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Innovative Illinois farmer gets ag tech attention

Eric Miller is a tinkerer, a thinker and an innovator, and he puts those skills into practice on his 400-acre farm in Piatt County and shares his discoveries with others. He was honored with an award named for someone who had the same qualities.

Miller was presented with the Brandt Prize for Ag Entrepreneurism in honor of the company’s founder Glen Brandt at the eighth annual Ag Tech Summit in Champaign March 7.

Miller focuses on improving yields in a way that is positive for the environment and the future of production. To tell those stories, he invites people to field days and research plots on his farm. He has also been an Illinois Farmer Today CropWatcher and creates informational videos for farm and research audiences.

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How American Farmers Harvest 1.15 Billion Pounds of Sunflowers

Video: How American Farmers Harvest 1.15 Billion Pounds of Sunflowers

Across the open plains of North Dakota and South Dakota, sunflower fields turn the American landscape into a sea of gold. In this farming documentary, we go inside modern sunflower farming to see how farmers plant, grow, harvest, clean, dry, process, and transform sunflower seeds into valuable products used every day.

In 2024, American farmers harvested about 1.15 billion pounds of sunflowers. This video follows the full journey from warm spring planting to combine harvesting, seed cleaning, storage, oil extraction, refining, roasting, packaging, and animal feed production.

You will see how sunflower seeds are processed into cooking oil, roasted snacks, bakery ingredients, birdseed, livestock feed, and useful byproducts. From golden fields to modern processing plants, this is the story of how a beautiful flower becomes one of America’s important oilseed crops.

Watch until the end to discover how sunflower farming connects farmers, machines, factories, food production, and sustainable agriculture.