Wednesday December 30 Ag News

Final Four in Farm Bureau Rural Entrepreneurship Challenge Prepare for January Competition

An intense round of competition is expected when the final four competitors pitch their business ideas to a team of judges during the Farm Bureau Rural Entrepreneurship Challenge at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 97th Annual Convention and IDEAg Trade Show in Orlando, Florida, in January. A live feed of the finals competition will be available starting at 10:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, Jan. 10, at Newsroom.fb.org

AFBF announced the final four national competitors in October, when each was awarded $15,000. The challenge, now in its second year, provides opportunities for individuals to showcase business innovations being developed in rural regions of the U.S. It is the first national business competition focused exclusively on rural entrepreneurs working on food and agriculture businesses

The final four will pitch their business ideas to a team of judges in front of a live audience in hopes of winning the Rural Entrepreneur of the Year Award for an additional $15,000 and the People's Choice Award for $10,000 more, totaling prize money of up to $40,000 to implement their ideas. The winners of the competition will be announced in the morning on Monday, Jan. 11.

The finalist businesses competing in January were chosen from 165 applicants:

    AccuGrain http://photos.fb.org/index.php/2016-Farm-Bureau-Challenge-Participants/Iowa/AccuGrain; (Rose Hill, Iowa), ag tech entry, X-ray technology to inventory flowing grain in real time. Team lead: Ryan Augustine.

    AgriSync http://photos.fb.org/index.php/2016-Farm-Bureau-Challenge-Participants/Iowa/AgriSync; (Dallas Center, Iowa), ag tech entry, mobile customer support platform for crop farmers. Team lead: Casey Niemann.

    Farm Specific Technology http://photos.fb.org/index.php/2016-Farm-Bureau-Challenge-Participants/Tennessee/Farm_Specific_Technology; (Bolivar, Tennessee), ag tech entry, no-till crimper for cover crop production. Team lead: Shawn Butler.

    Fedora Malthouse http://photos.fb.org/index.php/2016-Farm-Bureau-Challenge-Participants/Michigan/Fedora_Malthouse; (Village of Shepherd, Michigan), value-added processing entry, malted barley production for use by craft beer brewers. Team lead: Julie Baker.

"The Farm Bureau Rural Entrepreneurship Challenge is directly tied to AFBF's mission of building strong and prosperous agricultural communities," AFBF President Bob Stallman said.

"We can all learn something from the great ideas put forward by the final four competitors for successful businesses in their local communities."

The top challenge teams were selected by 40 judges with expertise in business development, equity investment fund management, agribusiness lending and entrepreneurial coaching.



NCGA Accepting Applications for Reaching for Excellence Award

Over the decades, state associations representing corn farmers have developed innovative solutions to address a variety of challenges.  To recognize these achievements, the National Corn Growers Association has created the Reaching for Excellence Award. This award will be given to spotlight new approaches and encourage implementation of such advances in other states facing similar challenges.

NCGA's Grower Services Action Team announced this new award at their December meeting in St. Louis.

"Any state corn association or state checkoff board program, project, process, procedure, or strategy that has significantly advanced the mission of their association is eligible," said GSAT Chairwoman Patti Mann, a farmer from Ohio. "The goal of the program is to not only recognize excellence across state's programs and training but, also, to provide the details for other states that need help in those same areas." 

While there is not a formal application, state grower associations and/or state checkoff boards interested in applying should supply a two to three-page narrative that includes the following elements:
-    Program Summary - a precise two to three-paragraph description of the program, the need it addressed and its outcome.
-    Program Description - What was the level of effort required and resources used? How many staff members, consultants or volunteers were involved? What were their roles? What was the estimated cost of implementation?  Did the program collaborate with other ag or community groups?
-    Program Evaluation - Describe the qualified or quantified performance outcomes for the program.  Why do you consider this program a success?  What advice or recommendations would you have for others considering your program?

