Gateway to Ag Careers Students Excel at Annual Meeting

Cindy Zimmerman

Eight outstanding college students were able to attend the AgGateway Annual Conference this week in Nashville through the Gateway to Ag Careers program, sponsored by the AgCIO Roundtable.

The eight students represented a variety of different disciplines and academic institutions from across the country. In order of appearance in the photo, they are:
• Clara Cobb, Mississippi State University
• Jake Dempsey, Arizona State University
• Kelsey Vourazeris, Arizona State University
• Cole Byers, University of Georgia
• Fei Xyza Asuncion, Kansas State University
• Justin Allange, Purdue University
• Ryanna Tiejie, The Ohio State University
• Phillip Lanza, Cornell University

The students made individual presentations during a special session during the conference to share their work, ambitions, and interests in the agriculture industry and all of them made a positive impression on the attendees with their active involvement and willingness to network and learn. Here is a brief interview with them as a group:

2023 AgGateway interview with GTAC students 10:56

2023 AgGateway Annual Meeting Photo Album

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AgGateway Awards

Cindy Zimmerman

In addition to the President’s Award, there were several other very special awards presented at the AgGateway annual meeting this week in Nashville.

Ann Vande Lune (2nd from left) with AgGateway CEO Brent Kemp, Ron Farrell’s daughter Kelly and wife Judi

A brand new award this year is the Ron Farrell Attitude Award, honoring the late co-founder of AgGateway who passed away in 2020 and was known for sporting a gold lapel pin with the single word “Attitude.” This new award will now honor an organization volunteer who work personally to make a difference in the industry.

Ann Vande Lune of Key Cooperative was honored to be the first recipient of the award, which included a replica of Ron’s Attitude pin presented to her by his wife Judi and daughter Kelly. “That is the one thing I remember about him was that pin and the attitude that he had towards the industry,” Ann said. “It was his desire and ability to talk to anybody about the industry and pushing it forward that inspires me to continue that work.”

2023 AgGateway interview Ann Vande Lune, Key Cooperative 3:55

Stuart Rhea, Syngenta, accepts Ron Storms award from AgGateway’s Jeremy Wilson

Ron Storms, who passed away in 2002, was one of the early leaders and proponents of electronic connectivity in agriculture and the Ron Storms Leadership Award was created to honor long-term, sustained work on multiple organization initiatives. This year’s recipient is Stuart Rhea of Syngenta who has been especially over the years in AgGateway’s ADAPT open-source project. “ADAPT has been my pet project, my baby, over the years,” said Rhea. “It’s a key enabling technology that’s going to help us help the grower think of his data as a secondary crop.”

2023 AgGateway interview Stuart Rhea, Syngenta Digital 6:48

Dave Craft, SSI, accepts In Action award on behalf of the company

The AgGateway in Action Awards recognize individuals and organizations from each region for outstanding contributions during the calendar year. For North America, Software Solutions Integrated (SSI) was honored for its support of the organization and the industry. Guilherme Panes of Jacto received the award for the Latin America Region, and Udo Kaempf with BASF was honored for the European Region.

