Joe Funk Earns ASTA Distinguished Service Award

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Joe Funk, Editor at SEED TODAY, was selected as this year’s American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) Distinguished Service Award winner. He was honored during the Opening General Session of the ASTA Annual convention in Minneapolis, MN. The award is given to a member who has made a significant contribution both to ASTA and the seed industry.

“Joe has been faithfully serving agriculture and the seed industry with in-depth reporting on our rapidly changing business for 30 years,” said ASTA Chair Mark Herrmann. “He’s not satisfied to just research a topic and write about it; more often than not, you’ll find Joe making a personal trip to see first-hand the subject of his article.”

Funk grew up on a dairy farm in Illinois and graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.S. in Agronomy. He spent 10 years with the USDA and a few years as a sales manager for a regional seed company before beginning to write for the Grain Journal in 1987. He was made Editor of SEED TODAY in 1998. He will continue his career as an external agriculture communications consultant beginning next week.

“The men and women that I have met since becoming Editor of SEED TODAY represent an outstanding group of people,” says Funk. “Seed production is a unique industry with widespread personal relationships. These are exciting times. Each year brings both unprecedented challenges and new, exciting opportunities. I am grateful to the seedsmen and product/service providers for allowing me to have a role in their industry.”

Listen to the award presentation and Joe’s remarks here: ASTA Distinguished Service Award winner Joe Funk

2017 ASTA Annual Meeting Flickr album

Joe Swedberg to Lead Farm Foundation Board

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Joe C. Swedberg of Longmont, CO., was elected to serve as chairman of the Board of Directors of Farm Foundation on June 9th at the Board’s annual meeting in Charlottesville, VA, succedding Mark Scholl from Owensboro, KY. Larkin Martin, Courtland, AL, was elected to serve as Vice Chair.

In addition to the election, the Farm Foundation Trust Agreement name has been changed to Legge Lowden Farm Foundation Trust. The six-member Board of Trustees will have responsibility for the Trust and insuring the mission of the Trust is fulfilled. The operating entity has also recieved a name change, moving from Farm Foundation, NFP to Trust to Farm Foundation.

ASTA Annual Conference in Full Swing

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The American Seed Trade Assocition (ASTA)  annual conference is in full swing in Minneapolis, MN with both Cindy and Kelly on the ground to bring you all the news.  To kick off our coverage of the event Cindy spoke with President and CEO Andy LaVigne about the past year’s work and what ASTA hopes to accomplish at the conference for the future.

“We’ve got a number of issues that we’re looking at that we continue to address,” LaVigne outlines.  “Plant breeding innovation, breeding techniques as they evolve, how will policy impact them, seed treatment, cover crops– a lot of things that are impacting America’s farmers we’re looking at this week from the seed perspective.  How do we make sure we’re prepared to play our role as those policies develop.”

Policy develops slowly in D.C. for the moment.  Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is doing great stuff, LaVigne notes, but it’s frustrating because there’s not yet anyone under him to help get the work done.  One of the first things to move forward when everyone’s in place is the GMO labeling law.  It took a lot of effort to pass, says LaVigne, and it has a lot of industry support.

Breeding techniques will also make the list of top priorities.  It’s getting a lot of attention in the mainstream media, not just with plants but also humans and animals.  When the new adminstation is in place there will be lots of education to be done to teach staffers just what breeding techniques mean to the industry.

Learn more in this interview:Interview with Andy LaVigne, ASTA

2017 ASTA Annual Meeting Flickr album

Bayer Celebrates National Pollinator Week

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To celebrate National Pollinator Week, Bayer Bee Care has granted funding to 58 projects that will focus on forage planting. Projects in more than 30 states and Washington D.C. and will recieve between $1,000 and $5,000 in hopes of meeting Feed a Bee‘s latest initiative of forage planting in every state by the end of 2018.

“It’s thrilling to see so much interest around the country in such a short amount of time,” said Dr. Becky Langer, project manager, Bayer North American Bee Care Program. “We’re more than halfway to accomplishing our goal after the first round of proposals with more than a year and a half left in the initiative. It’s rewarding to see organizations across the country come together with one common goal: providing quality nutrients for pollinators. We look forward to seeing all the creative project ideas yet to come!”

Kickoff for the projects began Saturday, June 17 in Washington D.C. and the first Family Garden Day of 2017. Round one of grant recipients include:

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NCGA Moves Forward with Farmer Success

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It should be noted that the efforts of growers to create healthier soils and cleaner water are having an impact, which is why the National Corn Growers Association is taking that momentum forward.

Last week the staff of the NCGA in Illinois, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio met to learn more about the balance between water quality and ag nutrients.  “Finding the best path and striking the balance” was the theme for the event and covered topics like: assessing current water quality initiatives; costs and benefits of current practices; educating key thought leaders and the public; and farm bill proposals.

During the meeting, participants agreed upon the importance of: showcasing success stories of farmers pioneering new techniques; expanding and promoting outside cost sharing incentives; working with all available partners with common goals; and documenting the positive changes in detail for government regulatory bodies.