Please submit the outlined two to three-page narrative documenting programmatic excellence by Friday, January 22, 2016.  All submissions should be sent to Steve Uram (uram@ncga.com) or Rita Abney (abney@ncga.com).  A panel, comprised of members of the Grower Services Action Team, will select the winner.  All submissions will be posted on ShareFile to better facilitate the sharing of ideas and successes among NCGA's state affiliate organizations.

The winning state and program will be recognized during the NCGA Awards Banquet at the 2016 Commodity Classic in New Orleans, La.



FDA gives food industry more time to define ‘natural’

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has agreed to give food industry groups more time to weigh in on what "natural" should denote on product labels.

The agency asked the public to comment in November on whether it should define the term and set guidelines for its use on food products, including those that are genetically engineered or made with genetically engineered ingredients.

Public comments were originally due Feb. 10, but the Natural Products Association (NPA) asked the FDA for an additional 90 days to gather input from its members.

“Defining ‘natural’ is a major undertaking, and NPA feels that no harm will result from FDA extending the comment period due to the interest, significance, and complexities surrounding the topic,” Dan Fabricant, the group’s executive director and CEO, said in a news release earlier this month.

Although the FDA has not yet engaged in a formal rulemaking to define the term “natural,” the agency said it has long considered it to mean that nothing artificial or synthetic, including color additives, was used in producing the food.

The public now has until May 10 to submit comments.



Website takes ‘FReSH’ look at agricultural safety and health

A plethora of agricultural safety and health information is available by typing a few key words into a search engine, but trying to synthesize and validate the masses of content can be difficult. The Farm & Ranch eXtension in Safety and Health (FReSH) Community of Practice (CoP), www.extension.org/agsafety, gathers and disseminates practical, research-driven information.

FReSH obtains most of its content from the Cooperative Extension system based at land-grant universities, and from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) agricultural centers. But FReSH also works with smaller organizations such as Farm Safety for Just Kids and AgriSafe Network to disseminate their resources as well.

The CoP is a collaborative effort between universities, industry, and government, with more than 100 individual members from multiple regions of the country who review and produce agriculture safety and health information. These members work to provide usable resources such as videos, publications, online safety courses, and webinars to the general rural population, agricultural producers, and agricultural safety and health professionals.  Financial support for the project is provided by the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture; eXtension; and CHS Inc.

“The aim of eXtension is to summarize the health and safety information that is out there.  We don’t want to duplicate anything.  The goal is to get the information all in one place where people can find it and be brought to the original sources,” said Aaron Yoder, the CoP Leader of FReSH.

FReSH is currently working to integrate ag safety and health information related to food systems and climate change, including information on wearable technology throughout the food system. Wearable technology such as smart watches and fitness technology have the potential to provide safety to field workers, including the ability to detect heat illness. Members of the CoP are examining the entire system of food production to determine where useful messaging for safety and health can be distributed.



Hershey Rejects Sugar Beets Because of GMO Concerns

Something was different about a lot of the Hershey's kisses in your stocking this year: The popular chocolates no longer contain sugar made in Minnesota. For decades, the Hershey Co. has used sugar made from both sugar beets and sugar cane, but it decided earlier this year to stop buying beet sugar because it comes from genetically modified, or GM, seeds that some consumers don't like.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that Hershey, with 2014 sales of $7.4 billion and more than 80 brands of candy sold around the world, was a huge customer for beet sugar farmers, and its decision was significant enough to be noted earlier this month at two annual shareholder meetings of sugar beet cooperatives.

David Berg, president and CEO of American Crystal Sugar in Moorhead, Minn., the nation's largest sugar beet co-op, told members gathered in Fargo, N.D., that the anti-GM movement is one of the industry's biggest challenges. And Kurt Wickstrom, president and CEO of Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative in Wahpeton, N.D., said that anti-GM groups are a real threat whose claims need to be countered.

Hershey communications director Jeff Beckman confirmed that the kisses and many other products stocked on shelves since Halloween no longer contain beet sugar. The company also is transitioning away from artificial to natural ingredients, he said.

