Read Full Transcript
Mike Howell (00:08):
The Dirt with me, Mike Howell, an eKonomics podcast where I present the down and dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by eKonomics.com, farming’s go-to informational resource, I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research, news, and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
(00:33):
Welcome. Well, hello again, everyone. Welcome back to The Dirt. We’re going to get off in the weeds a little bit literally today. Typically, we talk about agronomy and soil fertility related issues, but there is a hot topic out there that everybody’s aware of, I’m sure. And we wanted to wait until we got a little more information and be able to give you as much information as we could about this before we dropped the podcast. But I’m sure by now everybody has become aware of the situation going on with Dicamba herbicides and how we’re not being able to use those in these tolerant crops like we used to in the past.
(01:10):
To help us get into all of that, we’ve got Dr. Tom Eubanks with Nutrien Ag Solutions with us today. Tom, welcome to The Dirt.
Dr. Tom Eubank (01:17):
Appreciate it. Glad to be here, Mike.
Mike Howell (01:19):
Tom, if you will, before we get started, introduce yourself to our listeners and let them know what you do.
Dr. Tom Eubank (01:23):
Yeah, Mike, I’m a weed scientist by training like yourself. I went to Mississippi State University and had various stints with different companies over the years, Mississippi State, Dow, Corteva, and then I wound up here with Nutrien. I’m the farm supervisor and agronomist for the Nutrien Innovation Farm in Greenville, Mississippi.
Mike Howell (01:42):
Okay. Well, Tom, let’s get started here. First off, I know we have listeners that aren’t farmers and don’t deal with agriculture on a daily basis, so set the stage for us. Let us know what dicamba is and the dicamba tolerant crops and why this is such a big issue.
Dr. Tom Eubank (01:57):
Just to try to give a little bit of a history behind dicamba. Dicamba is an auxinic herbicide, and basically what that means is it mimics auxin hormones within the plant and basically overloads the plant to where the plant ultimately succumbs and dies to that herbicide application.
(02:15):
And there’s other products in that family like 2,4-D that many homeowners use. Many growers have used these products for quite literally decades now. But dicamba recently came to the forefront in row crops because of the herbicide tolerant that we were able to put into various crops like cotton and soybeans that allowed over-the-top application use of products like Engenia and XtendiMax, and Tavium. Those are the products specifically in focus with this recent court ruling.
(02:50):
Dicamba has not been banned. There’s still legal use of dicamba in corn, use of dicamba in pastured crops or even homeowners, it’s still legal to use. This particular incident is only applies to over-the-top applications in cotton and soybean.
Mike Howell (03:07):
Tom, you referenced the incident and we’re talking about the court order, and I guess it’s been a couple of months ago now that that court order came down. But tell us a little bit about the court order and what that said.
Dr. Tom Eubank (03:18):
Essentially what happened was back in February of this year, the US District Court of Arizona vacated the 2020 registrations of over-the-top dicamba products. Again, Engenia and XtendiMax, and Tavium, those labels have been vacated. Technically they’re not labeled product today. However, the EPA has issued a mandate since this vacation of the label that existing stock can be used for cotton and soybean for 2020s forward.
(03:52):
What that basically means is that once the stocks have been depleted that are in the pipeline, retailers or growers have a supply of that product, once it’s been depleted BASF, Bayer, Syngenta, they are no longer manufacturing these products. The label has been vacated. But existing stocks can be used for this growing season in accordance with the previous label.
(04:20):
Basically, we’ve got 2024 to use these products. The big question mark is going to be in 2025, once these existing stocks are used up, what’s going to happen in 2025 next year. That’s the big question mark around these particular products.
Mike Howell (04:37):
Tom, you said we could use the existing supply. Do we have any idea how much of these products are available? Is it going to be enough to meet the needs this year?
Dr. Tom Eubank (04:45):
That’s a great question. And when I give this number, this is no way representative of Nutrien. This is just a generic number that I’ve heard from weed scientists around the country. But I’ve heard anywhere a figure from three quarters to two thirds. Enough product to spray three quarters to two thirds of the US crop is what’s in the pipeline today. There’s not enough… That’s a single application. Engenia is labeled, you can use that product up to four times over cotton or soybean. There won’t be enough product to make four applications over the crop this year. Indirect answer is no, there will not be enough to go through the entire US market for this calendar year.
Mike Howell (05:30):
Tom, just so our listeners, it may not be as familiar with ESO. Why does everybody want to use these dicamba-tolerant crops?
