If you’ve never heard Dr. Mike Boehlje, Center for Food & Agricultural Business, Purdue University, speak then you’re missing a good performance. He is passionate about his work. He just completed his presentation on “Farming in the 21st Century” here at the Syngenta Learning Centers media briefing.

He started out with the “e” word which is of course, ethanol. However most of his talk really was on this thing called “new agriculture.” Kind of sounds like new media doesn’t it? Dr. Boehlje had to fly home right after his talk but I talked him into a short interview on his way out the door.

He says there are a lot of things that make up new agriculture but some key areas include new marketing opportunities, a lot of which is being driven by the bioeconomy and in particular, biofuels. Then there’s new tehnology and new business models. He sees a generational shift whereby younger farmers are saying, “bring it on” when it comes to these new ways of farming. The number one question he says growers are asking him this year is “How do I solve this corn on corn thing, especially yield drag?”

You can listen to my interview with Dr. Boehlje here: learning-centers-boehlje.mp3

Or you can download the interview using this link: Dr. Boehlje Interview (7 min MP3)