Industry Ag News 8/25

GROWMARK, Inc. announced Andrew Durward of Thomson, Illinois and Scott McGeachy of Chatham, Ontario, Canada, have been elected to the GROWMARK Board of Directors.

The Sunbelt Agricultural Exposition will celebrate its 45th Anniversary show October 17-19, 2023. Over 1,200 exhibitors will display and demonstrate products and welcome thousands of visitors to the 100-acre show site.

USDA’s Economic Research Service and Farm Foundation are hosting a one-day virtual conference on September 13, 2023. The conference, U.S. Farm Households’ Social and Economic Needs and the Future of Agriculture, will feature paper presentations and panel discussions. The aim is to unite perspectives in the social sciences to explore ways in which existing social programs and policies can better support the farm sector’s economic and social needs.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) announced $72.9 million awarded to 55 states and territories through the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. The grant program provides funding to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops and support specialty crop growers through marketing, education, and research.

BRANDT, a leading retailer of professional agronomic services and manufacturer of specialty input products, has broken ground on the Evelyn Brandt Thomas Ag Innovation Center at the BRANDT Research Farm in Pleasant Plains, Illinois. The Center will enable BRANDT to continue advancing and sharing the state-of-the-art in agriculture products, processes and practices.

Missouri Farmers Care, agricultural leaders, and partners joined together at the Missouri State Fair to capstone the 2023 Drive to Feed Kids. The effort to stand in the gap for those facing hunger in the state raised 1,200,389 million meals. Over the past eight years, this collaborative partnership has raised resources to provide over twelve million meals for children and families across the state.

U.S. potato exports reached record value and volume in the 12-month period from July 2022 – June 2023. Export values increased 19.05 percent to $2.2 billion, and export volume increased 3.85 percent to 3.3 million metric tons (fresh weight equivalent).

The World Food Prize Foundation announced that it will honor Iowa native Simon Estes with the 2023 Robert D. Ray Iowa SHARES Humanitarian Award. The award will be presented to Mr. Estes for his profound humanitarian commitment to creating “peace through music,” and elevating the voices of impoverished youth across the globe and here at home in Iowa.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced new members of the Agricultural Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) for Trade in Grains, Feed, Oilseeds, and Planting Seeds. Among the members is Jake Westlin, National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) Vice President of Policy and Communications, who has been appointed to serve on the committee. The newly appointed committee members will serve until August 2027.

Fields-of-Corn.com, the official photo contest of the National Corn Growers Association, is set to relaunch on the first of September. Along with a new look built to showcase the rich history of visual storytelling comes a more robust interface for quicker and more efficient access for entrants. The reboot comes just in time for the tenth photo contest.

The Georgia Cotton Commission, Georgia Peanut Commission and the University of Georgia Extension Cotton and Peanut Teams, will co-sponsor a joint research field day on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023, in Tifton, Georgia.

An exclusive dialogue, presented by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) and Agri-Pulse, will
bring together industry, government and non-profit organizations to discuss solutions that can accelerate progress across the livestock value chain, including the development of the first-of-its- kind livestock carbon credit marketplace. The event, “New horizons for the agricultural carbon market,” will take place in Washington, D.C., and virtually on Sept. 13 from 9:30-12 p.m. ET

How can forward-looking and flexible federal policies unlock further groundbreaking technologies in agriculture? This is the topic of the upcoming Sept. 13 Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc. webinar, “Building domestic stability and global influence through innovation.” This complimentary one-hour program will discuss how new tools and technologies, like biological fertilizers, can boost profitability and increase sustainability and efficiency.