Volvo Trucks Improve Sugar-Cane Harvest

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Volvo’s new self-steering truck is changing the Brazilian sugar-cane harvest with precision steering through the fields to avoid damage to young plants that will grow into next year’s crop. Currently, growers face a four percent loss each season as plants are run over by vehicles, meaning each of these trucks has the potential to save tens of thousands of U.S. dollars each year.

“With the help of Volvo Trucks’ solution we can increase productivity, not just for one single crop but for the entire lifecycle of the sugar-cane plant, which lasts five to six years,” explains Santa Terezinha’s Finance and Procurement Director, Paulo Meneguetti.

The automated truck eliminates the need for the driver to concentrate fully on following the harvester at exactly the right speed and directly in its tracks by using GPS receivers to follow a coordinate-based map through the field. Two gyroscopes keep the entire vehicle no more than 25 mm off course.

The project is being field tested this summer, with a commercially available solution to follow soon.

Precision Ag Bytes 6/16

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  • Dow AgroSciences has announced that Enlist corn will be commercially available in the United States for the 2018 growing season now that China has officially approved the trait for import.
  • Tracy Linbo has taken the position of Senior Vice President of Agronomy for Wheat Growers.  She comes from 10 years at DuPont Pioneer where she most recently held the position of Director, Global Strategy Planning.
  • Syngenta is reminding growers that this year’s heavy spring rainfall throughout the South and Midwest created the perfect environment for diseases like frogeye leaf spot to thrive. Growers should take steps to take the necessary steps to protect yields.
  • The National Corn Growers Association offered a voice to farmers’ concerns about the proposed rule regarding genetically engineered organisms during the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service public comment meeting held at the University of California, Davis.  This was the second of three such sessions to gather comments.
  • USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service is featuring the story of seven rice farmers who sold the first carbon credits to Microsoft earlier this week.  The growers used a grant from NCRS’s Conservation Innovation Grants program.

Bayer Launches Sustainability Initiative for Horticulture

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To meet the growing need for sustainability information about food, Bayer has introduced Grow On, an initiative to provide growers with tools to identify, implement and communicate sustainable farming practices. Grow On provides citrus, grape, pome and stone fruit, potato, tree nut and vegetable growers with the resources needed to continue to sustainably produce safe, nutritious food for the growing global population.

“Generations of growers have rapidly embraced new agricultural technologies that not only have improved their environmental sustainability but also increased yields and farm productivity,” said Jennifer Maloney, Bayer food chain and sustainability manager. “Through Grow On, growers can identify products that achieve sustainability benefits in six key areas and then utilize tools to share those benefits with stakeholders.”

Those six areas are Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices, optimizing plant water usage and water quality, improving soil health and plant nutrient uptake, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fuel use, ensuring safe work environments, and reducing food waste by preventing pre-harvest loss and extending post-harvest shelf life.

Learn more at Grow On.

ASTA Annual Meeting is Next Week

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The 2017 American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) Annual Convention is coming up next week, June 21-24 in Minneapolis with a theme of Voyage to Better Seed.

“This year we’ve got a lot of topics in front of us with a new administration, a farm bill out there, all the issues within the farm bill, and how do we develop policy that will benefit the industry into the next year and beyond,” said ASTA president and CEO Andy LaVigne. There are also a number of special sessions and tours planned for the week, including an Opening General Session panel featuring representatives from several major food companies discussing consumer food trends and a tour of Syngenta’s Seedcare Institute to see its state of the art research and training facility.

This meeting is also when new ASTA officers are installed and it includes more than 400 seed industry professionals from every division of the association. Learn more in this interview: Interview with Andy LaVigne, ASTA

AEM Releases Policy Plan for Infrastructure Advantage

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The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) has unveiled a new policy report for the country called “The U.S. Infrastructure Advantage™” which makes the case for a U.S. infrastructure system that supports the safe and efficient movement of people and goods; provides connectivity between and within rural and urban America; and fosters strong economic growth and robust job creation.

“The United States once had an infrastructure system that was the envy of the world,” said AEM President Dennis Slater. “Now we are really are living off the past of that infrastructure. Over the last decade we’ve been doing nothing more than repairing and doing patch work.”

The report offers five key areas to help reclaim the U.S. Infrastructure Advantage:
1. Focus on networks and systems
2. Maximize use of smart technology
3. Ensure rural-urban connectivity
4. Expedite project delivery
5. Provide adequate and reliable resources

Slater says they have been very encouraged by President Trump’s interest in infrastructure improvement and his plan released last week. “The president’s plan probably touches on each of these areas,” said Slater. “He mentioned infrastructure on the night he was elected and that gave us hope finally that it was part of the conversation.”

The report was developed following a two-year process of discussion and engagement with a wide range of infrastructure stakeholders through AEM’s Infrastructure Vision 2050 thought-leadership initiative.

Slater explains more in this interview: Interview with AEM president Dennis Slater