Meet CIRB’s Newest Leadership Development Class

Cindy Zimmerman

CIRB’s 2025-2026 Leadership Development Program Class

The Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau (CIRB) has 14 industry professionals in its 2025-2026 Leadership Development Program (LDP), formerly called the Emerging Leaders Program (ELP). The program is designed to build the next generation of crop insurance and reinsurance leaders and provide new leadership opportunities for seasoned crop insurance professionals.

The LDP is open to employees of CIRB member companies who wish to expand their network and broaden their knowledge of the industry. Prior to the name change, the Emerging Leaders Program graduated 115 crop insurance professionals over 10 classes.

All 14 of the class participants were at the CIRB annual meeting last week in Indian Wells, California, and all of them offered their comments about the program and what it means for them. The individual interviews by reporter Laura McNamara are edited into an hour-long podcast that reveals the future for the industry. Take a listen.

The 2025-2026 CIRB Leadership Development Program class:
Heather Jager, American Farm Bureau Insurance Services
Jamie Mason, American Farm Bureau Insurance Services
Aaron Larson, AgriSompo
Audrey Carls, AgriSompo
Dylan Houser, COUNTRY Financial
Shelby Oetting, Farm Bureau Financial Services
Josh Menz, Farmers Mutual Hail
Kathleen Bjerke, Farmers Mutual Hail
Avery Cook, Gallagher Re
Kody Kirkendall, Guy Carpenter
Ashley Hawley, Hudson Crop
Isaac Straub, Hudson Crop
Josh Goche, Rural Community Insurance Services
Stephanie Manhart, Rural Community Insurance Services

CIRB 2026 Leadership Development Class interview (58:30)

2026 CIRB Annual Meeting Photo Album

Agribusiness, Audio, CIRB, Crop Insurance

Akralos Animal Nutrition Debuts at CattleCon

Chuck Zimmerman

Brian Gier, CEO, AkralosDuring the 2026 CattleCon trade show, Akralos Animal Nutrition debuted at the Alltech booth. Conducting an interview is Steven Orr, Paramount Broadcasting (All Ag All Day) with Akralos CEO, Brian Gier. Here are the details.

Akralos Animal Nutrition, a new North American animal feed and nutrition company, officially launched Feb. 1. Formed through a joint venture between global agriculture leaders ADM and Alltech, Akralos combines Alltech’s U.S.-based Hubbard Feeds and Canada-based Masterfeeds businesses with ADM’s U.S. feed operations.

Operating an extensive network of more than 40 feed mills across North America and supported by more than 1,400 team members, Akralos delivers reliable, high-quality feeds, minerals and supplements through its trusted brands, backed by advanced nutrition expertise, leading-edge science and personalized service.

“Akralos brings together proven scale, innovation and infrastructure with a deep commitment to service and results,” said Akralos chief executive officer Brian Gier, a leader with more than 30 years of experience in the commercial animal feed industry. “From day one, our focus is on delivering nutrition our customers can rely on, support they can count on and partnerships that help their animals and businesses thrive.”

Listen in for more during the interview:
Interview with Brian Gier, CEO, Akralos (4:48)

Find more interviews in the Official CattleCon Virtual Newsroom

Official CattleCon 2026 Photography

Agribusiness, Alltech, Audio, NCBA

2026 NCBA Officer Team Approved at CattleCon

Cindy Zimmerman

(L-R)Skye Krebs, Dan Hanrahan, Travis Maddock, Brad Hastings, Kenny Rogers, Buck Wehrbein, Kim Brackett, Gene Copenhaver, Scott Anderson (NCBA photo)

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) board approved the 2026 NCBE officer team at CattleCon in Nashville last week, with Gene Copenhaver of Virginia taking the helm as president. Kim Brackett of Idaho is now president-elect, and Skye Krebs of Oregon is vice president.

Kenny Rogers of Colorado was elected chair of the NCBA Policy Division and Scott Anderson of Oklahoma was elected policy vice chair. Travis Maddock of North Dakota and Dan Hanrahan of Iowa, were elected as chair and vice chair of the NCBA Federation Division, respectively. Brad Hastings of Texas will serve in the role of NCBA treasurer.

Copenhaver’s family has been raising crops and livestock since 1850. “I’m a fifth generation cattleman from from southwest Virginia and near the Tennessee line. And I’ve previously, I was a ag banker for 38 years. So I was doing 2 full-time jobs like a lot of our industry does in the business,” said Coperhaver. “I’ve been involved with NCBA, a member of 35 years, and been in policy leadership for the last 12 years. So it’s been a good way to be a servant to the industry. It’s important. My parents taught me that. My dad was involved in the cattle industry and local, state, and national cattle organizations.”

