Q&As with influential people in agriculture.
(158) updates to this series since
Angie Setzer has been in the cash grain industry for more than 18 years, working as a partner at Consus Ag Consulting. At Consus she mostly wo…
Rev. Henry Huber was born and raised on a farm in rural Delaware County, Iowa. The youngest of six children, he graduated from the University …
Seeing the letters ANF is a common sight for those who tune into Iowa Hawkeye sporting events. The letters, which feature prominently on the h…
Tara Haskins, who grew up in a small Louisiana community, has been professionally involved in nursing all her adult life, leading to her role …
U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski was elected to Congress in 2022 representing Illinois’ 13th Congressional District, which includes parts of central …
Dave Stender has been an Extension swine specialist with Iowa State University since 1989, serving northwest Iowa. The Iowa native recently re…
Steve Bohr has worked in farm financial services for his entire career, helping farmers put together and execute plans regarding transitions a…
Pat McGonegle is the chief executive officer of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, a position he has held since October 2015.
Michael Langemeier is the associate director for the Center for Commercial Agriculture at Purdue University, as well as being a professor in t…
Kerry Clark serves as director of the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources International Programs. The pr…
Rod Barr is the director of the School of Agricultural Services at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri.
Max Armstrong knew from the time he was 7 years old that he wanted to be on the radio, and is now celebrating 48 years in his career in agricu…
Dan Loy is a professor of animal science at Iowa State University and director of the Iowa Beef Center. He has also served as an Extension bee…
Andrew Margenot’s love of science, further motivated by international visits including working with subsistence farmers in Africa, led him to …
The Iowa Utilities Board is a three- member policymaking body within the Iowa state government. The board oversees utility service projects th…
Kent Shannon works as a precision agriculture and technology specialist with the University of Missouri Extension.
Josh McCann, who joined the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign in 2016, grew up in Georgia and V…
James Schnable works on quantitative genetics and breeding corn, sorghum and other related crops. Using a combination of advanced genomics, ph…
Christian Lovell’s passion for the beef cattle industry began as a youth working on his grandparents’ farm in McDonough County in western Illinois.
Since 2005, Farm Rescue has helped many farmers in need, as medical or environmental crises hit. The organization initially helped in planting…
Matt Helmers is the director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, the Dean’s professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and a…
Heather Hill is president of the National Pork Board and is co-owner of Hill Farms in Greenfield, Indiana, a 600-sow farrow-to-finish operatio…
Editor’s note: This article was written by Elizabeth Creech, Natural Resources Inventory and Assessment, on Feb. 1.
Mindy Bunselmeyer grew up on a small grain and livestock farm near Farmersville in central Illinois and earned a degree in ag education at the…
Tim Maiers is executive director of the Upper Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri Rivers Association. The organization serves as an advocate fo…
Rob Knox is a professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois, where he serves as a state Extension specialist an…
Mike Steenhoek is executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition. The coalition, established in 2007, is comprised of the United Soybe…
Russell Hiatt is president-elect of the Illinois Society of Professional Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, the forerunner to the national or…
Wendy Johnson is a former president of Practical Farmers of Iowa’s board of directors. Johnson co-manages her family farm with her father in F…
As policy advisor in the Economic Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, David Oppedahl conducts research on the agricult…
Raghela Scavuzzo has a passion for local foods which runs in the family. Her family owned a grocery store and family members also founded the …
Pat Guinan is the University of Missouri Extension state climatologist and director of the Missouri Climate Center, analyzing the state’s clim…
Andrew Seibel is the third generation of his family to be active in the Virginia Tech FFA but first to be elected national FFA president.
Brian Campbell is executive director with the Iowa Environmental Council, a nonprofit, nonpartisan alliance of various organization and indivi…
Pamela Riney-Kehrberg currently serves as distinguished professor of history at Iowa State University and teaches a wide variety of courses, f…
Adam Nielsen is director of national legislation and policy development at Illinois Farm Bureau, where he has served for the past 22 years.
As harvest wraps up in many areas, decisions on the 2023 season are already being made, including planning out crop insurance.
Gene Copenhaver is a fifth-generation cattleman in southwest Virginia. Along with managing his family’s stocker operation with his son, Will, …
Marty Marr calls it a privilege to be president of the Illinois Corn Growers Association as it celebrates its 50th birthday this year. He has …
Donnell Rehagen is chief executive officer of the Clean Fuels Alliance of America, formerly known as the National Biodiesel Board.
