There is a rare treasure nestled in the heart of the Ozarks in Southern Missouri – a college that offers students a degree in hard work.
I’ve lived in Missouri for 18 years but never knew about the College of the Ozarks until this week when I joined the Missouri Beef Industry Council (MBIC) for a luncheon and tour at the school located just south of Branson in a picturesque spot called Point Lookout. It was originally founded as a Presbyterian high school in 1906 and today is a Christian-based four year liberal arts college with 1500 students who pay their tuition by working 15 hours a week on campus and two 40 hour work weeks at the end of each semester. Students are chosen on the basis of financial need as well as academics and only about 1 in 7 who apply each year actually get the opportunity to attend.
The college offers 48 different degrees, including culinary arts, hotel and restaurant management, agribusiness, animal science, and ag education. There are about 125 students majoring in some area of agriculture there, but the school offers amazing hands-on experience for them, including hog, dairy and beef operations, a meat processing facility and a feed mill. They also have a beautiful center that is open to the public which features fine dining, historic lodging, meeting rooms, and more. During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Sarah Palin chose to visit the college as one of her stops in Missouri.
You can find out more about the college by listening to the MBIC podcast here or in the player below the video. And you can see all the photos from the tour online in this Flickr photo album.
One of the highlights of the tour was a culinary demonstration and gourmet lunch prepared by college Chef Robert Stricklin. The menu included Cranberry Cinnamon Biscuits, Pear and Feta Cheese salad with Baby Greens, Braised Short Rib Shank with roasted vegetables and rosemary jus, Black Walnut Coffee Toffee Ice Cream made by the students – and everything was fabulous! Chef Stricklin made his five star gourmet entree look amazingly easy to prepare in his short demonstration, which you can view below:
Today was the first day I’ve worn my WTF shirt. That is Where’s The Food, Without The Farmer? of course. It was fun seeing the reaction from people in the airport, on the plane and in the hotel today traveling to Commodity Classic. I can’t tell you how many people have said, “I saw that on Twitter today.” Thank you to all who re-tweeted me!
We love farmers. They feed our soul. Together we are working to help our generation understand the importance of knowing where our food comes from and who produced it.
We’re not your typical “who cares” kind of young people from the Millennial Generation. Sure, we all have cell phones and we text like crazy. We have iPods and spend way too much time on Facebook and MySpace, but we care about our planet. We care about our country. We care about the American family farmer.
Few of our friends know how their food is produced. We think that is sad. And, really it is kind of scary. If we are not careful, we will become dependent on other countries to provide our food. That is not good. Who knows what goes on in other countries when it comes to growing our food? We have an idea, and it too is not good.
Are you a journalism student who has a passion for the environment? Then don’t miss out on your opportunity to become a roving reporter during the inaugural rEnergize Communications Summit, a gathering of 300 + green public relations experts from around the country. This premiere event is being held May 23-25th in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Three current journalism students will be selected to report on the conference. Roving reporters will conduct audio and video interviews with speakers and attendees, post live stories to the conference blog site, help to facilitate the interaction with speakers and attendees during the conference sessions, and assist the conference PR team with promoting the event.
The roving reporter winners will receive an all expenses paid trip to the conference, including registration fees plus valuable experience in both social media, multi-media, online writing, as well as learn best practices of green PR.
I had the great opportunity and honor to meet and work with Celeste Laurent at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI. I had first encountered Laurent through the big world of social media, where I have countless online friends across the country who are actively engaged in social networking and who are also passionately involved in the agriculture industry. Laurent is a junior studying animal science and communications at Western Kentucky University, and she found her internship on Twitter!
She is an incredible writer and communicator, and she is dedicated to the beef and pork industries. I know that she has a promising future ahead of her, and I thought I would take the opportunity to introduce this up and comer to the AgWired community.
Celeste discovered her interest in journalism while attending Western Kentucky University. Her animal science adviser recommended she pursue her love of writing along with her passion for agriculture advocacy so she signed up for her first news writing class. Celeste’s career plans now include expanding online agriculture news, promoting youth livestock programs and agriculture literacy.
In the summer of 2009, Celeste was employed by the Michigan State University College of Agriculture and Natural Resources as an Animal Welfare & Animal Agriculture Initiative Communications intern. She was responsible for designing and managing a social media campaign for the Michigan Dairy Expo. Currently, Celeste is continuing her studies at Western Kentucky University and working as a freelance writer, speaker, and social media manager.