Dr. Tom Eubank (05:37):
That’s a great question, and much like glyphosate-tolerant crops everybody’s familiar with, those have been around for going on 20 plus years now, and it makes a farmer’s farming operation, creates a better opportunity for him to manage weeds. Glyphosate and Dicamba-containing products are over-the-top applications. Growers don’t have to use tillage like they used to. 20, 30 years ago, growers had to employ a lot of tillage practices to try to control wheat.
(06:09):
Well, now with the ads in of run-offs and sedimentation and concerns over those issues that exist around tillage, we’ve adopted more no-till or minimum till pipe practices. Growers are not plowing the crops like they used to try to protect the soil and our streams and rivers and whatnot. And so these over-the-top applications had made that a lot easier for them.
(06:33):
But now as you well know, we have resistance being documented to a lot of these chemicals. There’s quite an extensive list of rather resistant weeds that are out there and that necessitated the need for products like dicamba and 2,4-D system. That’s also an option as well. We’ve also got LibertyLink tolerant crop that are an option for growers. All of these are over-the-top applications to help farmers manage these emerged weeds that might exist and not necessitate going back to a tillage type operation.
Mike Howell (07:08):
How much potassium should you be applying? What’s the best form of nitrogen for sandy soils? Should you be applying sulfur? Sometimes you just got to ask an agronomist. eKonomics has an entire team of agronomists ready to answer all of your questions for free. Find your answers with the Ask an Agronomist feature at nutrien-eKonomics with a K, .com.
(07:31):
Right. Well, Tom, we’ve talked a little bit about this year and then what growers can do. And they got caught behind the 8 ball that they had already secured seed for a lot of these applications. But what about going forward? We’ve got the weed resistance. We obviously don’t want to till any more than we have to. What can growers be thinking about moving forward? What other ways do we have to manage these weed problems?
Dr. Tom Eubank (07:52):
Well, like I mentioned, there’s other technologies. The Enlist system is still out there and available, and I do want to touch on that labeling of that product that fits in with the Endangered Species Act. Because that’s really the big gorilla in the room that we all need to talk about, Mike, is what has necessitated this is the EPA’s lack of addressing endangered species in their granting of labels of various products.
(08:19):
To answer your question, we’ve got Enlist, glyphosate still has utility and obviously LibertyLink is a very valuable tool as well for managing specifically weeds like glyphosate resistant polymeramab, which are the big weed in the south. Those are options that are there. We’ve still got a lot of residual herbicides. And as a weed scientist, I’ve always been a huge proponent of residual herbicides. Building all the foundation using residuals at planting and then overlaying residuals, especially in cotton, I think is foundational for any weed program.
(08:50):
And then we supplement over-the-top applications like dicamba or Enlist, Liberty as needed. But if growers are not going to use residual herbicides, they’re really going to be behind the 8 ball, especially if they don’t have enough dicamba to spray their crop multiple times this year. They need to be looking to use a residual herbicide if at all possible. And then possibly looking at other alternatives as well, like Liberty. Prefix over-the-top in soybeans is another option also. Hope that answered your question.
Mike Howell (09:22):
Yep. Tom, is there any way that we can get these dicamba products back? You talk about the Endangered Species Act. But what has to happen before we can get a label and go back to using these products? Is that even possible?
Dr. Tom Eubank (09:34):
That’s the real issue, Mike, is what’s going on with the Endangered Species Act. And that’s where again, this vacatur of label, this was not a ruling against Bayer or BASF or Syngenta. This was a ruling against the EPA that they did not properly adhere to FIFRA, which is the Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act or the Endangered Species Act. And adhering to those criteria that had been set forth. And the Endangered Species Act has been around since 1973. It’s 40 plus years that has been enacted, but the EPA has basically not been properly considering endangered species when they bring product labels to the market.
(10:20):
Every product, and this is not just going to be the case for herbicide, but insecticides, herbicides, fungicides rodenticides, every product moving forward is going to have to be held in adherence to the safety of endangered species, runoff, drip, whatever the case may be. And as you well know, Mike, there’s a lot of products that are out there today that are generically labeled products. There’s not really a single company like Atrazine. There’s not a single company that is going to be a champion for Atrazine and fight for that product to go through endangered species relate.
(10:59):
That’s a problem. We stand to lose potentially a lot of herbicides and possibly other products as well if there’s not someone to stand up for them. Who can stand up for them? And that’s your listeners. Growers, retailers, consultants, farm landowners, they need to be voicing their opinion to the EPA on the needs for these products. Because if all they hear from is people that don’t want farmers using herbicides, don’t want farmers using insecticides and they never hear from growers, never hear from interested parties. Then the EPA is going to think that nobody cares. And so they’re just going to let these products go away.
