Join Minnesota Corn, Partners at Events in September!

Sep 04, 2024

This month, Minnesota Corn and its partner organizations, including the state’s 52 organized county corn grower associations, will be present at events throughout the state to promote corn, biofuels, and corn co-products.

Join us starting this week to learn more about the latest trends in agricultural technology and conservation practices, receive great discounts on renewable biofuel blends, and celebrate all things farming. Events will be held at locations around the state.

Starting tonight, join county corn grower associations at plot days and fuel promotion events. At fuel events, patrons can purchase discounted Unleaded 88 and E85/flex fuels and learn more about the clean-air and cost benefits of these biofuel blends. At plot day events, farmers can learn about the performance of corn and soybean hybrids in their areas and hear from the growers who planted the different varieties. You can find the complete schedule of events on the Minnesota Corn online calendar.

In addition to plot days and fuel events, on Saturday, Minnesota Corn will continue its sponsorship of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s annual Field Fest. Visitors can explore crop plots, meet farmers, learn about bouquet-making, participate in a pollinator scavenger hunt, enjoy baking demonstrations, and more. Entry to Field Fest is included in the price of an arboretum ticket.

From Sept. 10-12, Minnesota Corn will once again have a presence at the Big Iron Farm Show in West Fargo, North Dakota. Minnesota Corn will be on hand to talk with attendees about the latest from the world of corn, and our booth will be the place to sign up or renew your MCGA membership.

On Sept. 21, Minnesota Corn will be on hand at Huntington Bank Stadium during “Celebrate Ag & Food Day” as the Minnesota Gophers football team takes on the Iowa Hawkeyes.

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators