By Brad Barth, Board Chairman
Hello from Northern Minnesota!
Every year we seem to be surprised by the weather and how it acts. So far, this year is no exception. Northern Minnesota had quite a bit of snow last winter and we thought it would be a terrible late and wet, sloppy spring.
But once again mother nature has proven us wrong. The temps went from 30 degrees to 60s and 70s so fast that we barely had time to take off our jackets. The snow melted fast, and the runoff was gone seemingly overnight. All-in-all, the crops in northern Minnesota went into the ground nicely and almost timely. There are the typical pockets of “too dry” and areas of “too wet,” but on average it is starting out to be a good year.
Whatever the weather in your part of the state just wait a little bit and it will change—right?
After a successful spring seeding and a nice timely rain or two, my bride and I took a little trip to Kansas to pick up a piece of equipment. It is always fun to travel a little and see agriculture in areas other than our own. To me, it does not matter what state it is, a field green with a new crop and a farmyard as a backdrop is always a beautiful sight.
On the way back from our little Kansas adventure we stopped in the Twin Cities to spend a couple of days at the annual Association of Official Seed Certifying Agency’s (AOSCA) meeting in Bloomington. This meeting comprises all the crop certifying agencies from throughout the US and is held in a different state each year. This year happened to be Minnesota’s turn. As the hosting state agency, MCIA cooperated with the AOSCA staff to select a hotel venue, obtain meeting sponsors, and suggest speakers and activities, among a host of other details.
I spent a part of two days at this meeting, and I must say that our team at MCIA did a phenomenal job of putting this together. As the board chairman, my job was to mingle and visit with as many attendees as possible, which is a job well suited for a jabber jaw like me. I will not go into detail as I am sure it will be covered elsewhere on this blog. Suffice it to say that the speakers were excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed their presentations.
My heartfelt thanks to all the sponsors and to all the volunteers from the MCIA staff for their work to put together and execute this fantastic meeting. I will again leave it to others to report on the awards presented, but I just wanted to make a point of saying that I was super proud to see MCIA and the staff be recognized for their great efforts.