Mike Howell (11:42):
Tom, that’s a great point. How would a grower or a consultant go about getting in touch with the EPA? Tell us about that process. I know they have the listening sessions and comment periods.
Dr. Tom Eubank (11:52):
Yep. You can go to the EPA website and you can see products that are in the queue today. You can issue comment periods on products like Engenia and XtendiMax. You can express your need for those and how you see those being a benefit. And they want to hear from growers. They want to hear from parties that are using these products.
(12:12):
But we all need to get more engaged in this process, Mike, because like I mentioned, every product is, I think something, I heard a figure of 96% of the labeled products today are going to have to be relabeled to fall into the qualification for Endangered Species Act. We have a very small number of products that are currently come through the Endangered Species Act requirements that can actually be used today. And not trying to promote a single brand over another but I know that Enlist, they went through a lot of that Endangered Species Act vernacular. And they have a label now that reflects that product.
(12:54):
But as you know, anytime a grower uses a product like Tavium or XtendiMax, they have to go to that bulletin website. That’s basically a website where they go to see whether or not there’s endangered species present in their geography based on when they want to spray that tells them if they can spray or not spray based on the presence of an endangered species.
(13:15):
And I know that’s a lot of trouble and effort to have to go through just to make that application nowadays, but ultimately, the responsibility now all falls on the grower. The grower is responsible for those applications. If he makes an application that negatively impacts endangered species, that liability falls back on him. It’s in his best interest to know where the product is going, making sure it’s supplied in a safe manner, making sure that it’s not drifting into a habitat that may potentially host an endangered species.
Mike Howell (13:49):
Tom, that’s something we’ve talked about before. These farmers are the best stewards of the land that we could ask for. They try to do everything. And we’ve had several episodes on the podcast talking about that. But there’s just so many other things out there that we don’t even know about right now. But we need to do whatever we can to protect these technologies and make sure they’re around for the farmers for years to come. We’ve got to have these herbicides in order to make a crop.
(14:13):
Hey, guys, Mike here. And I want to personally thank you for listening to today’s episode. If you like the show and want to continue hearing it, please like, subscribe, share, and rate it. The future of The Dirt depends on your support. We’ve got plenty of big things coming up this season. As always, stay tuned.
(14:36):
Tom, I grew up in the entomology world and got a lot of training in entomology. And back in my early days, I remember just about every year we did work and the extension people got with the Bureau of Plant industry and they filed section 18s for different insecticides, control, different pests. Is that something that could help us with this situation? Is that even an option with the dicamba situation to get a section 18 emergency label?
Dr. Tom Eubank (15:00):
Well, to apply for a section 18, there has to be an existing label. And again, based on the vacatur of those existing labels, technically they don’t exist. EPA has been gracious. I mean, the EPA could have come in and said, “No applications. None, zero, zilch, you can’t apply this product.”
(15:19):
They were gracious and did have some forethought into protecting growers and their investments, the decisions that they made to plant extend varieties to allow them to use this product in season. But no, the section 18 would not apply in this case because there is no label. It does not exist anymore.
(15:40):
The label that existed previously is what is enacted for 2024. For most of your listeners, that’s going to mean a June 30th cutoff date for most crops. For cotton, it’s a little bit later than that. But then some states have some different cutoff timings that exist. I think Illinois, Indiana have a little bit earlier cutoff date. Basically as of June 30th, most crops you will not be able to apply these over-the-top products anymore.
Mike Howell (16:10):
Well, Tom, we appreciate you visiting with us about this important issue. Is there anything else that you want to leave our listeners with?
Dr. Tom Eubank (16:16):
I think we’ve covered most of it, but again, just to reiterate, I think is in everyone’s interest to get engaged with these discussions, to voice your opinion, whether positive or negative for these products because you know as well as I do, again, farmers are excellent stewards of the land. They’re some of the greatest conservationists that we have because they want to protect their legacy, their family history. They want to pass on these lands to their sons and daughters to farm in the future.
(16:45):
We want to respect that, but at the same time, if we don’t get engaged, the way we farm could drastically change in the near future. I think most of the labels will be expired by 2026. We got to get involved now and begin to have these discussions because we may be short not only on dicamba type products, but we may be very limited on the other products as well.