2023 AgGateway Annual Meeting Photo Album

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Precision Ag News 11/15

Carrie Muehling

  • Syngenta Group announced that Mary-Dell Chilton, Ph.D., has been awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Biden. Dr. Chilton led the team of Syngenta researchers that produced the first transgenic plant and pioneered plant biotechnology, discovering novel methods to improve plants’ ability to control pests and withstand extreme conditions.
  • BASF is introducing xarvio SeedSelect, a novel seed variety placement technology based on an algorithm derived from plot trial field research, local topographic and soil attributes, and variety-specific yield building characteristics. Using advanced data and analysis methods, xarvio SeedSelect evaluates soybean varieties based on how they build yield, which provides a foundational understanding of what field characteristics will best support growth and matches them to growers’ fields based on those characteristics.
  • Bayer announced at Agritechnica, the world’s leading trade fair for agricultural machinery, an update on the strategic collaboration with Microsoft: New data connectors allow secure, compliant exchange of farm data between Bayer’s flagship digital farming product Climate FieldView and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) through the industry platform Microsoft Azure Data Manager for Agriculture. Following the preview launch of Bayer AgPowered Services on the platform earlier this year, Leaf Agriculture is now bringing a solution to further enhance accessibility of farm machinery data, and OneSoil is delivering new solutions for in-season crop identification.
  • Gowan USA is pleased to announce that CLIFFHANGER SC Herbicide is now registered and available for the 2024 season in California. This new product expands our rice portfolio, offering an alternative to our well-established BUTTE Herbicide.</li.
  • The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) announced that eight Research Ambassadors have been selected for the 2023-2024 academic year.
  • Unit sales of 4WD ag tractors continued growing in both the U.S. and Canada in October, making a strong opening of the final quarter of 2023, according to the latest data from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). In the U.S., 4WD tractors grew year-over-year 12.6 percent, the only segment to see growth for the month. Year-to-date, 4WD tractor sales are up 36.2 percent, leading all segments in unit sales growth. In Canada, 4WD unit sales were up 141 percent for the month, and 38.3 percent year-to-date.
  • Trace Genomics, an industry-leading provider of science-validated soil biology insights, announced a collaboration with EarthOptics, the pioneering next-generation soil mapping company, are collaborating to introduce a new level of accuracy in carbon measurement, to introduce a new level of accuracy in carbon measurement, with fast-track turnaround of results to customers. The multi-year agreement combines the power of soil carbon insights from both companies to offer farmers and ranchers research grade C-Mapper, a new hyper-accurate product from EarthOptics that combines Trace Genomics’ unmatched TraceCARBON data with GroundOwl Sensor data to power a new carbon measurement and mapping in its SoilMapper platform.
  • The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) released the 2022 Impact Report, Leveraging Bold Science: FFAR 2022 Impact Report. This report highlights FFAR’s impact on food and agriculture research. In 2022, FFAR continued to outperform, raising over $82 million in matching funds and bringing FFAR’s total awards to $605 million. A comprehensive list of all FFAR grant awards can be found on the FFAR website.
  • To help growers and retailers prepare for the 2024 growing season, Corteva Agriscience is offering several webinars focused on best practices for using the Enlist weed control system — including a new series focused on Enlist corn. Register here.
  • Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions (WMFTS) highlights a wide range of pumps ideal for seed treatment applications. For low-pressure feed pump applications, Watson-Marlow offers Qdos chemical metering pumps, as well as its cased peristaltic pumps. Visit WMFTS in booth 702 at Seed Expo 2023 in Orlando, Florida December 5-8 to learn more about these solutions for seed treatment.
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    MyLand Welcomes Bill Mennell as Principal of Strategy and Analysis

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Soil health company MyLand has announced the addition of Bill Mennell to the company’s leadership team as Principal, Strategy and Analysis, to identify and pursue new business opportunities for MyLand’s unique Soil as a Service (SaaS) solution. Mennell began his role in May 2023.

    Mennell focuses on partnership expansion, natural asset strategies, and identifying the agriculture sectors where the MyLand System® can have the greatest impact for growers and oversees the Algae, Ag Science, and Data teams, where he aims to advance MyLand’s technical expertise. He reports to Dane Hague, MyLand CEO and Co-founder,

    “Bill is uniquely qualified to take MyLand forward in our growth and sustainability efforts, and his expertise will help us better serve our customers and stakeholders,” says Hague. “With his background and understanding of soil, water, climate, and agriculture’s influence on each, Bill will play a crucial role in our company’s future.”

    Mennell’s contributions will further the company’s efforts to increase grower ROI from MyLand’s proprietary Soil as a Service® solution. Water savings, nutrient reduction, improved nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and credit application all drive economic returns to the farmer beyond yield improvement. His role will directly impact MyLand’s efforts to increase growers’ productivity, economic security, and profitability.

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    Pivot Bio Presents Abstracts on Breakthrough Technology at Research Conference

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Sustainable agriculture company Pivot Bio presented abstracts on its breakthrough crop nutrition technologies at the 2023 International Annual Meeting of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), the Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA). The company’s researchers and independent scientists shared their findings across 14 abstracts, highlighting the latest pre-publication research verifying the mode of action and performance of Pivot Bio’s microbial nitrogen.

    The research presented focused on Pivot Bio’s PROVEN ®40, a breakthrough product offering a microbial source of nitrogen specifically designed for corn crops. The week-long event served as a platform for sharing research studies demonstrating the efficacy of Pivot Bio’s PROVEN ® 40 in enhancing nitrogen fixation in plants during critical growth phases, maintaining yield, and reducing environmental impacts – crucial metrics in today’s agricultural landscape.

    Key insights presented included research on the mechanism of action behind PROVEN® 40, revealing how two generations of synthetic biology improvements in diazotrophic N-fixation inoculants can potentially decrease reliance on synthetic N fertilizers in corn; analyses of hundreds of plant samples indicating enhanced plant nitrogen status even when synthetic N was reduced by up to 40 pounds per acre; yield stability and environmental impact reduction.

