Industry Ag News 7/24

Carrie Muehling

  • UnitedAg is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its founding in 1980. In celebration of its achievements, UnitedAg will host a series of virtual events throughout the year to share with its members the challenges and milestones of the last 40 years.
  • The National Corn Growers Association remains hard at work to help improve the economic situation for corn growers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. On the heels of NCGA’s first Virtual Corn Congress, the organization hosted a virtual fly-in to Capitol Hill July 22-23.
  • The U.S. Wheat Associates Board of Directors seated new officers at a virtual annual meeting July 17, 2020. USW is the export market development organization representing U.S. wheat farmers. USW officers for 2020/21 are: Chairman Darren Padget of Grass Valley, Ore.; Vice Chairperson Rhonda Larson of East Grand Forks, Minn.; Secretary-Treasurer Michael Peters of Okarche, Okla.; and Past Chairman Doug Goyings of Paulding, Ohio.
  • United Fresh Produce Association announced the promotion of Dr. Jennifer McEntire to the position of Senior Vice President, Food Safety & Technology. Dr. McEntire joined the association four years ago, bringing her extensive background in food safety, regulatory issues, and association management to the United Fresh Team.
  • Bayer recently launched a high-level podcast, The Tomorrow Farm. The Tomorrow Farm convenes academics, scientists, farmers, NGOs, industry leaders and decision makers from around the globe to explore key issues which are impacting the sector – from the Green Revolution and how efficiencies in agriculture can help farmers feed more people using less energy to what gene editing really is and how it can bring life-changing solutions to the developing world.
  • The American Seed Trade Association‘s PLDC Virtual conference, held between May 19 and July 16, broke new records for the association’s summer conference participation with over 560 registered participants from 15 countries. The recorded series of sessions is available for viewing on the PLDC Virtual website.
  • On Thursday, July 30th, Iowa and national ag commodity leaders will hold a virtual town hall to discuss the future of Iowa agriculture, with a focus on trade and supply chains. With major in-person state agriculture town halls postponed beyond 2020, this conversation will help state farmers learn and share their views with commodity association leaders. The conversation, which is part of the AgTalks town hall series focusing on key U.S. ag states, comes at a time when Iowa’s competitiveness in agriculture is being impacted by the trade war, COVID-19 and the increase in non-US trade agreements with overseas customers that Iowa has traditionally served.
  • Register now for the Agricultural Media Summit Leadership Webinar on dealing with different personalities July 28 at 11:00 EDT. Inspirational speaker and farm boy Matt Rush will give insight into who others are and share tools to build connections with the people you meet every day.
  • Land O’Lakes, Inc. announced Heather Malenshek will join the organization as Chief Marketing Officer effective September 8, 2020. In this capacity, Heather will oversee B2C and B2B branding and marketing strategy and is responsible for building marketing competencies across all businesses and geographies. She also will have oversight for FLM Harvest, a wholly owned subsidiary of Land O’Lakes, Inc.
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