Mike Howell (17:10):
Well, Tom, before I let you go, we’ve been doing a special segment on The Dirt every episode this year and talking about land grant University research farms. But you mentioned in your introduction that you’re on a Nutrien Ag Solutions innovation farm. While we’ve got you on, I’ll give you just a couple of minutes to tell us about that farm and what y’all do there and why that farm is so important.
Dr. Tom Eubank (17:30):
We acquired this farm about five years ago now, primarily to move our data grow cotton breeding program here. This farm serves two purposes. One, we’ve got our data grow cotton breeding team here making selections and doing crosses here for cotton varieties for the Mid-South. But then the innovation farm side as well, which is what I’m more over, I guess you might say, is doing demonstration and practices that help bring whole acre solutions to our Nutrien customers. We don’t just primarily focus on Nutrien products. We also have various partners that we partner with that we bring their varieties, their products, and we showcase them here on the farm to try to give growers options for managing weeds, for increasing yields, that sort of thing. More of a knowledge transfer type farm.
Mike Howell (18:22):
Okay. Well, Tom, thanks again for joining us today. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed the first segment of today’s show. If you did, please take a minute and give us a rating on your favorite podcast channel or app and give us some feedback as well. We want to hear from you to help make the show even better.
(18:38):
And don’t keep it to yourself. Please share these episodes with coworkers, family, friends, anyone you think may benefit from the information we’re sharing here. Don’t forget to visit our website, nutrien-eKonomics with a K, .com to help find the latest crop nutrition news and research information as well as market updates, a growing degree day calculator, a nutrient use calculator, a rainfall tracker, and much, much more. It’s all at nutrien-eKonomics with a K, .com.
(19:10):
Most episodes of The Dirt are now available for CCA credits. Visit our website and click on the agronomics tab to find the CCA credit opportunities. And if you have a question, you can ask one of our agronomy team members. Simply ask your question and one of us will get back with you. Thanks for listening. Now, segment two of The Dirt.
(19:33):
Well listeners, welcome back to segment two. I’m excited about this segment. We are still continuing our talks about the research farms across North America, but today is our first one crossing the Canadian border. To help us talk about the Canadian system a little bit, we have Dr. Angela Bedard-Haughn with us today. Angela, if you would introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us where you’re located.
Angela K. Bedard-Haughn (19:55):
Great. Well, thanks very much. I’m located at the University of Saskatchewan, which is just a little bit west of the center of the country. Saskatchewan is the province in the middle of Canada that’s hard to spell and easy to draw. The big rectangle one right there in the middle. And Saskatoon is right in the middle of the agricultural portion of it. For those of you that don’t know, Saskatchewan has about 40% of the arable farmland in all of Canada. And so, University of Saskatchewan and our College of Agriculture and Bioresources, which I’m the dean of, is the important home of agriculture work here on the prairies.
Mike Howell (20:28):
Okay. Well, our listeners are accustomed to hearing us talk about these research farms in the United States, and we know all about the land grant system in the United States and the history behind a lot of these, but I understand Canada is a little bit different. Could you give us a little bit of detail about how the two systems are different and how they may be the same?
Angela K. Bedard-Haughn (20:45):
Yeah. A lot of our agricultural research land has come to us through different paths. When the University of Saskatchewan was set up back in 1910, college of Agriculture was one of the first colleges to be established as one would think here in this province. And at that point the university allocated about just over 1,000 acres for research land to the college.
(21:05):
But over the decades, as the demand for more research grew, it became clear that more land was going to be required. And so over time, we’ve gradually through different donations and partnerships and through purchases by the university, we’ve acquired more agricultural land to support all of our activities.
(21:23):
Some of that is right here in the city of Saskatoon and some of it is on the edge of the city or a little bit further afield. And we use the land for different purposes. A little different from the land grant system in terms of how the land comes to be, but in terms of how we use it, it’s such an important part of all of our work that we do here.
Mike Howell (21:41):
Okay. Well, if you would, go ahead and tell us a little bit about the farm that we’re going to spotlight today.
Angela K. Bedard-Haughn (21:45):
Sure. Well, I could talk about a whole bunch of different pieces, but today I’m going to highlight one piece in particular, which is our Kernen Crop Research Farm. It’s one that’s just on the edge of the city. And it’s a unique one in that at the time that it was gifted to us, it represented the largest gift that the University of Saskatchewan had ever received.
(22:03):
It was two sections of land, so just on the edge of the city. And about 300 acres of that was in Native Prairie still, which as any of us in ag systems know, is a relative rarity in the ag landscape. And so it’s an opportunity for us to do both wonderful crop research as well as agronomy and soil science and plant ecology research as well.