    During the conference, Pivot Bio hosted over 25 researchers, graduate students, and collaborators from various universities and institutions at its state-of-the-art Product Success Center in St. Louis. Attendees engaged in in-depth discussions about the latest findings and best practices for working with PROVEN® 40, focusing on the application of microbial nitrogen and its integration into current agricultural systems.

    Agronomy, Corn, Crop Science, Nutrient Management, Soil, Sustainability

    Truterra Appoints Jamie Leifker as New President

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Truterra has announced Jamie Leifker as its new president, bringing over 25 years of experience in agriculture through his track record in leadership at WinField United, Land O’Lakes, Inc.’ crop inputs and insights business, in addition to previous industry experience.

    “Jamie’s career spans the spectrum of applicable experience that make him the perfect choice to help Truterra reach the next level as a leader in agricultural sustainability,” said Brett Bruggeman, Chief Operating Officer at Land O’Lakes, Inc. “His background in agronomy plus his experience working with both local ag retailers and customers is in lock step with Truterra’s mission and go-to-market approach.”

    Most recently in his role as vice president of New Markets and Growth Services at WinField United, Leifker was responsible for working with ag retailers to provide risk management services, as well as downstream companies to deliver on customizable supply chain needs. Prior to that, he led the Agronomy and Product Development team delivering products and services to help retailers and farmers be more profitable, productive and sustainable. This included leadership of the WinField United Innovation Center dedicated to cutting-edge agronomic research and product development.

    “As a farmer myself, I understand the challenges livestock and crop producers face and the value sustainability can bring to the agriculture industry,” said Leifker. “I look forward to channeling my experience to further Truterra’s focus on productivity and profitability.”

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    AgGateway’s Jeremy Wilson Could Be Wrong

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Most people in the precision agriculture space know AgGateway Executive Vice President Jeremy Wilson with his more than three decades of diverse agriculture experience serving farmers including crop insurance, data collection and analysis, systems development, and field agronomy. He could arguably be called the most passionate person in the precision ag industry.

    But, he could be wrong. That was the title of Wilson’s presentation at the AgGateway annual meeting this week in Nashville. “I could be wrong (but) I think we’re really struggling at large-scale, complete ag industry data interoperability,” said Wilson.

    He sees that issue right now as the most important for the industry to solve. “It’s how can we capitalize on what we did 15-20 years ago on facilitating B2B communications so that processes are streamlined as much as they can be…and how do we bring that all into one system to have seamless interoperability across the ag industry.”

    Listen to Jeremy’s presentation and interview below:
    2023 AgGateway opening remarks Jeremy Wilson, EVP/COO 19:02
    2023 AgGateway interview Jeremy Wilson, EVP/COO 7:10

    2023 AgGateway Annual Meeting Photo Album

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    AgGateway President’s Award Winners

    Cindy Zimmerman

    AgGateway president and CEO Brent Kemp presented the President’s Awards at the annual meeting this week to three members of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for their work.

    Evan Wallace is an electronic engineer in the Systems Engineering Group and has been engaged with AgGateway since the days of the CART project when the Food Safety Modernization Act came out. He also helped rationalize the concepts of the ‘Traceable Resource Unit’ to help arrive at the forthcoming Traceability API. Additionally, he is involved in the emerging ‘Digital Product Passport’ which illustrates a product’s sustainability, environmental and recyclability attributes.
    2023 AgGateway interview, Evan Wallace, NIST 2:48

    Kemp also recognized Boonserm Kulvatunyou and Hakju Oh from the National Institute of Standards & Technology for outstanding leadership and innovation, resulting in cutting-edge tool development and deployment that advances semantic interoperability in the agriculture industry.

    The two researchers led a ground-breaking activity to develop a new methodology and supporting tooling called “connectCenter” (formerly “Score”), which supports the ISO 15000 part 5 Core Component Specification. While the connectCenter addresses requirements across industries, they have responded to AgGateway requests to make connectCenter a more effective tool for the agriculture industry. AgGateway has used connectCenter to develop several resources, including the ADAPT Standard, Dataset Metadata, Scale Ticket, In-Field Product Id, and Product Catalog.

