Young farmers tour Garst Seed Company in Iowa

More than 300 agricultural producers, future industry leaders and members of the American Farm Bureau Federation's Young Farmer and Rancher program recently toured the headquarters of Garst Seed Company in Slater, Iowa. The tour was part of the 2006 AFBF Leadership Conference held in Des Moines, Iowa, which attracted nearly 850 young farmers and ranchers from at least 45 states.

The AFBF Young Farmer and Rancher program is made up of men and women between the ages of 18 to 35 from across the United States who are involved in the production of numerous products ranging from corn and sugar to livestock and cotton. The Young Farmer and Rancher program focuses on leadership and personal development opportunities for members of the group.

"The producers and ranchers were an impressive group of leaders who are committed to agriculture and who will help direct the future of this industry," says David Witherspoon, president of Garst. "I was very impressed with the questions we received about the seed industry, technology advancements, crop management and operations at Garst."

The tour at Garst highlighted work the seed company is conducting in several key areas--research, plant breeding and equipment engineering. Garst brand headquarters is one of three corn mega breeding sites for Syngenta. The group heard about the trait conversion and product development work, including nearly $1 million in recent capital investments to support product development efforts in Slater. In research, participants learned about the company's $2-million-per-day investment in research and the company's molecular marker efforts that are making it possible to accelerate the plant breeding process by at least two-fold to increase how quickly Garst can breed economically important traits into top products compared to traditional breeding efforts.

Witherspoon and Steve Klein, director of marketing, met with the group, to provide an overview of the company and answer questions about Garst, its programs and traits they plan to introduce in the future.

Garst was one of three businesses this group toured during the conference. The Young Farmer and Rancher group also took part in industry and leadership sessions during the three-day event.

Date: 5/23/06

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