Copenhaver currently manages his family’s stocker operation in southwest Virginia with his son, Will. He has been married to his wife, Jodi, for more than 35 years, and they have two other grown children, Brad and Jaymee, and three granddaughters.

Listen to interviews with Coperhaver, Brackett, and Krebs from CattleCon in Nashville last week.

Gene Copenhaver, NCBA, President
Interview with Gene Copenhaver (7:06)
Kim Brackett, NCBA, President-elect
Interview with Kim Brackett (7:51)
Skye Krebs, NCBA, Vice President
Interview with Skye Krebs (6:11)

Find more interviews in the Official CattleCon Virtual Newsroom

Official CattleCon 2026 Photography

AgWired Animal, Audio, Beef, Cattle Industry Conference

Crop Insurance Industry Navigating Change

Cindy Zimmerman

The 2026 Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau (CIRB) Annual Meeting is being held this week in Indian Wells, California, bringing together industry leaders, experts, and stakeholders across the crop insurance industry.

CIRB Executive Director Mike Torrey says the industry is dealing with lots of changes right now. “I think coming into the conference, the one guiding principle for the board of directors was there is so much change happening both in Washington and in the marketplace,” said Torrey. “So we spent a little bit of time talking about the changes, not just in Washington, D.C. and what’s happening on policy, but also what’s happening from an economic standpoint around the country. And some of that flows from Washington, D.C. So that was the first focus of the meeting. Another part of the meeting where they really focused was on the rapidly changing in developing technology applications and what that means for our agricultural system, whether it’s on the production side and farmers being able to deliver more for less and efficiently, and at the same time what implications that has for what folks here do, and that is deliver crop insurance for America’s farmers and ranchers.”

Torrey says CIRB is very focused on the next generation of leadership, which is why they have grown what is now called their Leadership Development Program. “The program, the leadership development program is about 11 years old, and I think after this class graduates, there will have been over 100….I mean, that’s a significant number. And it’s all about helping them be better at what they do within their company, but also what they do on protecting and defending the program.”

Learn more in this interview with Torrey.
Mike Torrey, CIRB (8:27)

2026 CIRB Annual Meeting Photo Album

Audio, CIRB, Crop Insurance

RFK Jr. Gets Warm Welcome at CattleCon

Cindy Zimmerman

Sec. Kennedy chats with NCBA president Buck Wehrbein (NCBA photo)

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received a warm welcome from some 9,000 attendees at CattleCon in Nashville on Thursday, in light of his agency’s new dietary guidelines that turned the food pyramid on its head.

“We now have a food pyramid, which we flipped upside down, because it made more sense. That puts protein at the top of the food pyramid,” Kennedy said in a fireside chat with National Cattlemen’s Beef Association President Buck Wehrbein. “Food is medicine, and meat and chicken and eggs and animal protein are now at the top of the priority list.”

Kennedy, who recently had his 72nd birthday, talked about the health benefits he personally experienced by switching to a carnivore diet. “I eat beef every day. I usually eat it twice a day,” said Kennedy. “My blood markers dropped dramatically. So I really, for me, .. it’s been incredible — it’s been transformative.”

Kennedy’s bottom line message to producers is eat real food and get production back up to where it used to be. “We had 132 million head in 1972. We have 92 million today. And a lot of producers are now, because of fluctuations in the markets and uncertainty, slaughtering the breeding cows. And I’d ask you to stop doing that. We need a lot of beef, and we want to make it here in America. We don’t want to be importing it from other countries.”

Listen to some of Sec. Kennedy’s comments:
Sec. Kennedy comments (7:43)

Official CattleCon 2026 Photography

AgWired Animal, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Beef, Cattle Industry Conference

CattleCon 2026 Breaks Attendance Record

Chuck Zimmerman

NCBA photo of trade show floor

CattleCon 2026 has broken the all-time event attendance record this week, with more than 9,400 cattle producers and industry stakeholders converging in downtown Nashville, Tennessee.

“There’s a lot of smiles, a lot of optimism, and everybody’s having a great time, not only with the just current state of the beef industry and how good things look for us, but also we’re having a great CattleCon,” said National Cattlemen’s Beef Association CEO Colin Woodall. “A lot of good speakers. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a hit. And of course, having the largest trade show in the beef industry doesn’t hurt either, and folks are able to get out there and see some new products, some new services to help them get even better at producing beef.”

On the agenda Thursday, cattle producers will hear from Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who Woodall says gave the industry a big win this year already.

“A year ago, we were still dealing with the proposal that we saw from the Biden administration that took meat off the center of the plate. It replaced it with beans, peas, and lentils. And we just weren’t happy with that. And we had to fight and fight hard to be able to present the science to Secretary Kennedy and his team. And you know what? Secretary Kennedy and his team took that science. They looked at beef, and as a result, we have the new dietary guidelines for America. We have that inverted pyramid that has beef at the top. And, you know, he went so far as to even talk about how beef tallow is a great fat to cook with as well. So a huge win for us as cattle producers.”

