North American Ag Spotlight: Agriculture & Farming News and Views

This week Chrissy Wozniak sits down with Buck Wheeler, founder of EZ Animal Products, to discuss the importance of proper colostrum collection on your farm.

After many years of coming up on the short end of the stick handling horses, entrepreneur, trainer, horseman, inventor, Buck Wheeler decided to do something about it. Together with his wife Karen they invented the two products that are now being used on a multitude of animals and species. EZ Animal Products is a family owned business and together with their son John, receives the orders, manufacture and pack all the products in-house and they are shipped out daily on a worldwide basis.

In May of 1996 five days after applying for the patent on his first invention The Stableizer® it was used on that years Kentucky Derby winner Grind Stone.

As with The Stableizer® they worked on their next idea / Invention the Udderly EZ™ Milker in the research and development phase of it for over five years.

The UDDERLY EZ MILKER™ is the safest and most effective large domestic and exotic animal milk and colostrum collection device available. It can be used on horses of all sizes, ponies, donkeys, sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, zebras, camels and miniature cows.

To learn more about EZ Animal Products, visit the website here.

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This week Chrissy Wozniak is joined by Karen Taylor, Director of Corporate Finance at BMO Financial Group and Professor in the Master of Food and Resource Economics (MFRE) program at The University of British Columbia.

The MFRE is a 1-year masters program that combines features of an MBA program and a MA degree in Economics. It incorporates Economics, Policy and Business aspects within the Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environmental sectors, helping students acquire a specialized understanding of these sectors, and propelling them to pursue careers in academia, consulting, finance management and entrepreneurship.

To learn more about the MFRE program at UBC, visit their website here.

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Megan & Terry Buttnor moved to remote Northern Ontario in 2020, to start their new life on a farm that used to serve as the town’s abattoir. Almost two years in they have stories to tell, and share their opinions on how the supply chain, input prices and meatpacker issues effect the family farm.

Learn more at https://greatnorthacres.com.

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This week Chrissy Wozniak is sitting down with AMS Galaxy USA President Brad Biehl and Suzanne Meck, Director of Sales and Marketing, to discuss the leading edge technology available for dairy producers.

AMS Galaxy is the new leader in reliable cow-friendly precision dairy technology, including the state-of-the-art, cost-effective 2-box, 1-arm milking robot.

Increase production. Increase profits. AMS Galaxy USA specializes in; Robotic Milking, Automatic Calf Feeding, Robotic Bedding, Cow Feed Pushers, & Complete Robotic Feeding Solutions. Spend more time doing what you love. Use technology to your advantage.

To learn more, visit the AMS Galaxy USA site here.

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Chrissy Wozniak is joined today by New York Farm Show manager Scott Grigor. Scott fills us in on plans for the upcoming show,  shares his advice for farm show leaders and what makes the New York Farm Show stand out from the rest.

The New York Farm Show takes place February 24-26, 2022 at the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse, NY.

The New York Farm Show is the leading farm show in the Northeast since 1985. The show hosts more than 400 exhibitors displaying the latest in farm equipment, tractors, combines and farm implements; seed and crop protection products; farm supplies and services, dairy and beef production, woodlot and related industry supplies.

Find more info here here, and make sure you stop by the North American Ag booth to pick up a New York Farm Show mug from the collection over the last 35 years (limited quantities available).

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Today Chrissy Wozniak is sitting down with Ag-Bag by RCI owner Randy Clark and National Sales & Marketing Manager Taylor Weisensel to discuss the new Ag-Bag T7170.

Ag-Bagging is taking a performance leap forward through the new T-Series models introduction.

Since acquiring the product line from New Holland in late 2019, RCI Engineering has focused on transforming the product design with extensive input from its customer and dealer base.  The result is a machine design with more capacity, higher density forage compaction, easier serviceability and more convenient transport.

“Our goal is to build on the industry leadership that Ag-Bag has achieved to make this product line perform more profitably for forage producers and livestock operations,” said Randy Clark, founder of RCI Engineering. “And we’ve made a strong commitment to back that up with exceptional parts and service support,” he continued.

One of Ag-Bag’s long-standing key features has been its patented low rotor position that fills bags more uniformly with its upward flow of feedstuffs.  Now, RCI has improved this function with a new Revolutionary Rotor with twice as many teeth resulting in greater compaction and higher density in the bag. Plus, an all-new forage distributor spreads the forage evenly over the rotor for faster unloading and higher throughput capacity. Longer tunnel extensions also contribute to greater compaction and forage density.  Another high-capacity feature is a single conveyor that is now 12 inches wider, handling more forage for faster unloading.