Krista Swanson is an agricultural economist and research analyst for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Swanson studies economics an…
Jim Raben has farmed in Ridgway in Gallatin County, Illinois, since 1973. He has had leadership roles in many ag organizations, including the …
David Grunklee is dean of applied technologies at Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, Iowa.
Elliott Dennis is an assistant professor of livestock marketing and risk management in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the Univers…
Don Roose is president of U.S. Commodities in West Des Moines and is often a source for grain market information in Iowa Farmer Today. Roose g…
During the pandemic, when some consumers were faced with no milk at their local grocery stores, Bryan Henrichs, a third-generation dairy farme…
Iowa farmer Chris Edgington took over as president of the National Corn Growers Association in October 2021.
Marty Williams grew up on his family’s grain and livestock farm in rural northern Missouri. He enjoyed exploring and working on a 600-acre “la…
Wheat growers face many of the same challenges as do corn and soybean producers. But there are added issues, especially with global markets.
Lisa Schulte Moore is a professor of natural resource ecology and management at Iowa State University, focusing on research in sustainability.…
Stephen Censky is chief executive officer of the American Soybean Association. He is in his second stint, having served as CEO for 21 years be…
Cindy Axne is a Democrat representing Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.
Bill Northey was president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association and the National Corn Growers Association before being elected Iowa Secretary …
Wendong Zhang is an associate professor of economics at Iowa State University and is affiliated with the Center for Agricultural and Rural Dev…
Jonathon Mosley is the director of the Animal Sciences Farms and Research Centers at the University of Illinois, where he was also a student. …
Brittany Elmquist is the ag education teacher and FFA sponsor at Audubon Community High School in western Iowa. She has spent 19 years in ag e…
Steve Ferguson has long been connected with Iowa’s Beginning Farmer Loan program. He was executive director of the Iowa Agricultural Developme…
Editor’s note: For the 100th in our Q&A series, editor Jeff DeYoung interviewed public affairs editor Gene Lucht, who has been covering po…
Pat Westhoff is director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri. He is a professor of agricultur…
Bryan Humphreys began his duties in December as CEO of the National Pork Producers Council, succeeding longtime CEO Neil Dierks.
Erin Hodgson has been working in Iowa State University’s Department of Entomology since 2009, focusing primarily on insects and pests in field…
Matt Russell is the new head of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency in Iowa. Russell grew up on a farm near Anita in western Iowa. He earned a degr…
Josh St. Peters knows the beef industry and agriculture as both a participant and an advocate. He farms with his wife Maggie and his brother-i…
David Burton is a county engagement and community development specialist for University of Missouri Extension, based in Springfield.
Missouri Farm Bureau members elected St. Clair County farmer Garrett Hawkins as the organization’s 15th president in December 2020. He has a l…
Mercer County, Missouri, farmer Gary Porter is serving as co-chair for this year’s Commodity Classic, scheduled for March 10-12 in New Orleans.
Cole Baerlocher is serving as the 2021-22 National FFA President. He is a member of the Colfax, Washington, chapter, where he raised market la…
Brent Johnson is the new president of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation. A fifth-generation farmer, Johnson works with his wife and son running …
Travis Meteer joined University of Illinois Extension as a beef educator in 2011.
Kris Reynolds of Nokomis, Illinois, is a fifth-generation farmer who works with his family growing corn, soybeans and cover crops on 700 acres…
Steve Meyer has been a voice in the hog industry for many years. He most recently joined Partners for Production Agriculture in January 2018. …
Theresa Greenfield is the new head of Iowa’s USDA Office of Rural Development.
Scott Irwin is a professor and researcher in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Cha…
Jim Knuth is senior vice president at Farm Credit Services of America in Perry, Iowa. A native Iowan, he grew up near Rhodes in central Iowa a…
Jim Mintert is a professor and Extension economist in Purdue’s Department of Agricultural Economics and serves as director of Purdue’s Center …
Matt Lechtenberg is the Water Quality Initiative coordinator at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.
