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March 12, 2012
This Week In Ag 0046 - Jesse Bussard, on social media in agriculture

How does Jesse Bussard use digital and social media in the field and working with cattle? This episode shares what she does and some of the approaches to connecting with people via technology.

Show notes: Conversation with Jesse Bussard.

  • Your twitter profile says "Animal Scientist, Crop Science grad student". What are you studying and why?
December 20, 2011
This Week In Ag 0045 - Matija Kopic, Farmeron, aims to change the way farming is done today.

Farmeron aims to change the way farming is done today, by challenging traditional assumptions and using software to advance farming production.

Show notes: Conversation with Matija Kopic, CEO at Farmeron.

  • When you Google Farmeron = "Changing the way farming is done today". What does that mean? What about farming today that needs changing?
  • Who is Farmeron aimed at?
August 15, 2011
Ag Econ 101

The economics of agriculture is core to functioning societies. The ability to understand crop growth, trade functions, and identify trends is important to the billions of people that depend of food every day. These resources are good starting points to understand economics and how to apply it to agriculture.

March 4, 2011
This Week In Ag 0029 - Farmers Using Mobile Shared at South by Southwest

Farmers do use mobile and those at South by Southwest will learn more. Nathan Wright shares what the panel will discuss and what he expects the audience to take away.

Show notes
Nathan Wright, founder of Lava Row, talks about the How Farmers Get Serious Business Done With Mobile panel at
South by Southwest.

February 22, 2011
This Week In Ag 0027 - What is the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service?

How does FSIS operate and what are its core missions?

Show notes

Conversation with Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety, which includes the Food Safety and Inspection Service.

  • Can you start by sharing what the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service or FSIS is focused on and what its core missions are? What is FSIS main role/mission in protecting people from food borne hazards?
  • What is the size and scope of the FSIS (employees and budget)?
February 15, 2011
This Week In Ag 0026 - How Can Data Help Ag Air Quality?

Fresh air and farms? Purdue University recently wrapped up a two year study aimed at understanding how animal agriculture impacts air quality.

Show notes

Animal feeding operations (AFOs) house large numbers of animals for production of meat, dairy products and eggs. EPA is examining data from emissions monitoring at a number of AFOs as the agency works to develop improved methodologies for estimating AFO emissions. Dr. Albert J. Heber, Professor in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University, shares the history of this effort and what happens next with the data.

  • Why was the National Air Emissions Study started?
January 13, 2011
Agriculture Answering the Call of Smartphones

Agriculture software is starting to be developed for smartphones. These applications will enhance the productivity and save time for many agri-business people because they are portable and easily available.

Updated August 11, 2011: The Apple iPhone, now in it's 4th year, has brought a dramatic shift in how we communicate with people and access information. Key is the integration of widely available software with an always on Internet connection. The iPhone has driven other companies to introduce their own mobile phone ecosystems, greatly increasing the choices for consumers.

January 13, 2011
Agriculture Crowdsourcing

Smart phones, as data collection devices, provide a channel back to research labs, helping improve the analysis and understanding of the data.

Smart phones are a unique tool for those doing research and are in need of field data collection. These sample apps use the smart phone and crowdsourcing to bring data from the field into a lab database. These apps help anyone with an interest in the science to report back observations and sightings of environmental or disease issues. The labs are able to expand their reach in terms of data collection and offer back to others the data for land or operation management decision making.

January 13, 2011
Agriculture Information Resource Apps

Sometimes you just want to look something up. These apps offer specialized dictionaries or databases for niche information areas in agriculture.

These are a collection of specialized smart phone agriculture apps. These types of apps are primarily used as a lookup tool, either to help identify species, review a piece of regulation, or get the specifics on an issue.

January 13, 2011
Agriculture News Apps

A sample of agriculture focused news applications. Most are actual applications while Syngenta Farm Mobile is a web site whose content is mobile focused. More smart phone agriculture news applications available.

January 13, 2011
Weather Apps

Weather is of interest to everyone and for everyone there is a weather app to suit their need.

This is a sample of smart phone weather applications. This is one application area where there are many variations on the weather theme. Apple has a dedicated weather application page and the Android Market Place offers a similar set of applications.

January 12, 2011
General News Services Apps

What are some of the major news providers offering to mobile users?

This is just a sample of the news services that offer their information through a mobile application or a mobile focused web page.

January 10, 2011
Genetically Modified Organisms

Are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) misunderstood by the public because of the images used to inform? These resources should help provide some insight on genetically modified organisms and what some of the science entails.

December 13, 2010
Can Ethanol and Politics Mix?

What is so hot about ethanol that it brings out the hard core politics and lobbying?

Including extensions to the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) is one of the actions taken up by the 111th U.S. Congress. This extension seeks to continue the 45-cents per gallon credit given to fuel blenders. What is the VEECT? From Bioenergy Wiki:

November 30, 2010
This Week In Ag 0020 - What Is An Agnerd?

Kathy Swift explains how Agnerds formed and what it means to be one.

Show notes

  • What is an AgNerd?
  • Thanks to Chris Raines (@itweetmeat) for the #agnerd hashtag.
  • A fun unofficial logo by Alec Winmill (@Al_Winmill)


Where can we find you?

October 22, 2010
Data Anlayis Tools and Resources

How do you quickly pull data, organize it, and then make sense of it all?

Too much data, not enough understanding. How do you quickly pull data, organize it, and then make sense of it all? Several tools and articles are available to help.

September 14, 2010
This Week In Ag 0015 - Investment In Agriculture To Help Drive Change In Food Systems

Agriculture 2.0 bring ideas and venture capital together to effect change on food systems.

Show notes

  • Janine Yorio, Managing Director and Founder of NewSeed Advisors, updates us on the Agriculture 2.0 conference series and how its expansion to other cities is working.
July 30, 2010
This Week In Ag 0009 - Ag Research + Extentions, & Ball Game Bad Food

What is agriculture research and how does it get funded? Learn more about the ag extension system and its impact on production agriculture.

Show notes

July 23, 2010
World Agriculture Information Research Tools

Looking for ag data can seem daunting. Use these web sites and the power of Google to speed up the search and reduce the hassle.

When looking for information on world agriculture, where do you start? The following websites are good starting points. They are not all encompassing but they will get you started.

Use the power of Google Search. For example Google allows you to specify that your search results must come from a given website. For example, the query [ corn site:fao.org ] will return pages about corn but only from fao.org.

July 12, 2010
This Week In Ag 0006 - Agriculture Technology, Radios Calm Cows, and Ag Contests

What has happened with agriculture technology in last two years? And what ag contests are out there?

Show ideas

June 18, 2010
Google insights for Search

Market research via Google insights for Search can help discover what customers are looking for and when.

Google insights for Search website is great to discover trends in keywords and terms.

June 18, 2010
University of Illinois Extension

University of Illinois Extension is a resource for multiple needs of agriculture, food, and community.

University of Illinois Extension offers educational programs in healthy society, food security and safety, environmental stewardship, sustainable and profitable food production and marketing systems, and Enhancing youth, family and community well-being.

June 16, 2010
This Week In Ag 0001 - Agriculture Working With Agriculture and Immigration

This Week In Ag looks at immigration reform, can agriculture work with agriculture, and recommends some websites for the week.

Show notes

June 16, 2010
This Week In Ag 0002 - Indy 500, Ethanol Versus Food, Corn Versus Sugar

This Week In Ag looks at the connection of agriculture to the Indy 500, discusses ethanol versus food, corn versus sugar, and comments on the impacts to the dairy industry of the undercover videos taken at Conklin Dairy Farms in Ohio.

Show notes