Serviceability and ease of operation are also improved.  At the operator station, all machine controls are in one place, and the T7170 provides easy access for servicing upkeep.

Transporting the T7170 Ag-Bagger has also been upgraded with an integrated hydraulic lift system that saves time changing between transport and operation modes.  A new hitch design changes towing direction placing the tunnel on the side of the road providing better visibility and safer travel.

Ag-Bag by RCI provides a complete forage storage solution with its superior compaction machine designs, specially formulated Ag-Bag inoculants, and Genuine Ag-Bag plastic that provides an ideal oxygen-free environment for silage fermentation and higher quality livestock feed.

For more information head to the Ag-Bag website here.

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Today Chrissy Wozniak sits down with Joseph Liefer from John Deere to discuss their recently released fully automated tractor.

John Deere revealed a fully autonomous tractor that’s ready for large-scale production. The machine combines Deere’s 8R tractor, TruSet-enabled chisel plow, GPS guidance system, and new advanced technologies. The autonomous tractor will be available to farmers later this year.
 
The autonomous tractor serves a specific purpose: feeding the world. The global population is expected to grow from about 8 billion to nearly 10 billion people by 2050, increasing the global food demand by 50%. Furthermore, farmers must feed this growing population with less available land and skilled labor, and work through the variables inherent in farming like changing weather conditions and climate, variations in soil quality and the presence of weeds and pests. All of these factors impact a farmer’s ability to farm during the most critical times of the year.
 
The autonomous tractor has six pairs of stereo cameras, which enables 360-degree obstacle detection and the calculation of distance. Images captured by the cameras are passed through a deep neural network that classifies each pixel in approximately 100 milliseconds and determines if the machine continues to move or stops, depending on if an obstacle is detected. The autonomous tractor is also continuously checking its position relative to a geofence, ensuring it is operating where it is supposed to, and is within less than an inch of accuracy.
 
To use the autonomous tractor, farmers only need to transport the machine to a field and configure it for autonomous operation. Using John Deere Operations Center Mobile, they can swipe from left to right to start the machine. While the machine is working the farmer can leave the field to focus on other tasks, while monitoring the machine’s status from their mobile device.
 
John Deere Operations Center Mobile provides access to live video, images, data and metrics, and allows a farmer to adjust speed, depth and more. In the event of any job quality anomalies or machine health issues, farmers will be notified remotely and can make adjustments to optimize the performance of the machine.
 
All of the content and demos from Deere’s CES booth will also be available at: www.JohnDeere.com/CES

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From his beginnings on a small dairy farm, to a career in ag sales, to a day on a beach on the west coast of Mexico - Mike Muldoon shares his story of busting through fear in a world where tomorrow is not guaranteed. Living life to the fullest is the mindset he's embraced. After suffering a serious stroke, and being told that he should play it safe and stay home, he got back on his motorcycle and crisscrossed coast to coast across Canada to Alaska, then down through Mexico. Despite the pandemic he keeps moving forward and spreading his positive attitude to all he meets. Listen to his words of wisdom as he sits down for a chat with Chrissy Wozniak on this week's Ag Spotlight.

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Today, Chrissy Wozniak sits down with Kelsey Banks to learn about her deep roots in agriculture and to hear her incredible story. Kelsey is an inspirational young woman who has had a deep passion for agriculture her entire life. Hailing from Eastern Ontario, you may recognize Kelsey’s friendly face from the many farm shows she used to frequent. While she is a pumpkin farmer at her roots, Kelsey is also currently working as a crop consultant for Embrun Co-op where it’s easy to see how passionate she is about helping fellow farmers.

At the beginning of 2020, Kelsey was diagnosed with brain cancer. In today’s interview, she walks us through how this diagnosis altered her life forever- but also how it changed her entire perspective. Finding light in even the darkest situations, Kelsey shared her journey with “Bob” on social media and became an inspiration to many.

Connect with Kelsey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KelseyBanks

Learn more about Embrun Co-op here:  https://coopembrun.com/en/

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For the final episode of 2021, we took a look back over Chrissy Wozniak's favorite question that she asks her guests at the end of each episode of the North American Ag Spotlight - Why do you do what you do?

This industry is filled with inspirational people, willing to serve in many ways, helping farmers keep farming. North American Ag is devoted to highlighting the incredible people & companies in agriculture who impact our industry and help feed the world.

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