Alltech awarded its annual Young Scientist Awards at the closing ceremony of the Alltech International Symposium on May 22.

The first award was for undergraduate research. Amanda Pesqueira was the recipient of this honor. Pesqueria attended the University of Maringa in Brazil before transferring to the University of Kentucky for her final year of undergraduate studies in animal science. Her research presentation, titled “Contractile Response of the Different Ergot Alkaloids in Bovine Cranial Branch of the Lateral Saphenous Vein In Vitro,” examines the compounds involved with fescue toxicosis syndrome in cows through the use of an advanced testing system. She plans to pursue a graduate degree in animal science.

Nimesha Fernando received the award for graduate research. She is a a graduate student at the University of Melbourne and looked at how high levels of CO2 in the environment affect the growth of grain through her research presentation titled “Free Air CO2 Enrichment Altered Wheat Grain Protein Quality and Rheological Characteristics: A Comparative Proteomic Analysis.” Using proteomic analysis, she showed that exposure to high levels of CO2 results in grains with lower levels of protein, and then applied her research findings to the use of wheat in food production.

Six other students had the opportunity to travel to Lexington as finalists for the awards. They were selected from an initial field of more than 8,000 students.

Find out more information about registering for the next Alltech Young Scientist Competition here.

Listen to the full presentation ceremony here: Young Scientists Awards

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

Dr. Patrick Wall’s presentation during the closing ceremony of the Alltech International Symposium was about managing crisis situations in the food industry. He made reference to many of the recent scandals within the food industry and described issues companies should be aware of as well as how they should manage them. The message Wall left with the attendees was a great reminder for everyone involved in agriculture. “When you go home and people ask you what business you’re in, tell them you’re in the human health business,” Wall said.

You can listen to Wall’s full speech here: Grasping the New Reality

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

According to Rebecca Timmons, Director or Applications Research and Quality Assurance at Alltech, many uses and opportunities are available with algae. She shared her vision for algae in the future at the closing ceremony of the Alltech International Symposium. Timmons said that algae produces three-quarters of the oxygen in the world. She believes there is huge room for development with algae and thinks that by 2020 it could be used to provide DHA (omega-3 fatty acids) to humans through animals.

Listen to Timmons full speech here: The Future of Algae

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

Tuesday night at the Alltech International Symposium was discussion dinner night. While Chuck was sitting in on the Marketing discussion, I got to participate in the Beef 2020 dinner and discussion. Participants in the conversation were from a wide range of backgrounds and geographies including people from the United States, South America and Europe. The topic of discussion for the night was sustainability. Conversation included issues such as remaining economically sustainable as well as environmentally sustainable. The many varied opinions and experiences allowed for a lively dinner. The discussion was facilitated by James Campbell from the Irish Farmers Journal and Bruno Mazzer, beef sales and solutions manager with Alltech.

I interviewed Mazzer following the dinner and you can listen to his comments here: Beef Sustainability

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

The World Market at the Alltech International Symposium played host to several companies. Walking through the market an attendee had the opportunity to taste test meat, bread or cheese, but one of the most popular attractions was the Chaney Dairy Barn ice cream.

The Chaney family dairy is located in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The dairy farm has been in the family since 1888 and currently milks about 50 Jersey cows. In 2003, they opened the Chaney Dairy Barn selling ice cream. This product goes hand-in-hand with their popular agritourism business. The farm played host to approximately 8,000 kids last year. One of their more popular events is Ice Cream and a Moovie that was recently chosen as a top 20 event by the Southern Tourism Society.

I caught up with Carl Chaney, co-owner of the Chaney Dairy Barn, scooping ice cream at the world market. It was really interesting to talk with him about their operation and how they market their products. When asked how he markets his product, Chaney said, “Anyway I can.”

You can learn more about the Chaney family and the Chaney Dairy Barn at their website.

Listen to the whole interview here: Chaney Dairy Barn

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

It was tweetup time at the Alltech International Symposium last night at the Lexington Brewing location downtown. We had a big crowd show up to meet each other in person and enjoy some fun and fellowship.

Alltech played a lot of what I would call farmer agvocacy film clips, many of which I had never seen. Most were funny and it ended with a few of the past winners of the Alltech Farming Film Festival competition winners. There’s a new competition by the way so get your creative juices flowing and consider entering your own video.