(22:27):
This land is prime agricultural land for the region, pretty level, pretty uniform. But still has… My background is in soil science, so it’s got a lot of unique features as well that make it fun, playground for both research and teaching in the soil space as well.
Mike Howell (22:42):
Okay. Well, we focus a lot on soil science and soil fertility, but I know there’s a lot of other things going on on the farm as well. Talk a little bit about the research programs that are going on out there and what all y’all are looking at these days.
Angela K. Bedard-Haughn (22:54):
Sure. Well, one of the big activities out there is our Crop Development Center. And so the Crop Development Center is a group of plant breeders, plant pathologists, folks that are really focusing on improving crop varieties and crop traits that are well suited to the kind of environment that we’re in here.
(23:12):
And so, the Crop Development Center was established in 1971 in partnership with our provincial government, our ministry of Agriculture. And so they hired a suite of research chairs and each allocated to focusing on a specific crop type. Those folks have been in place now, multiple generations of breeders at this point, but have been working on developing crop varieties out there for over about 53 years now.
(23:35):
And so when you’re driving through the prairies, a lot of the varieties that you drive past in those endless fields, particularly when you’re talking about the wheat and wheat, barley, oats, pulse varieties that you see, a lot of those were developed right here at the Crop Development Center. And so that’s a lot of the work that’s done out there, a lot of the trials. It’s a great opportunity for our breeders who are based here in Saskatoon to do a lot of their early generation work, so they can have a lot of small plots, get out there regularly, keep an eye on how things are developing. And over the course of the season, can readily hire a small army of summer students to keep an eye on things, take care of the trials, do the weed management, and make all of those regular observations as they’re looking at their trait selections.
(24:17):
And so, that work is the foremost activity. But at the same time, whenever we’re talking about that kind of research, you’ve got to work through crop rotations, you’ve got to have your solid agronomy. And so we have other things that we work through in that space as well. And so we take advantage of that proximity. We’ve been doing some great work in the digital agriculture, precision agronomy UAV space, so unmanned aerial vehicles. Because we’ve got so much data about the crops and varieties being grown on the ground, we can be making these aerial observations and making some really great linkages back and forth there as well.
(24:52):
And then at the same time, looking at other types of agronomic work, so inter-cropping, rotational trials, fertilizer, different kind of fertilizer traits. And that are fertilizer performance, herbicide performance, that type of thing. And then we can link that all together then with some of the varieties as we develop new varieties, then we can be looking at the appropriate agronomy to go with those.
(25:14):
That’s the core of what’s happening there. Nice part about having that there as well is that we’ve got a seed production facility that’s happening in parallel that helps subsidize the operation out there. Seed breeding facility, seed cleaner out there so we can sell some of the seed that we develop out into the community.
Mike Howell (25:31):
Okay. Well, it sounds like quite an ordeal taking place there. Talk a little bit about the research crew that’s there. How many scientists and support staff are involved in making this station happen?
Angela K. Bedard-Haughn (25:42):
Oh, well, we’ve probably got at least a couple hundred staff out there on the regular during the growing season, when we think about the full operation between the summer students, the research staff. In terms of our crop breeders, we’ve got about a dozen different varieties that we’re working on on the regular. That includes some of the breeders work on more than one crop. Our oat and barley guy works on a couple things. Some of the varieties, we’ve got somebody just dedicated to durum wheat, somebody else just dedicated to spring wheat and so on. A lot of focus on the different pulse crops, chickpeas, lentils, dry beans.
(26:14):
And so, all of those different varieties we’ve got happening out there along with a couple of pathologists that are really designed to help work with those breeders. They’re there to help work with those breeders to make sure that our field peas are most resistant to disease as they can be, that our wheat varieties are as resistant to disease pressures as they can be.
(26:32):
And so that team approach really helps ensure that we’ve got the most commercially viable and successful and resilient varieties. We’re seeing a lot of climate pressures, need for varieties that are resistant to salinity is a big issue out here in this part of the world. Making sure that our varieties are able to handle some of those different challenges that get thrown at them.
Mike Howell (26:53):
Okay. That’s quite a challenge I know. You mentioned several crops that y’all are working with, but one thing that caught my attention you didn’t mention was canola. Do you not work with canola there?
Angela K. Bedard-Haughn (27:03):
Well, we partner with the Agriculture, Agri-Food Canada station next door. And so the canola breeders are based next door at the Ag Canada station. It’s just part of a historical piece. We were involved in some of the earliest development in canola. Some of our researchers were engaged with that and won awards for their role in that. But in terms of the canola breeding activity, an agreement was made long ago that that breeding work would happen with our friends at the station next door.