Listen to an interview with Woodall from CattleCon.
Interview with Colin Woodall (6:00)

Official CattleCon 2026 Photography

Ag Groups, AgWired Animal, Audio, Beef, Cattle Industry Conference, Meat, NCBA, Nutrition

Environmental Stewardship Awards at CattleCon 26

Cindy Zimmerman

ESA National winner Wine Glass Ranch in Imperial, Nebraska

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) presented Wine Glass Ranch in Imperial, Nebraska, with the 2025 Environmental Stewardship Award Program (ESAP) National winner during CattleCon 2026 in Nashville this week.

“This ranch has been in my family for 140 years, and we are the stewards of the ground,” said Logan Pribbeno with Wine Glass Ranch. “We are grazing the best and leaving the rest for the benefit of our soil health.”

Jeff and Connie Pribbeno and their son and daughter-in-law Logan and Brianna Pribbeno own and operate Wine Glass Ranch, located in western Nebraska near the Colorado border. The Pribbenos believe long-term care for their operation’s ecology translates to profitability, which is why they have married together the values of ranching for profit and environmental stewardship to make a living.

The Pribbenos were the Region VII winners. The other regional winners included:
Region I: Whispering Hills Farm, Lawrenceburg, Kentucky
Region II: M&D Overstreet Ranch, Kathleen, Florida
Region III: Smith Family Farms, Bankston, Iowa
Region IV: McFaddin Ranch, Victoria, Texas
Region V: G&G Livestock and Cathey Cattle Company, Polson, Montana

Listen to interviews with three of the regional ESA winners below:

Interview with Britany Cathey and Gregory Gardner, ESA Award Region V Winner (7:26)

Interview with Bob McCann, ESA Award Region IV Winner (6:18)

Interview with Jack Smith, ESA Award Region III Winner (8:30)

AgWired Animal, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Beef, Cattle Industry Conference, Environment, NCBA

Precision Ag News 2/4

Carrie Muehling

  • Nutrien Ltd. announced the appointment of Chris Reynolds as Executive Vice President, Global Sales, a role created to unify leadership across the wholesale and retail sales organizations and strengthen how the business delivers value to customers worldwide. The appointment follows a planned leadership transition as Jeff Tarsi, who has led Nutrien’s global retail business through a period of significant growth and transformation, steps into an advisory role.
  • Bailey AG, a marketing consultancy serving agricultural businesses across the Midwest and Canada, today announced the launch of Tumbleweed™, a new digital marketing tool designed to help rural businesses and ag retailers stay consistent, organized, and relevant on social media.
  • Cropin, the world’s largest deployed AI platform for food and agriculture, has launched a unique agrifood ‘ecosystem’ to reduce the risks and uncertainties associated with one of the world’s most unpredictable yet vital industries. Drawing on more than a decade of data collection and interpretation, Cropin Ecosystem connects agriculture and the digital world by combining disparate streams of data – from the field onwards – with artificial intelligence, allowing players within the food chain to mitigate agricultural and supply risks to build more predictable, resilient supply chains.
  • Two leaders in the agricultural biologicals sector have signed on as the first sponsors of a comprehensive, farmer-centric market research effort around row-crop farmers’ use of agricultural biologicals. The study, “Biologicals: Row-Crop Farmer Value, Perception and Potential,” is being launched by Stratovation Group, a firm specializing in research, marketing and communications in the agricultural sector.
  • Genvor, Inc., a pioneer in AI-accelerated peptide technology for sustainable agriculture, announced the appointment of Dr. George Stavrides as Executive Vice President, Business Development & Commercialization, effective February 2, 2026. In this role, Dr. Stavrides will lead Genvor’s commercial strategy and execution, focusing on expanding strategic partnerships, licensing agreements, and collaboration opportunities with global agricultural companies.
  • Bushel Plus Ltd., a global leader in harvest optimization and agricultural technology, announced it will transition to a new company name, BranValt, with the official change taking effect in July 2026. The rebrand reflects the company’s evolution from a pioneer in harvest loss measurement to a global provider of integrated solutions that help farmers protect yields, improve efficiency, and maximize the value of every acre at harvest.
  • The National Wheat Foundation announced the twelve winners of Top-Quality Awards in the 2025 National Wheat Yield Contest. The 28 National Yield Winners all sent in ten pounds of wheat which was analyzed for grain, milling, flour and end-use qualities. A panel of thirteen experts went over the results and determined which of the wheats earned the coveted, “top-quality” designation. Each Top-Quality Award recipient will receive a $250 cash prize at the Winners’ Reception on February 24, 2026, in San Antonio, held in conjunction with Commodity Classic.
  • Unverferth Manufacturing Company, Inc. is excited to announce its Air Command™ Section Control System, designed for Unverferth Pro-Force® dry fertilizer spreaders, has received the prestigious AE50 Award from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE).
  • Sakata Seed America announced the promotion of Justin Davis to Chief Operating Officer (COO), Vegetables, effective February 1, 2026.
  • Endangered Species Act (ESA) requirements on pesticide labels are putting applicators in a tough spot. They’re responsible for verifying compliance before spraying, but some of the information they need lives on the farm. Many applicators don’t have visibility into the practices growers are using to meet runoff mitigation point requirements. Acre Blitz is solving this with two products that work together: the ESA Field Exchange, where growers document their field-level mitigations, and the ESA Check API, which delivers that data to applicators, retailers, cooperatives, and crop consultants at the moment they need it.
    • AgWired Precision, Precision Ag Bytes, Precision Agriculture

