ZimmCast 745 - ZimmComm Announcement & NAFB and NAMA interviews
ZimmCast
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman. In this episode I’m going to share a couple of interviews from the NAMA Agri-Marketing Conference. One is with Gardner Hatch, Executive Director, NAFB and Debbie Boyle, Vice President, Kynetic. They talk about a new NAFB listener survey. Then I have an interview with Melanie Rice, Brownfield Ag News, about becoming the new President of NAMA. Before I do this I’m going to talk about a ZimmComm announcement Cindy and I published last week. Basically, we are retiring from business travel starting at the end of 2025. Besides our 21...
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ZimmCast 744 - Agri-Pulse Summit & Ad Day
ZimmCast
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman. The first day of spring started the day after the annual Agri-Pulse Ag & Food Summit and National Ag Day Activities. We have published virtual newsrooms on our AgNewsWire website and story posts on AgWired. So, in this episode I'd like to share a few of the interviews and audio from the events. I'll start out with Agri-Pulse. You can listen to the opening remarks from Ireland’s Ambassador to the United States Geraldine Byrne Nason. Next will be Jim Sutter, CEO, USSEC and then Jane Franch, Sr. Director, Climate Impact, Pivot Bio....
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ZimmCast 743 - Syngenta at Commodity Classic
ZimmCast
In this episode I’m going to share some Commodity Classic which was almost at the highest attendance ever. We were in the Mile High city of Denver, CO. The weather was mostly perfect but we did have some wind, rain and snow at the end. Next year the event will take place in San Antonio. Once again Syngenta made my trip to Classic possible. So, in the program I have with me the following: Eric Boeck, Regional Director of North America Seeds, Syngenta Jeff Cecil, Crop Protection Marketing Head, Syngenta North America Steve Sterchi, Product and Commercial Strategy Lead, Syngenta North America...
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ZimmCast 742 - Cattle and Crop Insurance
ZimmCast
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman. In this episode I’m going to share some interviews with last week’s CattleCon 2025 and CIRB Annual Mtg. I was in San Antonio while Cindy was in Bonita Springs, FL. This is definitely the busy time! So, let’s get started with CattleCon. I talked with Colin Woodall, CEO, NCBA who says they were going to break 8,500 attending. Additionally, he talks about the top issues the organization is working on. Next I have Kevin Good, VP Industry Relations, CattleFax. Kevin gave a full presentation on the stage during the CattleFax...
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ZimmCast 741 - Clean Fuels in 2025
ZimmCast
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman. While Cindy was home during the major snow storm in Florida I was attending the Clean Fuels Conference in San Diego, CA. The weather was delightful for the conference. However, in the Pensacola, FL area there was eight to ten inches of snow, something that hasn’t happened in over 150 years! But it has all melted and we’re mostly back to normal. So, let’s talk about clean fuels. We created a virtual ag newsroom once again for the conference that used to be named the National Biodiesel Conference. It was the first one we created...
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ZimmCast 740 - Outlook for U. S. Cotton
ZimmCast
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman. ZimmComm is now entering its 21st year. Who would have thought? We officially announced our company at the 2004 National Agri-Marketing Conference. We had our first booth at the conference in 2005 which means we’ve exhibited for twenty of them! I thought you might like to hear the first audio podcast I recorded in January of 2005. We were just starting to figure out what we could do with our AgWired blog. It’s a short episode. I’m going to share some other audio after this. So, that was the start and it has sure changed over the...
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ZimmCast 739 - Happy New Year Episode
ZimmCast
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman along with Cindy Zimmerman. Welcome to another year of agriblogging and farm podcasting. It’s hard to believe that we’re coming close to 21 years since we started ZimmComm in 2004. Cindy and I have worked together in the ag marcom field for about 21 years before that. Now we’re doing some thinking and planning for 2025. I sense that this year will be a big one for us We’ve already got plans made for the same conferences during the upcoming months. We traveled to work at 20 different events last year. So, we’ll see how things go...
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ZimmCast 738 - Reaction to Elections
ZimmCast
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman. In this episode I’m going to share some interviews from the NAFB Trade Talk about reactions from the recent presidential election. I’m going to include Mary Kay Thatcher, Syngenta Sr. Manager, Federal Government and Industry Relations; Brian Jennings, ACE CEO; Geoff Cooper, RFA CEO and Ethan Lane, NCBA, VP of Government Affairs. Adding to these interviews, Cindy recently interviewed Kip Tom, Indiana farmer and served as the Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture during President Trump’s previous...
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ZimmCast 737 - Preview of 2024 AgGateway Annual Conference
ZimmCast
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. In this episode we’ll get a preview of the AgGateway Annual Conference that will be starting November 11th in Austin. I talked with Brent Kemp, President and CEO, about what AgGateway works to accomplish and what the schedule looks like. I’ll be there to take photos and collect some good interviews and session audio. I’ll be going straight from there to Kansas City for a day of the NAFB Convention before heading back to ZimmComm World Headquarters. Looking over the last years that I’ve attended AgGateway meetings it seems to just continue to...
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ZimmCast 736 - Syngenta Media Summit Focus on Advancing Innovation
ZimmCast
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. In this episode I am going to share some audio from the recent Syngenta Media Summit 2024 that was held in the new crop protection facility in Greensboro, NC. I am grateful for the opportunity to be with a group of agricultural journalists and have personal time with Syngenta leadership. You’ll hear more about the new facility. I have created a virtual newsroom on AgNewsWire that contains photos as well as interviews and other audio for ag media to use. I’ve picked out the welcome we had from Jeff Cecil, Head of North America Crop Protection Marketing, in...
info_outlineHello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman.
Last week the Ag Innovation Campus held its grand opening in Crookston, MN. You can see lots of photos and interviews in the virtual newsroom I published on AgNewsWire.com. I’m going to share some of those interviews in the episode.
Before getting to the AIC facility I met a group of farmers and other ag leaders in Fargo, ND to tour the Northern Crops Institute. This is a collaborative effort among Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota to support the promotion and market development of crops grown in this four-state region and it is situated on the campus of North Dakota State University, in Fargo. I’ll share my interview with Mark Jirik, Director, who will describe the unique work they do there.
After that we got on a bus and traveled to the Riverview Waukon Dairy where I met David Yost who will provide an overview of the large and very impressive facility they have built.
Then we moved on to Crookston, MN to the Ag Innovation Campus. We had presentations from a variety of people who have played a part in the success of reaching phase one of the facility and a ribbon cutting. I talked with several leaders about the work that the AIC will do to deliver crops and processing technologies from bench top to commercialization. Think of the term, crush facility, and you’ll hear more about this staring with Tom Slunecka, Acting AIC CEO. Next we’ll hear from Mike Skaug, AIC Board Member. Finally in this episode you can hear from the AIC Plant Manger, Kent Meyers.
That’s the ZimmCast for this week. I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for listening.