At the youth workshop presented by myself, Celeste Laurent and Teresa Crook during the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI last week, we discussed several topic areas. First, Crook presented a demonstration on whey protein and which products have whey in them. Following her yummy speech, Laurent and I discussed the challenges young people face in being different from their peers and continuing to be proud of who they are and where they come from.
One of my favorite attendees was Keagan Long (pictured between myself and Laurent). As you can see, Long rocked a Farmers Feed Cities t-shirt. Have you heard of Farmers Feed Cities before? It’s a really cool website put together by farmers in Ontario. Here is what the website is all about:
Farmers Feed Cities! is an agriculture awareness campaign working with farmers across Ontario. Farm families have been growing food for generations, and we’re proud of our tradition of providing, safe, reliable food that tastes great! Now that you’re here, why not take a moment to look around and learn more about us? Meet farm families, take our trivia challenge, and learn more about why a long-term investment in agriculture is a smart investment in a healthier, stronger Ontario.
It’s okay to talk about Mark Bloom. I think he’s actually in Brazil right now with an Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation group. Mark is one of the staff members of IALF and he was exhibiting at the recent Chicago Farmers Farmland Investment Fair.
Mark says it’s a great time for IALF since they’ve got an overlap in last year’s leadership class with the international seminar group that is touring in Brazil and Argentina. He says it’s the second time they’ve been at the Farmland Investment Fair. He says it’s interesting that he’s found that other exhibitors are really good prospects for the IALF program.
Immediately following my presentation on Thursday’s Partner Program at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference, I served as the moderator for a student panel titled, “Issues, Engagement and Impact.” The panel featured university students sharing how they have become engaged on the front lines to speak up about industry issues and the impacts of their actions.
Participating on the panel were three outstanding college students including: Greg Thon, Celeste Laurent and Bailey Albright. As moderator, I asked them several important questions pertaining to the agriculture industry today such as: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions consumers have about where their food comes from? What are the biggest challenges facing young people today?
How can we combat animal right activist activities? What goals do you have for the future? What opportunities are out there for young people in agriculture? How do you feel about the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board? What advice do you have for high school students involved in agriculture? How do we educate our state policy makers?
These three young people fielded these questions with the ease and poise of seasoned pros. All three will be looking for jobs in the agriculture industry in the near future, and I think they could be your next employees! Look them up!
Joliet Junior College and specifically the Weitendorf Agricultural Education Center was the location of the Chicago Farmers Farmland Investment Fair. I spoke with one of their faculty, Bill Johnson (pictured left), about the school. Bill is one of the many volunteers who work to put on the Fair.
He says that the College started that state’s first ag program in 1954 so it has the oldest ag program and it’s still the largest. They draw students from all the surrounding states. He says they’ve got 102 acres of farmland on the campus which is operated by the ag department. The Weitendorf Center is located across the highway from Chicago Motor Speedway. He says this is the third year they’ve held the fair in the facility.
DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred is helping to fund the effort with a $500,000 donation to the program, announced during the AFBF annual meeting.
“The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture has identified a great opportunity for teaching the public about modern agriculture. Through science and productivity, farmers are feeding the world and bettering the lives of people every day,” said Frank Ross, vice president and regional director – Pioneer, North America. “We are pleased to partner on this initiative and support the cause of increased agricultural literacy.”
The My American Farm virtual education program is anticipated to engage millions of youth, teachers and parents over the next five years through unique educational experiences. The website, www.myamericanfarm.org, is a destination for children to be entertained by playing games while learning math, social studies, language arts and science in the context of agriculture and food production.
Discussing the future of agricultural communications was the job of Orion Samuelson, Jim Evans and Mike Yost today at AG CONNECT Expo. Jim has spent a lifetime in agriculture and Ag communications, as a practitioner and professor at the University of Illinois. The panel took place in Successful Farming’s Innovations Theater where they’ve been doing live webcasts of the presentations. You can see a portion of their discussion here:
Jim will be joined by Radio Hall of Fame personality Orion Samuelson, whom Jim came to know in the 1950s when they both worked in Green Bay; and by Mike Yost, who, as the former Administrator of USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS), has extensive cross-cultural communication experience. Yost is also the owner-operator of Yost Farm in West-Central Minnesota and a former chairman of the American Soybean Association.
“I have never seen a time of such need and potential for skilled communicators who can deal with the complexities of agriculture and the food enterprise of societies,” he reports. “Through painful and costly experience, agri-marketers, producer and consumer groups, the food industry, government agencies and others are learning that the old, one-way, top-down approaches don’t work. Thousands of case examples around the world testify to the urgent need for better models and methods of communicating within agriculture, and between agriculture and the societies that depend on it. Professional Ag communicators can help lead the way in that effort.”