    Cattle Producers Gather at CattleCon 2026

    Cindy Zimmerman

    NCBA President-Elect Gene Copenhaver (NCBA photo)

    Almost 9,000 cattle producers, industry partners and stakeholders from around the country are in downtown Nashville this week for CattleCon 2026, the largest cattle industry event of the year.

    NCBA President-Elect Gene Copenhaver of Virginia says there is a lot of excitement in the industry right now after some big wins. “I think maybe the biggest one that happened was recently with dietary guidelines, you know, not only putting proteins, beef and pork and other good proteins back in the pyramid, but turning the pyramid upside down,” said Copernaver.

    Cattlemen will get to hear from the Trump administration official most responsible for that food pyramid change tomorrow at CattleCon when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will join National Cattlemen’s Beef Association President Buck Wehrbein for a fireside chat to talk national nutrition priorities and the recently released Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

    CattleCon 2026 has some new activities this year including “Next Generation Day” and the Emerging Leaders event on Thursday, as well as a “Career Crawl” with companies at the NCBA Trade Show to explore internships, job openings and career opportunities while engaging in meaningful conversations with agriculture professionals.

    Copenhaver says it is critical right now for the industry to look ahead ti the next generation. We have a smart, innovative technology-wise generation coming forward,” he said. “And I think we have to develop more tools as an association in the industry for them to come in. And the transition part, we got to get some tools for the older generation and make it easier for them to be able to move out the operation to them and not be so hard on them tax wise or otherwise.”

    Interview with Gene Copenhaver, NCBA President-elect (7:06)

    AgWired Animal, Animal Agriculture, Audio, Beef, Beef Checkoff, Cattle Industry Conference, NCBA

    Former Industry Leaders Warn of Farm Crisis

    Cindy Zimmerman

    A bipartisan group of former leaders of America’s major agricultural commodity associations and biofuels organizations, farmer leaders, and former senior USDA officials, sent a letter to Congress this week sounding the alarm about the current state of the farm economy and the potential for “widespread collapse of American agriculture.”

    In a letter released today to the leadership of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, twenty-seven former agricultural executives and officials with decades of experience detailed how current Administration policies have harmed the farm economy and the need to take substantial action. The signatories include past presidents and CEOs of the American Soybean Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Pork Producers Council, National Barley Growers Association, National Milk Producers Federation, US Grains Council, and Renewable Fuels Association, past Directors of the Illinois and Nebraska Departments of Agriculture, and other farm leaders and senior agricultural policy experts.

    Among the letter signatories are former presidents of NCGA Harold Wolfe and Pam Johnson, past NCGA CEO Jon Doggett, former RFA chair Randy Doyal, and past RFA CEO Bob Dinneen.

    “First and foremost, what we want to do is to start a conversation,” said Dinneen. “Let’s focus on the solutions. We outline what we think some of them might be, but we don’t have all the answers. Let’s figure that out. The bottom line is we’re in a perilous state, and we say that without hyperbole or exaggeration. It is perilous. We need to figure it out.”

    Dinneen says the group offered nine actions that can be taken to help restore the farm economy. “Let’s end the tariffs on farm inputs. Let’s try to open up markets elsewhere. Let’s stop some of the chaotic trade policies that are out there. But there’s more than that. We think even on biofuels, there are things that can be done, and Congress has been irresponsible in not addressing the things that they could be doing to increase biofuel demand. Let’s get E15 year-round done once and for all.”

    Read the letter to Congress and learn more in this interview with Dinneen.
    Interview with Bob Dinneen (14:39)

    Ag Groups, AgWired Animal, AgWired Precision, Audio, Corn, Ethanol