Iowa’s new governor and the state’s agricultural organizations miss Terry Branstad so much that they are already planning a trip to see him in China. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds will lead an all-Iowa agriculture trade mission to China July 19-28 with representatives from the state’s corn, pork, soy, beef, egg, poultry, dairy and turkey industries. The trip marks the first …
Growing Up Lyons
Dr. Mark Lyons was a young boy in 1980 when his father, Dr. Pearse Lyons, started Alltech with an investment of $10,000. Today, the global animal health company employs more than 4700 people with a presence in 128 countries, including the rapidly growing Chinese market where Mark is based as global vice president for the company. The youngest Dr. Lyons …
Another NAMA 60 Year Perspective
Another active member of the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) who has been around for at least two-thirds of the organization’s 60 years is Carroll Merry of Countryside Marketing. Carroll has been a member of NAMA since November 1976 and in our reminiscing interview he talks about how NAMA started – and definitively solves the question of how it should be …
MagGrow Brings Innovation to Crop Protection
After three years of developing products, founding member and CEO of MagGrow, Gary Wickham became part of the Pearse Lyons Accelerator just as they were ready to bring their solutions to growers. It was Wickham’s brother who discovered the need that was the mother of this invention. While working in Florida he saw serious flaws with pesticide spray. As a …
Bringing Smart Farming to Aquaculture
Farmers across the livestock production sectors have begun to have increased access to smart farming technology on their operations, including the booming global aquaculture industry. Rully Setya Purnama is the Chief Operating Officer of eFishery, a company offering integrated feeding solution for fish and shrimp farming that allows operators to control their fish/shrimp feeding performance directly from a smartphone or …
SkySquirrel Leaps Ahead in Aerial Imaging
When Richard van der Put looked at the potential for his drone company, SkySquirrel Technologies, he found a niche in vineyards, but he also found a niche with his software. “What you see in the market is, obviously, drones are being utilized more and more by farmers, but all of our competitors are basically using the same technology on the …
Lighting Up Poultry Production With LED Sensors
Steve Parsons has been a part of the chicken industry throughout his entire life, and his company, Greengage Lighting Ltd, is using LED systems to help poultry and swine farmers further improve the efficiency and productivity of their operations. Parsons sat down with Jamie Johansen during ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, where he gave a presentation on his company through …
Agrilyst Fulfills Digital Need for Indoor Farming
Two years ago Allison Kopf left her job of finding ways to be innovative in greenhouse spaces to start a company that would fill a gaping need she saw. While she could find many programs for outdoor crops, Agrilyst is a software program specifically created for indoor farming. The software is very specific, Kopf explains. It can be difficult to …
Feeding the World With Grasshopper Protein
When Dror Tamir founded Hargol Food Tech, he named it after the Hebrew word for grasshopper, and that isn’t a coincidence. The company, which develops solutions to combat global malnutrition and food insecurity, is pioneering the production and processing of grasshopper-based protein sources. Tamir sat down with our Jamie Johansen during ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference to discuss his unique …
Tevatronic Offers Cutting Edge in Irrigation
Oleg Korol was a software engineer for the Israeli army when he simply tired of the work and decided to run Tevatronic instead. He looked at several companies before finding this technology that measures plant pressure on the soil to decide when to turn irrigation on, and water depth to decide when to turn it off. If we have autonomous …