    2023 AgGateway Annual Meeting Photo Album

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    AgGateway Meeting Explores AI in Ag

    Cindy Zimmerman

    Brooks Hamilton has been studying artificial intelligence for over 20 years, since “before AI was cool,” and he was the keynote speaker for the opening general session at the AgGateway annual meeting this week in Nashville. His presentation was on the “Seismic Changes” the AI revolution is bringing that will “reshape the industrial fabric.”

    Hamilton was thrilled to be able to speak to such an innovative group. “I’ve worked with a number of other industries where they struggle with data challenges and I’ve been especially impressed with the leadership that AgGateway has provided for this industry to go about sorting out some of those thorny issues,” he said.

    Hamilton talked about how AI is here and now and companies need to be at least developing a strategy for its use, especially here in agriculture. “For growers, that is going to be related to robotics, however there are all the other operational items – when do I buy, when do I plant, operational questions, transportation, logistics – those are the areas that can be made to be more autonomous and automated,” he said.

    Listen to his presentation, which you can also watch on AgGateway’s Facebook page, and an interview with Hamilton below.

    2023 AgGateway opening keynote - Brooks Hamilton remarks 57:01
    2023 AgGateway interview with Brooks Hamilton 7:33

    2023 AgGateway Annual Meeting Photo Album

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    Animal Ag News 11/13

    Carrie Muehling

  • Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced progress on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) comprehensive approach to address the many, complex competition issues in agricultural markets and create a fairer playing field for small- and mid-size farmers. In support of these efforts, USDA has finalized the first in a series of rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act, which is aimed at helping contract poultry growers compete more effectively and better understand the terms of their agreements with major processing companies.
  • The USPOULTRY Foundation awarded student recruiting grants totaling $297,580 to six U.S. universities with Poultry Science departments and 20 other institutions with industry-related programs. The Foundation provides annual recruiting and retention funds to colleges and universities to attract or connect students to their poultry programs and the industry. The grants were made possible in part by gifts to the USPOULTRY Foundation from companies, individuals and families, in addition to funds earned over the years from the International Poultry Expo, part of the International Production & Processing Expo.
  • The long-term demand trends for dairy products indicate butter, cheese and other full-fat dairy foods will continue to grow in sales and volume for the foreseeable future. U.S. consumers have shifted away from margarine and reduced fat dairy foods over the last decade as nutritional science surrounding saturated fats has evolved. As a result, butterfat levels in the national milk supply have risen sharply in response to changing demand patterns and dairy market dynamics. According to a new report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange, the butterfat boom will continue as the entire dairy supply chain is capturing additional value from milk with higher fat and protein levels. The economic incentives for a supermajority of the nation’s dairy farmers are firmly in place to produce milk with more butterfat.
  • Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative, the third largest dairy cooperative in the country based on milk volume, hosted a workshop on meaningful milk pricing reform in northwest Iowa. The session aimed to shed light on the cooperative’s efforts to reform the U.S. milk pricing system through the Federal Milk Marketing Order hearing process and legislatively through the farm bill. American Foods Group sponsored the event.
  • Farm Journal Foundation and the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) are launching a new program to support climate-smart grazing practices among Native American cattle farmers and ranchers. The program, which will work in partnership with Ecosystem Services Market Consortium (ESMC) and the Yield Lab Institute, will offer a combination of direct incentive payments, technical assistance, and education to producers who adopt certain conservation practices on their grazing lands. It will also better enable Native American cattle producers to participate in carbon and branded commodity markets and create pathways to join U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation programs. This new program, developed through support from the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative, officially launched at IAC’s Eastern Oklahoma and Southern Plains Regional Summit.
  • The next NCBA Cattlemen’s Webinar Series event is scheduled for Nov. 16 at 6:00 pm. CST. As winter progresses, winter nutrition, supplementation, and environmental stress on cows are a concern for cattle producers. Proper nutritional management affects the profitability and performance of the cow and her future calf. Hear from beef cattle specialists, Karla Wilke, PhD, University of Nebraska, and Maggie Justice, PhD, University of Arkansas discuss the importance of building a nutrition program and considerations for your operation. Register here.
  • The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) strongly opposes the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) decision to allow Paraguayan beef imports starting next month. NCBA has repeatedly raised concerns with USDA over Paraguay’s history of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and the outdated information used to justify Paraguay’s access to the U.S. market. NCBA is concerned that USDA’s failure to use information from recent site visits in the risk assessment may pose great risk to the safety of the U.S. cattle herd.
  • Experience Cattlemen’s College all week long during CattleCon from Wednesday, January 31st to Friday, February 2nd. Extend the opportunity for education and networking from classroom style sessions to sessions on the trade show floor.
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