Not everyone who teaches communications has had such a lasting and powerful influence on students, but Evans’ devotion to his students and his commitment to the highest standards have been so influential across the decades that his former students are now raising funds for a new “James F. Evans Endowed Chair in Agricultural Communications” at the University of Illinois at Champaign.
The first stop for the U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission team today was Cairo University and specifically the ag school. Our first presenter was Dr. Rabie Ragab Sadek who gave us an overview of the Center Information Systems Center of Egypt. The project was created to develop a cattle information system that would provide statistically representative, adequate data for cattle breeding research and for the future development of a national breeding program. The goal to create genetic improvement of both milk and meat producing cattle and buffalo.
He introduces our other presenters who would speak about specifics about the accomplishments of the University’s dairy herd improvement unit.
This week, I’m planning to attend Ag Outlook 2010 in Sioux Falls, S.D. at the Ramkota Exhibit Hall. The theme for this year’s conference and trade show is, “Meeting the demands of the future,” and I’m excited to listen to the great lineup of speakers that the conference has to offer.
Speakers include: Matt Utterback, an ag commodity market analyst; Don Reynolds, futurist and real world economist; and Al Ambrose, VP of Risk Management for Oil Processing, a division of CHS, Inc. These three will be discussing the state of the economy, where its headed and how producers can develop a strategy to survive in the upcoming years.
This convention is hosted by the South Dakota Soybean Association, and there are over 600 people already planning to attend. I hope you’re one of them, and that I’ll run into you while I’m there. Are you going to Ag Outlook 2010?
The Wheat Foods Council has launched an interactive website called How Wheat Works. It’s purpose is to deliver a farm-to-fork education on wheat while enabling a better understanding of its nutritional value.
At www.howwheatworks.com, participants of all ages can virtually grow, harvest and mill their own kernels to create their desired wheat food. For each participant, the Council will donate two pounds of flour, up to 90,000 pounds, to Operation Homefront, a non-profit that provides assistance to needy U.S. troops and their families.
“How Wheat Works is an exciting educational opportunity to take wheat kernels from farm to fork in a virtual world, while providing wheat flour, which holds endless meal possibilities, for needy U.S. troops and their families,” said Carol Pratt, M.S., R.D., Wheat Foods Council nutrition expert. “This unique mixture of subjects like agriculture, milling, baking and nutrition allows people to better understand wheat’s role in a healthy diet.”
How Wheat Works combines 3-D animation, still photography, video and factual information to chronicle wheat’s path from field to table. Each of the program’s four phases – growth, harvest, milling/baking and the grocer’s aisle – takes just a few minutes to complete, while the program spans the course of four days. Interactive opportunities include the selection of the type of wheat to be grown and wheat flour to be milled, based on the participant’s preferred wheat food creation.
The company launched the program earlier this year at the 2009 Agriculture in the Classroom Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The program supports local school districts and colleges through initiatives that encourage students to learn more about agriculture and how their food is produced, and to share their insights and knowledge about what they learned. I talked with Dr. Lance Fox, Alpharma’s Director of Technical Services, at their exhibit during World Dairy Expo about the purpose of the program.
“Essentially the program is designed to reach out to our youth – elementary, high school, college-level students – our future leaders of tomorrow, to promote agricultural awareness,” Lance told me. “It’s not about products, it’s just about reaching out to the youth.”
It’s also about motivating young people to reach their own personal and professional goals, something Lance has done in his own life and he shares that story when he talks with young people of all ages. He grew up in the Wisconsin dairy industry, became a veterinarian, joined Alpharma as a technical services manager, and earlier this year achieved the personal goal of climbing to the top of Mt. Everest. “If you believe, you can achieve,” Lance says.
Find out more about the Reach Teach and Learn program, which features an essay and video contest for different age level students, at reachteachlearn.com.
Listen to or download my interview with Lance here.
The curriculum was designed to provide FFA members with details about the nature of the renewable fuels industry today and focuses on the ethanol production process, the benefits of ethanol production, the interplay between renewable fuels and agriculture, and wide range of other issues. The lessons are available through the Team Ag Ed Learning Center, a website designed to provide agriculture teachers with new and exciting instructional materials, tools and resources.
The RFF is also offering 10 scholarships to cover the cost of the registration fee for the National Ethanol Conference. More information is available here.
