The Minnesota Magazine and Publishing Association held their annual Excellence Awards gala. Corn+Soybean Digest brought home two awards for their work. In the Editor’s Column category at the MMPA Gala, Editor Kurt Lawton took home two of the three awards: - The Silver award for “Green Autumn Fields” which can be found here.- And the Bronze award for “Farmer journey to improve soil, water” which can be found here. Congratulations to CSD Editor Kurt Lawton!

The Minnesota Magazine and Publishing A...

BRONZE AWARD WINNING COLUMN

I just got back from attending (and live tweeting @csdigest) at Iowa State University’s second annual Soil Health Conference. It was extremely valuable, especially learning first-hand from farmers who are successfully improving the health of their soils and their bottom line profit.To that point, Iowa farmer Wayne Fredericks spoke on a farmer panel about perspectives of management practices for soil health improvement. He began his conservation efforts with no-till soybeans in 1992. Then he shif...

SILVER AWARD WINNING COLUMN 2017

How many of your corn and soybean fields are green with cover crops after harvest? Like the cover photo, or this nice North Dakota corn field with interseeded cover crops?How many of your fields have been ripped and blanket fertilized?While it’s true the latter practice, along with its predecessor the moldboard plow, helped turn the U.S. into the breadbasket of the world. But such productivity took a toll – poor soils that are hooked on chemicals. Hence the need for soil rehab.As Illinois crop c...

The Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) honored several industry, media and academic leaders at its recent annual meeting in Bloomington, Minnesota.The Ruth White Media Award is presented to an individual who’s demonstrated an evidence of consistent, objective and accurate reporting on American agriculture and the myriad of issues involved in modern agriculture, including the CropLife industry.  This year’s winner is Kurt Lawton, Director of Content for Penton Agriculture which includes Corn...

One year ago, my Think Different column addressed the topic “Why promote 500-bushel corn?” http://bit.ly/Promote500BushelCorn (FIRST PLACE AWARD WINNING COLUMN-AAEA). My hope was to start a discussion about NCGA’s yield-only contest and its lack of recognition for the best nitrogen-efficient yields.Since then, nothing happened (other than a few farmer comments, and this column winning the first-place award for best column at the recent American Agricultural Editors’ Association annual meeting). I didn’t expect much, especially when a...

SILVER AWARD WINNING COLUMN

I recently participated in a sustainable agriculture summit in Minneapolis that brought together people from across the farmer-to-food retailer supply chain. My goal was to drive home the importance of farmers’ business needs so food company and sustainability proponents understand the challenges as they attempt to gain further adoption of sustainable practices.Many farmers feel they have little input into this sustainability effort — believing that the Walmarts, McDonald’s and General Mills of...

AWARDED American Agricultural Editors' Association FIRST PLACE COLUMN in 2016

It’s high time for high yield contest managers to think different – to recognize farmers that go beyond the weigh wagon – and reward yield along with environmental achievements such as reduced nitrogen use and increased soil health.

Why is it best to recognize the highest yield produced in a given portion of a field, especially when farmers can apply as much nitrogen, as much water (in irrigated fields) and as much other inputs as they want?

Given the pressure on farmers to help protect waters

SILVER AWARD WINNING COLUMN

It's all about a Think Different approach with the valuable resource that some farmers and investors are paying upwards of $15,000/acre. It's about the need to rebuild and improve the natural biological processes in your soil, so you and your landlord can gain greater efficiency and return on investment.This new twist of phrase is likened to the prolific Green Revolution, which spawned tremendous global agricultural productivity. The Brown Revolution aims to usher in the next prolific leap for f...