Commodity Classic 2016: 5 Observations From ‘Orleans
March 7, 2016 
Comedian emcee Mark Mayfield (left) introduces Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for his Keynote address. The speech was likely Vilsack’s last in front of the Commodity Classic audience.
PERSPECTIVE – One of the domestic agriculture industries’ biggest annual showcases – Commodity Classic – has come to a close for yet another year.
Perhaps it was the frosty blue hurricanes or the fabulously sunny weather down in New Orleans, but this year’s show really seemed to fly by in an instant.
And while there wasn’t much time to stand around and smell the roses (or the Azalea gardens that dot the famous Garden District), the show certainly merits some mental post-processing on just what it all means going forward into the 2016 season.
So, without further ado, I present to you five things I thought about the week that was Commodity Classic 2016:
Doubling Down
Going off impressions from last year’s show in Phoenix, AZ, it stood out like a sore thumb that Commodity Classic 2016 has really grown in leaps and bounds since its last iteration. Many in-the-know observers opined that the show might’ve in fact doubled in size, from an average of about 5,000 attendees per day to an estimated 10,000 this year.
A big part of that was the show’s new partnership with event organizers Ag Connect, as well as the addition of the Agricultural Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) Association to the long list of commodity groups that come together to produce the show. And while most of the comments I overheard this week were of a positive nature regarding the Commodity Classic experience, this reporter can offer up at least one piece of feedback for show organizers: If you’re going to put together a panel discussion titled “Agribusiness Executive Panel: Innovation In Spite Of A Tough Market,” it would be ideal to include representation from at least one large regional cooperative or a progressive independent retailer on the panel. Just my two cents, anyways.
UAV Race Heats Up
For all the talk about their unrealized promise and the lack of a clear-cut ROI thus far, drones still command top-billing on the ag show circuit, as the drone company booths on the trade show floor were particularly crowded for much of the show. It literally took this reporter almost a full 24 hours of randomly swinging by the booth to catch Crop Copter Owner/CEO Matt Barnard with time to chat, and the senseFly and Sentera booths were just as busy throughout the week as well. Then there’s Precision Ag Institute partner Raven Industries, who used the show as a platform to launch its distribution partnership with PrecisionAg.com drone favorite AgEagle. I had the chance to catch up with Raven Director of Sales Marketing and Business Development Paul Welbig, as well as AgEagle founder Bret Chilcott, to go beyond the press release and find out more details on the exciting alliance formed by these two outfits. Be sure to pay attention in the coming weeks to the website as well as the upcoming April print editions of both CropLife Magazine and Precision Ag Magazine for more on the agreement and all things ag drone-related.
A Reflective Mr. Secretary
Usually when the news comes over the wire that USDA Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will be delivering the convention’s Keynote address, an urge to yawn and sleepily rub my eyes mysteriously starts to come over me. Now, it’s not that secretary Vilsack is any less entertaining than any other speaker you’d encounter at one of these things, it’s just that after seeing him speak for the past four years in a row, you’d have thought we’d have heard everything there is to hear from the outgoing official. Boy, was I wrong. A reflective, clearly enjoying-himself-in-the-moment Vilsack was particularly attention-grabbing this year. He told his tale of growing up in an orphanage in Pittsburgh, PA, and being adopted and raised by a single, drug-addicted mother (she eventually got clean) before meeting his now-wife in law school and moving to her hometown in rural Iowa, where Vilsack got his start at his father-in-law’s law firm filing taxes for farmers at about $25 a pop. He waxed poetic on his grand kids and how they “just want grandpa to come out and play.” It was so much more substantive than the usual politician song-and-dance, and it gave the folks he has served in agriculture a unique look behind the curtain at the man who has headed up the top spot in U.S. farm policy since 2009. In this author’s opinion, it was spot-on and a fitting way to cap his unlikely journey to the top of the domestic agriculture world.
More Big Data Movement
With the industry increasingly concerned with all things data security and how agriculture technology providers (ATPs) are using aggregated farm data on the back end, details on both the Ag Data Transparency Initiative and the American Farm Bureau Federation-backed Agriculture Data Coalition were announced at the show. The Ag Data Transparency Initiative evaluates ATPs on 10 key data usage/security characteristics, and when the ATP passes all 10 questions it receives an “Ag Data Transparency” seal that it can display on its products, demonstrating for users that its data policies jive with the initiative’s standards. The AFBF-led Coalition also features some pretty heavy hitters in the data world – from The Ohio State University to AGCO and Raven, among others. Stay tuned to PrecisionAg.com for more details from my interview on the show floor with Ag Data Transparency Initiative attorney Todd Janzen.
Thinking Global
With farm income sputtering along at near-historic lows and many economists at the show predicting at least another two years of bearish commodity markets, looking abroad for new income sources was a theme that pervaded the week. For instance, Vilsack made his urging of Congress to approve the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement prior to the expiration of his term at USDA the crux of his keynote, and he also discussed hopes that emerging markets like Cuba – where Vilsack says over 80% of the food the country consumes is imported – will open up in the near future for domestic producers. “These are tremendous opportunities to expand our export power and level the playing field with China,” he said.
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