Minnesota is the top sugar beet producer in the nation, followed by Idaho and North Dakota, and industry officials would not disclose how much of their sugar is sold to candy companies. About 55 percent of domestic U.S. sugar is produced from sugar beets, and nearly 100 percent of the beet seeds are genetically modified to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.



Calif. Snowpack 136% of Normal

(AP) -- Officials in drought-stricken California say the water content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack has measured 136% of normal for this time of year.

Frank Gehrke of the Department of Water Resource said Wednesday he is encouraged by the manual measurement taken Wednesday in the Central Sierra, which includes Lake Tahoe.

However, he says the parched state has a long way to go before the drought is over.

Gehrke says the measurement marks an improvement over the previous survey taken in April, when no snow was found at the site.

Gehrke's survey followed an electronic measurement last week that put the water content of the snowpack at 112% of normal.

Even more snow has fallen since then.



National Farmers Convention ’16 Spotlights Transitions, Climate Change, Sustainable Ag

National Farmers 2016 national convention, themed Serving Agriculture for 60 Years, Jan. 25-27, East Peoria, Ill., offers a speaker lineup with professionals who help American producers with real solutions for their farms.

Convention Speakers & Topics

“National Security, Climate Change and the American Farmer: How they all Fit Together and What the Future Holds”
Dr. Chris King, dean of academics, Command and General Staff College, Army Combined Arms Center, Ft. Leavenworth, Kan. He is the U.S. member of an international military advisory council on security and climate change.

“Transition Planning: A Process, not an Event”
Curt Ferguson, J.D., The Estate Planning Center, Salem, Ill. The transfer of a farm from one generation to the next is an ongoing process. Curt Ferguson will share a strategy for tax-efficient transfer of opportunity, control and capital to successors.

“Farm Policy Perspectives: Past, Present, and Future”
John Ikerd, Ph.D., professor emeritus of agricultural and applied economics, University of Missouri-Columbia. Ikerd has published a variety of books and papers about small farming and sustainable agriculture.

‘The Land of Milk and Uncle Honey: Memories from the Farm of My Youth”
Alan Guebert, Delavan, Ill., award-winning agricultural journalist and co-author of the book with the same title as his presentation, will share his humor with convention-goers. Guebert co-authored the book with his daughter, Mary Grace Foxwell.

“Grain Marketing in Risky Times”
Pete Lorenz, Beloit, Kan., senior National Farmers Grain Marketing Plus Analyst, will talk about the combination of strategies producers can use to harvest the best revenue in narrow-margin times. He will highlight the “Grain Marketing in Risky Times” Midwestern meeting series, as well.

“Organic Grain Demand and Import Impacts”
Grain Division Director Tim Ennis and NForganics Field Representative Tim Boortz will highlight key certified organic grain fundamentals and how organic crops on the other side of the world affect U.S. certified organic grain producers.

“Young Cattlemen Success Panel”
Nexus Ag Marketing, a subsidiary of National Farmers, presents the Livestock Division commodity workshop, bringing you the perspectives of three young producers who have succeeded in cattle production and marketing, in their family operations, along with an agricultural lender who works with producers like them.

“Animal Well-being on a Wisconsin Dairy Farm”
National Farmers Field Representative and Dairy Farmer Ashley Peterson will emphasize how cow health and comfort lead to high quality milk. She’ll share how she and her family achieve this on their operation.

“Family Farm, Family Endeavor”
National Farmers Wisconsin Board Member Don Hamm, will share how his family co-labors, spearheading the majority of the work on their 300-cow dairy. This allows the Hamm family to participate at church and school, and in 4-H, National Farmers and local government.

Today's National Farmers members represent a cross-section of both conventional and organic production - grain growers, cattle producers and dairymen and women.

For agricultural producers, belonging to National Farmers offers access to marketing, health and crop insurance, and a gamut of dairy, grain and livestock risk management services from professionals who really want farmers and ranchers to succeed.

National Farmers’ 2016 annual meeting and convention will be held at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Riverfront Hotel and Conference Center, 100 Conference Center Drive, East Peoria, Illinois.