Nobel Peace Laureate, Dr. Norman Borlaug has passed away. You can find more information from The Borlaug Institute. He’s pictured with his Nobel Peace Prize.
Norman E. Borlaug, the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize winner for developing high-yielding, disease-resistant wheat used to prevent famine in developing countries throughout the world died today in Dallas, Texas.
Borlaug, whose career was dedicated to employing science to combat international hunger, was Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture in Texas A&M University’s Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. He was 95.
In 2007, he accepted the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor of the United States. This capped a string of major awards and honors throughout his scientific and humanitarian career.
“We all eat at least three times a day in privileged nations, and yet we take food for granted,” Borlaug said in recent interview. “There has been great progress, and food is more equitably distributed. But hunger is a commonplace, and famine appears all too often.” Even at age 95, Borlaug still traveled internationally working tirelessly for improvements in agricultural science and food policy. He regularly could be found in his office on campus in College Station advising students and providing counsel to fellow faculty members on research and scholarship.
Memories and thoughts celebrating the life of Dr. Borlaug can be submitted by clicking here. *This website is external to Texas A&M but is moderated by the Borlaug Institute.
The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, memorials be made to:
Borlaug International Scholars Fund
401 George Bush Drive
College Station, TX 77840
This fund is for land-grant university degree training of future leaders in agriculture and food security from developing countries. This fund will be administered by the Texas A&M Foundation, a non-profit organization.
And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Malachi 4:2
I discovered upon one of the cutest blogs ever the other day, and I knew I had to share it with AgWired readers. It’s called the Kid’s Cattle Blog, and it’s hosted by the farm wife who shares the tales, good and bad, ugly and pretty, from her family’s cattle operation. Whether it’s stacking bales, pulling baby calves or show cattle, she shares the beef production story in a very fun way. Here is an excerpt from her latest blog post. Check it out!
Many people who have baled hay as a kid and are now working in town or the city have a romanticized memory of how fun it was. We were even told by a friend that every red-blooded American boy should bale hay once in their lives. (This may solve the entitlement problem we have in the U.S. even among grain farmers.) These fond memories likely stem from the nature of bucking bales. It’s hot, sweaty, sticky, itchy, dirty, heavy work. Yet it is simple, basic, and pure work. Nothing technical about it unless the baler breaks down. Plus you work as a team and everybody has a job. There is always someone new who has yet to learn how to use a hook. They get the usual hazing. Everyone has a baling hay story.
But there are less cattle farms lately. Fewer farm kids know how to buck bales. It is harder to find kids who want to do the work. So large round bales and large square bales have replaced the small ones, since only one person is needed to run a tractor to mow,rake, bale, and stack. We still put up straw and hay bales for our cows. The kids complain about “it’s hot”,”I’m tired”, “Slow down, Dad”. One day they will talk about when they were young baling hay. And tell their kids how good they got it.
Call me biased, but I think my sister Kaley is one of the coolest kids on the planet. We have nine years in age difference, but it doesn’t seem to matter. We are like two peas in a pod. She is into the same stuff I was as a kid: showing cattle and giving speeches. Yesterday, my mom and my sisters, Kaley and Courtney, went to Sioux Falls, S.D. to attend the 70th Annual Sioux Empire Fair to watch Kaley compete in the 4-H CHARACTER COUNTS! speech contest.
Like any good, older sister, I taped her speech and critiqued her when she was finished. When she didn’t make it to finals, I encouraged her to find areas of improvement and give it a shot next year. For the remainder of the day, we watched the other speeches, attended the free pork luncheon for Ag Appreciation Day and then ditched the fair to head to the mall shopping (it was an all-girl trip, what did you expect?) Anyway, it got me thinking. We get so involved in our day-to-day tasks, chores and errands, do we often slow down to make sure our character is in check? Do you have your respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, trustworthiness and citizenship with you at all times? CHARACTER COUNTS! is a great program to ask ourselves those questions to make sure that we are the best we can be.
For more information on this program, link here. And, Kaley…Happy Early Birthday! You’re almost a teenager! The big 13! I’m proud of you, little sister!
Yesterday, I attended the 70th Annual Sioux Empire Fair in Sioux Falls, S.D. While there, I stopped at the infamous Old MacDonald’s Farm, the destination for urban kids to come learn about farm life. I had a minute to chat with FFA member Gabrielle Emmett about her experiences in working at the barn. Here is what she had to say…
“Through FFA and the Old MacDonald’s Farm project, I have been able to work alongside some great people while growing as an individual,” said Emmett, who is also active in cross country, National Honor Society, National Forensics League and Floriculture and Agriculture Issues in FFA. “Old MacDonald’s farm is a lot of work, especially setting up, lining up animals and cleaning up afterwards, but I think it’s a clean, well-organized, safe environment for kids to learn about farms and ranches.”