Tim Goode is farm manager for Iowa State University’s research farms. Goode grew up on a family farm near Lacona, Iowa, southeast of Des Moine…
Seth Meyer was appointed USDA’s Chief Economist in January of 2020, returning to USDA after two years. Prior to his return, Seth was a researc…
Dermot Hayes is the Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Department of Economics and professor a…
Angela Wright is executive director of Worth County Community of Promise, which includes the Northwood Community Center and the Worth County C…
For five years, Liz Stelk has served as executive director of Illinois Stewardship Alliance. She and her husband, David, are raising two their…
As a science and operations officer at the National Weather Service, Ray Wolf said people may not understand what he does at his job, but he h…
Chris Edgington began his duties as president of the National Corn Growers Association on Oct. 1, but he is certainly not new to ag commodity …
Laura Loschke works as records supervisor and education and information services coordinator for the American Hereford Association. The associ…
Scott Brown is the director of strategic partnerships for the University of Missouri’s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and …
Doster Harper is president of the National FFA Organization.
Brandi Janssen serves as director of Iowa’s Center for Agricultural Safety and Health (I-CASH) and is an assistant professor at the University…
Dan Thomson is a third-generation bovine veterinarian from Clearfield, Iowa, and serves as chairman of the Department of Animal Science at Iow…
Katherine Un is the organizing and advocacy director for the National Young Farmers Coalition. The group is focused on a nationwide effort to …
Meaghan Anderson is an Iowa State University Extension field agronomist serving nine counties in central Iowa. Anderson grew up on a farm in c…
Pat Berry is in her first year as head of the food contests at the Iowa State Fair, but she is far from a rookie in the Elwell Family Food Cen…
Paul Lasley retired June 30 as a professor and Extension sociologist at Iowa State University.
During his final year of a three-year term, Al Lyman represents Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota and Wisconsin for the Federation of State …
Joshua Divan is a precision agriculture and conservation specialist with Pheasants Forever in Iowa.
The top federal conservation official in Illinois is easily recognized at the many field days and conferences he attends. He’s the one with th…
Lori Stern is the executive director of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service, better known by its acronym MOSES.
Chris Rademacher is the associate director of the Iowa Pork Industry Center at Iowa State University, and also serves as a clinical professor …
Molly Pelzer is the CEO of Midwest Dairy and has more than 35 years of experience working with the dairy checkoff. Midwest Dairy represents 5,…
Gary Asay owns and manages Asay Farms, a wean-to-finish operation in Illinois that markets 9,500 hogs annually. He also raises corn and soybeans.
John Caupert is executive director of the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center, a position he has held since 2006. The center is located o…
Bill Menner serves as executive director of the Iowa Rural Health Association. He previously served as Iowa’s state director of USDA Rural Dev…
As the 2020-21 school year wraps up, high school agriculture teacher Kaitlyn Porter reflects on the differences the COVID-19 pandemic brought …
Dan Farney is the chair of the United Soybean Board. As such he leads the 78-member board that helps decide how the national soy checkoff doll…
Brian Depew is executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs, based in Lyons, Nebraska. Depew grew up on a family farm in Pocahontas Coun…
It’s been an eventful past 12 months for ag colleges across the country as they worked to continue education during the challenges of the coro…
Matt Russell is executive director of Interfaith Power and Light, an organization “mobilizing a religious response to global warming.”
In a way, meteorology has been a way for Jim Rasor to stay on the farm, though he’s a long way from it.
Congressman Randy Feenstra was born and raised in Hull, Iowa, where he has served as city administrator, Sioux County treasurer and Iowa state…
Polly Ruhland is CEO of the United Soybean Board. Born in Florida, Ruhland grew up in various states before earning a bachelor’s degree in Eng…
Bill Leigh’s term as Illinois Corn Growers Association president coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. The central Illinois corn and soybean f…
Thad Simons has taken a circuitous agricultural journey, from Georgia farms to Europe and finally to St. Louis.
Jared Brackett was named 2020 Cattlemen’s Beef Board Chairman. He is a fifth-generation cow/calf producer from Filer, Idaho.
Barbara Stinson assumed leadership of the World Food Prize Foundation in January of 2020, taking over for longtime World Food Prize leader Ken…
Francis Thicke, with his wife, Susan, is owner and operator of an organic dairy and crop farm near Fairfield, Iowa. They process their milk on…
With long tenures at many storied agricultural institutions, R. Douglas Hurt is now a professor of agricultural history at Purdue University.
As the president of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives since 2009, Chuck Conner has kept his voice in the ring for agriculture.
