A grower sustainability panel took place during the recent Bayer CropScience 2012 Ag Issues Forum with the theme of “Hands in the Dirt: First-Hand Grower Experiences.”
Panel member Nancy Kavazanjian, a farmer from Wisconsin who grows corn, soybeans and wheat, talked about what the word “sustainability” meant to her. “When a farmer hears the word sustainable they kind of cringe,” she says. “It concerns them that they’re being forced to do something that they’re not already doing.” But she adds that most farmers are being sustainable since they are multi-generations on the farm and they have to be sustainable for that to happen. To become more sustainable Nancy says they use cover crops and precision ag to make sure they can strip-till and they definitely use new technology and that includes seed technology to get the best yields. The use of these technologies reduces the amount of inputs they have to use.
You can listen to an interview with Nancy from the Ag Issues Forum here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/bayer/bayer-ag-issues-12-nancy.mp3″ text=”Interview with Nancy Kavazanjian”]