Guest Blog from CommonGround Kansas Have you ever wondered how much weed killer farmers apply to their fields? CommonGround Kansas volunteers answered that question with a helpful visual — a cup of lemonade and a football field — before the Kansas State vs. Missouri State football game in Manhattan, Kan., Sept. 24. Football fans braved thunder and pouring rain during pre-game festivities, …
Changing the World Through Farming and Food
By Lauren Stohlmann We’re really quite lucky Matt Stasiewicz didn’t decide to become an automotive engineer. The work he’s done for agriculture is extensive and valuable for human health. Not that understanding engines isn’t important work, but creating a single-kernel sorter to reduce mycotoxin levels in market corn from Eastern Kenya, might be a bit more life-changing. Stasiewicz originally enrolled …
#CUTC16 Honors Student Poster Contest Winners
Pavel Samat is a Ph.D student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At the recent Corn Utilization and Technology Conference Samat was a contestant in the Gary Lamie student poster contest for his work with purple corn. His research focuses on using this purple corn to extract a healthy, economic alternative to synthetic dyes. “Food and beverages currently are …
Who Will Farm the Land When Farmers Are Gone?
“They keep farming even when their eyesight is failing and their hearts are going bad.” So starts a great story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today regarding escalating farm accidents among older farmers. “They get back on their tractors after farm accidents have put them in the hospital, sometimes with permanently disabling injuries.” And it is very true that unlike …
America’s Farmers Thrown Under the Train Instead of Posted on It
American corn farmers do not often see how their lives might be impacted by high profile, First Amendment debates in the media. While we each value our Constitutional rights and deeply cherish liberty, our messages about growing food and stewarding the land generally do not stir up mainstream debate to a degree that lands us on the national stage. Today, …
Appreciation Award Presented at CUTC
During the 2014 Corn Utilization Technology Conference in Louisville, KY a special presentation was made by Tom Mueller, Chairman of the NCGA Research and Business Development Action Team. Tom is a corn grower from Illinois. He presented a plaque to the Indiana Corn Marketing Council for their significant support of the newly named Gary Lamie Graduate Student Poster Competition. Accepting …
Share Your Stories with the Smithsonian
A new exhibit is being developed for the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History that presents the history of agriculture in our nation from a business perspective. Part of the development process is a website that is collecting and archiving stories and photos about the progress of American agriculture through the years. Curator Peter Liebhold says they created the Agriculture …
Importance of Ag Education
The president of the Iowa Board of Regents is a great promoter of agricultural education in the United States as “Today’s Solution for Tomorrow’s World.” Bruce Rastetter visited the 2013 Farm Progress Show last month to talk about the importance of agricultural education and the vast number of career choices available for students of all backgrounds. “I think the biggest …
The Need for Future Talent in Ag
It was over 2,000 years ago that Jesus said “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few” and that is apparently very true today in the agribusiness world. The AgCareers.com HR Roundtable, which included more than 60 agribusiness companies and university representatives, highlighted the need for workers to meet the growing demand for jobs in the industry. According to …
Get a Bang out of New Corn Use
Here’s a new use for corn that you can really get a bang out of. A team of Purdue University students have created a fireworks casing from corn which won the top prize for corn in the school’s annual Student Soybean and Corn Innovation Contests, sponsored by the Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana Corn Marketing Council. Taking first place in …