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

At the end of the second day’s program here at the 2013 Alltech International Symposium a series of discussion dinners are held on a variety of topics. I chose Crisis Management which ties in to a full session on the topic that I participated in earlier in the day. I’ll have more on that in a later post.

Our dinner on Crisis Management used the “Horsegate” problem as the example to stimulate discussion. We had quite a bit of disagreement in the room which did make it interesting.

Each table was given a few questions to talk about and then share with the rest of the room under the direction of a moderator. Then we had open discussion in which anyone could speak up. One of our attendees (Trent Loos) made a comment that Horsegate was not a crisis but an opportunity as evidenced by the fact that both horse meat sales/consumption and beef increased significantly since this alleged crisis started. So if I understood him correctly, the industry shouldn’t consider this a crisis. The perpetrators of the crime that was committed are no longer in business and no one died or even got sick. On the other side of that idea there were a number of people who talked about damage to the reputation of the industry and that it is a serious matter or crisis situation. This is just one of several ideas debated in the session. It is what makes this such a great idea!

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

The emerging change in the culture of nutrition was one of the topics of discussion in the afternoon session of the Alltech International Symposium. The session featured areas of research that are revolutionizing the world of nutrition. Among the interesting topics discussed were the use of enzymes as a feed additive for beef, neonatal nutritive programming in chickens and feeding of trace minerals to swine. Dr. Jules Taylor-Pickard told attendees that they should expect the entire blueprint of nutrition to shift by 2020.

Dr. Karl Dawson, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Alltech, was the host of the session. I caught up with him after the session and asked him what producers should consider when evaluating their nutrition strategies. When discussing what producers should do, he said, “They need to get ready to understand those changes, and nutritionist are going to be challenged to take those into account and produce better animals.”

Listen to the whole interview with Dr. Karl Dawson here: Nutrition Changing

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

One of the Tuesday morning sessions at the Alltech International Symposium included a Food Branding Panel. The panel was made up of individuals with experience in the restaurant business, retail, local foods, social media, and science. According to Dr. Mark Lyons, Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Alltech, the panel was a really good opportunity to talk about miscommunications and issues with sharing information about a company’s product with consumers.

While discussing the problems surrounding food branding by companies, Lyons said, “We are not really engaged. We are scared. We’re concerned. We jump to a lot of conclusions that actually are incorrect.”

The panel talked a lot about the miscommunications and mistakes that are made when communicating between brands and consumers. David Wescott, Vice President of APCO Worldwide and the social media panelist, left the audience with a message for 2020. He said companies must break out of their communities and embrace their customers in order to survive.

Listen to the full interview with Dr. Mark Lyons here: Dr. Mark Lyons's Remarks

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

Last night at Kentucky night, I had the opportunity to catch up with a few of this year’s symposium attendees and ask them why they chose to come.

The first person I caught up with was Clark Springfield division manager with O.H. Kruse Grain and Milling. Springfield is attending the Agribusiness Summit at symposium. The summit is a discussion opportunity for agriculture business people to talk about issues they have witnessed and how to solve them. Springfield said, “It sends me home ready to tackle problems in my own company.”

Listen to the full interview with Springfield here: Springfield's Remarks

Ryan Goodman is an agricultural blogger for agricultureproud.com and Master’s student at the University of Tennessee. He came to symposium to learn more about research being done in his area of interest, which is nutrition.

Goodman said he enjoys getting to “interact with a lot of the folks in a similar field across the country and across the world.”

Listen to the full interview with Goodman here: Goodman's Remarks

Dr. Pearse Lyons hosts the Alltech International Symposium as the founder and owner of Alltech. He sees symposium as an opportunity to come together as an industry to learn from one another.
Lyons said, “It’s a regeneration. It’s a recharging of the batteries. It’s realizing lots of people have the same challenges you do.”

Listen to the full interview with Lyons here: Lyons's Remarks

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album

A highlight of the Alltech International Symposium is the Kentucky Night dinner at the Kentucky Horse Park in the Alltech Arena. After a busy day of conducting business and attending sessions we get casual and relaxed with good food and good friends. There’s also a band and dancing. You can see it in our photos!

We’re now on day two of this year’s Symposium. Maggie has just learned how to edit audio files and will be posting several interviews she did during Kentucky Night. We’ll be attending a number of breakout sessions today and will have lots more to share.

2013 Alltech International Symposium Photo Album