Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast. I’m Chuck Zimmerman.

The ZimmComm Team are enjoying some time in paradise right near the Gulf of America. The weather has been great and we’ve had enough rain so that everything is green and growing.

In this episode Cindy and I discuss the changes we’re making to ZimmComm. We recently announced that we are going to retire from business travel starting Jan. 1, 2026. That has been a very big part of the work we pioneered along with the use of social media in agricultural marketing.

But we’ve got plenty to do as we continue to distribute news releases with our AgNewsWire service. In fact, we started out with the idea of including audio files in news releases for our clients. We called them Talking News Releases and because of our background in farm radio we knew the frustration of not being able to get an interview or sound bite. When you want to have an audio interview included in your news release we will produce it and publish it with no extra cost. We’ll work with you on the interview and can also add your own audio file if you would like, including logos, photos or other images. Here is an example of our latest news release for AgTech PR for their client, PowerPollen, that includes an interview.

To have us distribute your release to our contact list all you have to do is use your credit card on the AgNewsWire form here and then just email your release and any multi-media content to include.

In addition to news releases we will continue produce podcast like this one, The ZimmCast, as well as The Ethanol Report and the Daugherty Water For Food Podcast. If you would like to start a podcast just give us a call.

We’ve still got several trips planned this year including these in July. Tech Hub Live in Des Moines, IA, Southern Peanut Growers Conference in Panama City, FL and Ag Media Summit in Rogers, AK.

So, keep ZimmComm’s in your plans. And that’s the ZimmCast for now. I hope you enjoy it and thank for listening.

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 years with ZimmComm we traveled a lot for many years before we started ZimmComm.

We founded the company in 2004 as the first social media-based agricultural communications company and pioneered “event blogging” for farm and biofuels conferences, capturing the sights and sounds in photos and interviews. Nearly 225,000 photos and countless interviews and miles later, we have decided to hang up our traveling bags and spend more time at home. A lot of people look to retire to travel the world. We’ve been blessed to see all the places we ever wanted and more!

We plan to continue our AgNewsWire news release service as well as AgWired.com, Energy.AgWired.com and our podcasting and other audio production services. We’re just giving up the travel portion of our work.

So that’s the ZimmCast for this week. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.

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.

I'll move to the National Ag Day Activities with a student panel discussion. The students are Taylor Rogers, National Grange Youth Ambassador; Lance Williams, AFA advisor; Caroline Groth, FFA Eastern Region Vice President; and Matias Habib, National 4H. Moderated by Miles Chiotti, Manager, Public & Industry Relations - Agriculture & Turf Division at John Deere.

It is Cindy’s time to be in Washington, DC this week for the ACE Fly-in. After that the next event coming up soon is the 2025 Agri-Marketing Conference. If you haven't registered, you can still do so. I'll see you there.

If you have any ideas for a future ZimmCast podcast just let me know.

That’s the ZimmCast for now. I hope you enjoy it and thank for listening.

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

Kramer Farney, GHX Marketing, Golden Harvest

Justin Welch, Head of Decision Agronomy, Golden Harvest

Coming up next for me on the agriblogging highway is the Agri-Pulse Ag and Food Policy Summit in Washington, DC followed with the National Ag Day Activites. Then it’s Cindy turn to go to DC for the ACE Fly-in. Things start to settle down but I’ll be in KC, MO for the Agri-Marketing Conference in April.

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 session. Afterward I interviewed him to hear his outlook for cattle and beef and what is factors are impacting them.

Now, I turned to CIRB. Cindy interviewed Tara Smith, Deputy Executive Vice President, CIRB. Tara talks about the need for educating new people working in the new administration and Congress about the importance of crop insurance.

Finally, I have Cindy’s interview with Lindsey Rinkenberger, CIRB Chairwoman, COUNTRY Financial. Lindsey started CIRB participating the Emerging Leaders program. She talks about how CIRB works with the crop insurance coalition in Washington, DC.

And that’s the ZimmCast for this week. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.

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 many years ago. You can find that newsroom with photos, interviews and session audio right here.

In this episode I’m going to share some of the interviews I did. So, let’s get started. First up I interviewed Kent Engelbrecht, ADM, serving as Chairman of the Clean Fuels Alliance America. Following him is Kurt Kovarik, VP of Government Affairs, Clean Fuels; then Tom Verry, Director of Outreach and Development; and to close things up I interviewed Donnell Rehagen, CEO, Clean Fuels.

In addition to the virtual ag newsroom on AgNewsWire we also posted content onto the Clean Fuels Conference Blog which you can find here.

Now that I’ve been catching up I’m getting ready for the CattleCon 2025 working with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. At the same time Cindy will be at the Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau annual meeting. It’s just that busy time of the year.

So, that’s the ZimmCast for now. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.

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 years. So, let’s look at this year. I was working at the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in New Orleans and thought I’d focus on the outlook for cotton. I would not be surprised if there are some changes after the presidential inauguration. But I’m going to start with Gary Adams, CEO of the National Cotton Council. He talks about the cotton industry outlook and then moves onto the farm bill.

Following Gary is Daren Abney, Executive Director, U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol. He talks about the last year of the program and an outlook of what’s next.

You can find a lot of photos as well as interviews and session audio on the AgNewsWire virtual ag newsroom here.

I’m heading out next to San Diego for the Clean Fuels Conference and hoping the weather doesn’t cause too many travel problems. It’s looking like I’ll miss the mess though.

So, that’s the ZimmCast for this episode. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening.

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 as time moves on.

We started taking photos at events 20 years ago when Flickr started. Since then we’ve uploaded 222,000 photos and they have collectively received 38 million views. In 2024 we uploaded 6,611 photos from the events and they have been viewed 1.1 million views.

On the audio side of things we started using Libsyn as our audio/podcast server platform in 2017. In that time, and just looking at our ZimmComm Golden Mic Audio podcast, we’ve received 2.8 million downloads of those files, with 137,000 in 2024.

Our AgNewsWire service had a banner year in 2024 with the distribution of over 80 news releases for our clients. And speaking of news releases we’re offering a 2025 discount for existing or new customers. If you sign up for an advance purchase of 4 news releases you will receive a 10 Percent discount. Regular price is $525 but your discounted price will be $472.50/each! Feel free to contact me about how AgNewsWire works and we’ll help you reach our comprehensive list of ag media.

AgWired and Energy. AgWired have also really kept us busy. Besides Cindy and me we’ve had 40 editors work for us and that includes interns, many of who are in high level jobs in ag media and agencies, and freelancers who have started their own companies. We can’t say how thankful and proud for all of them

So, that’s what’s on our minds as we contemplate the how/when/what and why of another year on the agriblogging highway.

So, that’s the ZimmCast. We hope you enjoyed it and thank you for listening.