At each station of the barn hung different agriculture facts for young people to read as they viewed the farm animals. Did you know that there are 3,700,000 cattle in South Dakota compared to 750,000 people? Did you know that a dairy cow producers 200,000 cups of milk in her lifetime? These are a few examples of the educational tidbits included in the display. For Emmett, the best part of the day is watching the kids interact with the animals.
“The little kids really enjoy visiting the Old MacDonald’s farm at the fair,” said Emmett. “It’s really rewarding to watch kids look at big farm animals for the very first time. It seems like the parents really enjoy the display, as well. It’s really an eye opener to realize that this is the only exposure some people have to the agriculture industry, and we are happy to provide that opportunity to the community.”
Alpharma is continuing to reach, teach and learn with students after just announcing a fall essay contest.
Alpharma Animal Health will launch its inaugural student essay contest in select locations across the United States, the company announced today at Ag Media Summit in Fort Worth, Texas.
The essay contest is the latest initiative in Alpharma’s Reach Teach Learn (RTL) educational stewardship program. RTL also features an ag video contest for college and university students.
“We are excited to add another plank to our Reach Teach Learn platform,” says Jeff Mellinger, Global Leader, Sales & Marketing for Alpharma. “Supporting and promoting education makes communities stronger and fosters an environment that provides opportunities for our customers, employees and business in general to be more successful. Our essay contest is simply another step in that direction.”
Commodity Classic took place in Anaheim, CA. You'll find all of Chuck, Cindy and Joanna's photos here.
Happy Ag Week
It's time to thank our farmers and ranchers for all their hard work to feed us.
In this week's program I interview Linda Tank, CHS, Inc., who is Chair of the Agriculture Council of America, the group coordinating National Ag Day. Learn more about their activities, especially this week in Washington, DC.
There is a rare treasure nestled in the heart of the Ozarks in Southern Missouri – a college that offers students a degree in hard work. 
The college offers 48 different degrees, including culinary arts, hotel and restaurant management, agribusiness, animal science, and ag education. There are about 125 students majoring in some area of agriculture there, but the school offers amazing hands-on experience for them, including hog, dairy and beef operations, a meat processing facility and a feed mill. They also have a beautiful center that is open to the public which features fine dining, historic lodging, meeting rooms, and more. During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Sarah Palin chose to visit the college as one of her stops in Missouri. 
Are you a journalism student who has a passion for the environment? Then don’t miss out on your opportunity to 
I had the great opportunity and honor to meet and work with Celeste Laurent at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI. I had first encountered Laurent through the big world of social media, where I have countless online friends across the country who are actively engaged in social networking and who are also passionately involved in the agriculture industry. Laurent is a junior studying animal science and communications at Western Kentucky University, and she found her internship on Twitter! 
At the youth workshop presented by myself, Celeste Laurent and Teresa Crook during the 
It’s okay to talk about Mark Bloom. I think he’s actually in Brazil right now with an 
Immediately following my presentation on Thursday’s Partner Program at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference, I served as the moderator for a student panel titled, “Issues, Engagement and Impact.” The panel featured university students sharing how they have become engaged on the front lines to speak up about industry issues and the impacts of their actions.
Participating on the panel were three outstanding college students including: Greg Thon, Celeste Laurent and Bailey Albright. As moderator, I asked them several important questions pertaining to the agriculture industry today such as: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions consumers have about where their food comes from? What are the biggest challenges facing young people today? 
Discussing the future of agricultural communications was the job of Orion Samuelson, Jim Evans and Mike Yost today at AG CONNECT Expo. Jim has spent a lifetime in agriculture and Ag communications, as a practitioner and professor at the University of Illinois. The panel took place in Successful Farming’s Innovations Theater where they’ve been doing 
The first stop for the U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission team today was 
The 
“Essentially the program is designed to reach out to our youth – elementary, high school, college-level students – our future leaders of tomorrow, to promote agricultural awareness,” Lance told me. “It’s not about products, it’s just about reaching out to the youth.”
National FFA members will be getting an education in the growing field of renewable fuels, thanks to a new partnership.
The 
Nobel Peace Laureate, Dr. Norman Borlaug has passed away. You can find more information from 
It's time to thank our farmers and ranchers for all their hard work to feed us.
