Paul Schrimpf's Page

I’m winging my way back from Albuquerque from a conference of ag media professionals – it’s a great opportunity to chat with other editors to find out what’s working for them, what the trends are in media consumption by growers, retailers and consultants, and for me, to enjoy a city I have never been to before.

It was also an opportunity to connect with a number of manufacturers and suppliers who were represented on an exhibit area, including some interesting technology folks. From…

The specter of the “Great Midwest Drought of 2012” hung over Sioux Falls as more than 200 equipment dealers, customers, and media types gathered at Raven Industries’ world headquarters for the company’s second Raven Innovation Summit.

The overarching discussion, as it often does in a roomful of stressed out aggies, was all about what’s going on with the crops, and the news was not good. In this area and south toward Omaha where we drove in along I-29, the corn looked every bit as…

The 11th International Conference on Precision Agriculture is past, and the three days of immersion in technology people and topics has given me a lot to contemplate and digest. I think the best way for me to share my thoughts is to simply stream consciousness, and allow you to pluck out whatever you think is of value. I wish we could have a real two way conversation about it (although you're always free to send me an email or drop a comment in the box at the bottom) but seeing as that's not…

Last week, we were invited by John Deere to attend an event for both financial analysts and the media, focused strictly on the company’s technology strategy. It was said at least a couple of times by speakers that this was the first time the company ever did a deal like this where the iron was not in the spotlight, making it extra intriguing for me going in.

As an aside, sitting on a bus to the demonstration farm I got a chance to be a fly on the wall as analysts “compared notes”…

A few months ago I wrote in this space that an upstart technology company called Solum had a bead on a soil testing breakthrough that would be a game changer in agriculture, That little news item generated enough interest in our humble blog that we termed it "blowing up" by our standards. Clearly, there's pent-up demand for a better way to test soil, and…