were promoting the Iowa Speedway 2008 schedule. Castroneves is scheduled to racing the Iowa Corn Indy 250 on June 22 at Newton.
Representatives of the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the Iowa Corn Promotion Board joined the duo for the Des Moines appearance. Wallace told Brownfield’s Jerry Passer at the Cedar Rapidsstop they enjoyed a great relationship with the commodity group’s involvement in the Speedway.
Both Wallace and Castrovenes said they were very pleased with the performance of ethanol in the Indy series cars, and Wallace said he hopes NASCAR will also use the fuel in the future.
The number of visitors to the Brownfield website is up. We had well over a million page views during the month of February. We're hearing from a lot of viewers who are listening to Brownfield programs on their local radio stations and coming to the website to get more detail.
If you want to know where you can tune in to hear Brownfield reports, just check the radio affiliate page, or contact your favorite radio station.
Julie Harker had a working/celebration lunch today. She and Tom Steever attended a 30th anniversary luncheon for Missouri Corn Growers Association. They interviewed several key industry leaders and dignitaries, including Gary Marshall, CEO of MCGA.
Corn is Missouri's second largest crop in production, producing nearly 300 bushels of corn annually. There are some neat/fun corn facts featured on the Missouri Corn Growers website:
Today is Katie Allen's first day with Brownfield Ag News. As a Senior Ag Journalism major at the University of Missouri, Katie is a great addition to the Brownfield team. Her skill set includes experience in radio and television. She's also done some blogging and freelance writing for a number of publications.
Katie ALSO has a strong production agriculture background. She grew up on a farm in northern Missouri where her family raises cattle, sheep and hogs as well as row crops. A former Missouri State Beef Queen, Katie is the current Missouri State Fair Queen.
In addition to exhibiting livestock, Katie is a past member of the MU Livestock Judging Team.
You'll hear more about our new intern Katie in coming weeks.
Pete Shinn is leaving Las Vegas (National Farmers Union meeting) and headed to Washington D.C. (WIREC.) He sent this missive a few minutes ago:
The National Farmers Union picked a heckuva spot for their annual convention.Five minutes in Las Vegas is enough to make you strongly doubt any media reports you may have heard about an economic downturn in American. People are here to spend money, and the entire infrastructure of this city is designed to take it from them. Of course, there certainly is no downturn in the farm economy, and it's been a year of successes for National Farmers Union, which began taking an increasingly significant role in the farm bill talks since Democrats won control of Congress in November of 2006. NFU members here are celebrating that combination of prosperity and heightened influence on Capitol Hill, and it's made for a fun annual meeting! Oh, and there's been no shortage of news, as the NFU convention drew House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, and U.S. Ag Secretary Ed Schafer, the first time a USDA chief has come to an NFU annual meeting since Dan Glickman in 2000. It's off to D.C. now for me, where cabinet-level officials from more than 70 countries are gathering for the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference, or WIREC. I won't make there it in time to catch Secretary Schafer address that meeting today. But the word is that President Bush will address WIREC tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.
