Top Farmer Crop Workshop helps farmers to review operations

Jun 11, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Crop farmers will have the chance to reevaluate their farming operations when Purdue University's Center for Commercial Agriculture hosts the annual Top Farmer Crop Workshop on July 8-10.

Participants will work with Purdue University and University of Illinois Extension farm management experts, as well as other university and industry experts, to look at their operations from a business standpoint - specifically economic, agronomic and technological opportunities and challenges.

The workshop, now in its 46th year, will be at Purdue's Beck Agricultural Center, 4540, U.S. 52, West Lafayette. The program starts at 2 p.m. July 8 and adjourns at 5 p.m. July 10.

"The Top Farmer Crop Workshop is a good chance to see in one place a discussion of key issues in production agriculture today," said Michael Langemeier, Purdue Extension agricultural economist and associate director for the Center for Commercial Agriculture.

Attendees will learn about up-to-date production and economic research while networking with others in agriculture. They will be able to strategize business growth, explore ways to manage inputs and risk, and learn about new crop production technology.

In addition to the annual outlook and update reports, the workshop will include some topics not discussed last year, including precision agriculture, cover crops, environmental issues, and ethanol and biodiesel policies.

The final presentation will focus on international agriculture in Brazil. Marcos Fava Neves, a professor of planning and strategy at the University of Sao Paulo, will discuss the increase in Brazilian crop and livestock production.

According to Langemeier, the combination of production and economic topics makes the workshop unique.

"A lot of workshops that farmers go to either have production focus or, less likely, an economic focus, but not both," he said. "We're trying to incorporate both of those topics in this workshop and thus make it a better workshop."

For the second year, the workshop will be a joint effort between Purdue University and the University of Illinois with researchers and Extension specialists from both universities.

"We have different expertise, and by bringing both faculties together, it makes a much broader and better program," said Langemeier.

Registration is $400 for the first registrant from each farm and $350 for each additional registrant from the same farm. Prior registration is preferred, but not required.

Workshop attendees can earn continuing education units (CEUs) for certified crop advisers.

Source: Purdue University

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”