Greg Sidwell grew up on a grain and livestock farm in Cumberland County in southeastern Illinois. Working with his dad and his brother, he kne…
Marty Smith is a rancher and an attorney from Wacahoota, Florida, and currently serves as president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Associati…
Zippy Duvall is the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Duvall is a farmer from Georgia, where his family has a 400-head beef co…
Gwendolyn Kitzan is a fourth-generation sheep producer from Nisland, South Dakota, and serves as chairman of the American Lamb Board. She was …
Father Matthew Flatley is a former pastor of four small Catholic rural parishes in Vienna, Brinktown, Koeltztown and Argyle, Missouri. Flatley…
Doug Wilson, Illinois state director of USDA Rural Development, knows firsthand about the needs of farmers and rural America. He lives in nort…
Jim Raben, a southern Illinois grain farmer, became chairman of the U.S. Grains Council in July.
In just a little more than a decade, the Farmer Veteran Coalition (FVC) has grown from the seed of an idea into a national organization.
John Linder, of Edison, Ohio, serves as president of the Corn Board of the National Corn Growers Association.
All of Pat McGlaughlin’s skills and duties as a 4-H youth development Extension specialist in Illinois — helping make 4-H accessible, connecti…
David Newman is president of the National Pork Board. He owns and operates a farrow-to-finish Berkshire farm in Myrtle, Missouri, that markets…
Rob Larew, 54, is president of the National Farmers Union. Raised on a West Virginia dairy farm, Larew earned a degree from Virginia Tech and …
Bill Couser started farming with his father in 1977. Today he farms with his wife, Nancy, and two sons near Nevada, in central Iowa.
Since first taking a job as a part-time dishwasher in a plant biology research laboratory in California, Jim Carrington has carved out an impr…
Gary Wheeler is the CEO and executive director of the Missouri Soybean Association and the Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council.
Howard “AV” Roth Jr. is president of the National Pork Producers Council. He is a fifth generation farmer who owns and operates Roth Feeder Pi…
He goes by Pete. But his real name is Greg.
Kathleen Delate is a professor of horticulture at Iowa State University, where she specializes in organic agriculture. A graduate of the Unive…
Mike Naig serves as Iowa Secretary of Agriculture.
Jennifer Tirey grew up in southern Illinois, inspired by strong women, family commitment to farming and agri-business and close relatives acti…
Chris Galen is the senior vice president of member services and strategic initiatives for the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) in Arl…
Max Rothschild has spent the past 40 years as an animal science professor at Iowa State University, holding the title of C.F. Curtiss Distingu…
Bill Even is the CEO for the National Pork Board. He joined the organization in June 2016 after previously serving as the industry relations l…
Trenda Hedges is the Wellness and Recovery Program Manager for the Illinois Mental Health Collaboration. She manages the “Warm Line” — not a c…
Kendra Anderson, manager of farmer relations at Midwest Dairy, grew up in Stephenson County in northwestern Illinois showing Holstein heifers …
Mark Schleusener has spent his entire career with the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), a division of the U.S. Department of Ag…
Gary Marshall is the Chief Executive Officer of the Missouri Corn Growers Association and the Missouri Corn Merchandising Council based in Jef…
On Feb. 28, Gov. J.B. Pritzker appointed Jerry Costello II as director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture. He follows John Sullivan, wh…
Dan Halstrom is the president and CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation.
Roger Johnson is stepping down this month after 11 years as president of the National Farmers Union. Johnson, 67, is a native of Turtle Lake, …
Days after starting his job Feb. 4 as CEO of the Illinois Soybean Association, John Lumpe talks about the path that led him here and what he l…
Nic Anderson’s first 4-H project was with chickens before his father let him work up to hogs. He has built his career the same way — learning …
Jerry Hatfield recently retired as head of the USDA’s National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, formerly known as the National …
Steve Johnson is an Extension farm and business management field specialist with Iowa State University, well known in the community for his work with farmers on marketing and farm management.
Growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm in the 1940s, Orion Samuelson assumed he would end up taking over the operation from his parents. However…
Bill Leigh was recently elected president of the Illinois Corn Growers Association and represented growers at the National Corn Growers meetin…
Koleson McCoy is national president of FFA for 2019-20. McCoy, 19, is a native of Springfield, Ohio, and is a student at Ohio State University…
Scott Irwin had no idea that an online resource he helped launch 20 years ago would take off like the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which recently bec…
Jeff Kaisand has served as Iowa’s state veterinarian since February 2019.
Daryl Cates has had a leadership position at the World Initiative on Soy in Human Health (WISHH) since 2015, and now serves as chairman of the…
Daniel Robison is the dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University. Robison came to Iowa State earlier this y…
Harry Snelson began his duties as executive director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians earlier this year.