Mike Howell (27:30):
Okay. Sounds great.
Angela K. Bedard-Haughn (27:32):
But we do, I’ll just maybe mention though, I did mention agronomy. We do work then. As much as some of our farmers might like to grow, canola, canola, canola rotation, you do have to grow some other things in the mix. And so we do a lot of work in partnership with folks there looking at canola agronomy, canola in rotation, those pieces together. I could think of lots of examples of partnership that we do and that UAV work that I was talking about, the digital agronomy, a lot of that we’re looking at. Because canola is so prevalent here on the prairies, we do partner with folks to make sure that we’ve got all the agronomy pieces in place as well and looking at that rotation piece.
Mike Howell (28:06):
Okay. Well, we’ve talked a lot about the history and what’s going on these days. What do you see as the future for the farm in the next 50 to 100 years?
Angela K. Bedard-Haughn (28:13):
Well, the farm with its proximity to the city, when you look at other similar farms in cities across Canada, I’m sure this has probably been happening in different spots in the US as well, you end up with some urban pressure. We are right on the edge of the city. And so when the farm was established, when it was gifted to us by the Kernen family in 1977, it didn’t have city buildings backing right up against it.
(28:36):
We have had in this last year, had to put up some different fencing or think about different landscaping pieces so we didn’t have folks picnicking in the middle of the field trials. But nonetheless, I think it’s really a top priority for us to continue to keep that asset as part of our operation here at the University of Saskatchewan. And part of that, in addition to just the ability for us to do kinds of research, keep that close eye on our crops, that high touch research that might not be possible if we had to go further afield, it’s also a really great training opportunity and an opportunity for outreach and engagement with visitors.
(29:11):
I’m thinking about my own teaching program. I take field courses out there to teach students about soil science. It’s a great opportunity for us in the course of just a few minutes drive away from campus. We can show them a number of different soil types in a very short distance just because the nature of the deposits out there. But we can also take important visitors.
(29:32):
When folks fly into Saskatoon for meetings, last year we had the group of ag officials basically. Every so often, your folks from the USDA, or folks from the federal Ag Ministry here and folks from the Ag group in Mexico all get together. And so, when they were here last year, they were able to go to Kernen and easily do a field day without it taking a whole bunch of travel time for them to actually get a hands-on look at what we’re doing here.
(29:59):
I had a group of the government of Canada and some of the senators out there last fall as part of interacting with my field course. Those sorts of things aren’t possible if you’re too far-flung. And so it’s a really great opportunity not only to have that great high quality soil that’s really well suited to the crop breeding work that we do right close to the city, but it’s also a really great teaching and outreach and extension and basically government relations piece as well.
(30:28):
I think it’s a top priority for us, and we’re going to continue to see more and more innovative agronomy. And we’ll also, I think just with its proximity to the city, it will give us that opportunity to look more and more at innovative ag solutions that interact well with the environment. Because there’s people keeping a close eye on that and so we want to make sure that we’re showing the very best that agriculture can do.
Mike Howell (30:51):
Well, I’m glad you mentioned that. We think about these universities as a place for education and teaching students, but we also understand that there’s a disconnect between the farmers and the consumers. And we did a program on that earlier in the year. And it seems like this is a great way to help bridge that gap and educate consumers as to what farmers are actually doing as well. It sounds like y’all are already doing some of that and bringing in these legislative officials that help make the policies and decisions that are going to affect these farmers. I think that’s a great way to help utilize this farm. Angela, we appreciate you taking time to visit with us today. Is there anything else you want to add about the farm before we sign off?
Angela K. Bedard-Haughn (31:27):
I would just add that it’s a great example as well of how communities can give back to universities and to agriculture. The family that gifted this land to the College of Agriculture was, the fellow himself was an alumni. And he just wanted to find a way to contribute and make sure that he continued to have an impact on the industry even after he was gone. And so, I think it’s important for us to celebrate and acknowledge that there’s a lot of different ways that folks can have an impact on the research and on the sector. And this is just another example of that. Hats off to the Kernen family for having that kind of forethought.
Mike Howell (32:03):
We’ve been visiting with Dr. Angela Bedard-Haughn today with the University of Saskatchewan. We really appreciate her taking time to share her information about the research farm there. Listeners, as you know, for any information that we’ve talked about today, you can visit our website. That’s nutrien-eKonomics.com. And until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
