VOICES Big Solutions: Innovation and Collaboration at Work

By James C. Borel

The world faces a challenge—feeding 9 billion people by 2050 in sustainable ways with limited land and resources. We have made tremendous strides over the last century, but agriculture needs to continue to be more productive —to grow more on each acre of land.

We can meet the global food security challenge, but only if we empower collaboration and enhance the ability of farmers in all parts of the world to be as productive as possible.

One aspect of collaboration involves research universities and seed companies. The important research done in universities can be invaluable in finding new approaches to seed technology and crop production management. One example is a research collaboration that we, at DuPont, began in 2009 with Iowa State. We partnered to develop a new technology to more effectively develop biotech traits in plants and improve drought tolerance in corn.

We also work with the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines that brings together the Institute’s rice germplasm pool with DuPont’s capabilities in molecular analysis, commercial-scale breeding and field locations for testing hybrids.Partnerships like this could contribute to making available to rice breeders and farmers throughout Asia better advanced breeding lines and better hybrids.

At DuPont, we are a science company that believes in innovation and collaboration. We take seriously the example of the Pioneer Hi-Bred founder, Henry Wallace, who built his company by bringing innovation into the American cornfields. But we know that we cannot invent everything ourselves. So, in addition to significant research investments internally, we are also focused on how to encourage innovation more broadly.

New technology can be daunting to some, but Norman Borlaug, agronomist and Nobel Laureate, loved learning about new things. And he knew the formula: better innovation and more collaboration to improve agriculture, to empower farmers, to feed the world.

That was his formula. It is our formula at DuPont.

I think of agriculture as the “optimistic science.” Because together, with innovation and collaboration, we can help do what the world needs us to get done.

Click here for Borel’s confetti corn recipe.

SERVING UP LOCAL FOODS USING OLD WORLD METHODS

“It’s just a café.”

Kevin Rettig still dons a chef’s coat from time to time at The Café, but since launching the restaurant he’s moved from executive chef to general manager.

“This type of restaurant was the fist of its kind in the Ames area,” he says. “They say the coasts are ve years ahead of us, but our ideas were right in line with what  I was seeing on the West coast at the time.”

The restaurant was designed to have  a neighborhood bistro feel with a menu grounded in local foods says Rettig (’94 food science and technology), who was executive chef at the time and has since become general manager.

The Café consists of a bakery and coffee-house, restaurant, bar and catering com-pany. Cooking methods are Old World like making sausage in-house, smoking and curing meats, grilling over a wood fie and roasting in a stone oven. They bake artisanal breads and every pastry and dessert is made from scratch.

Rettig considers it a “chameleon.”

“We want people to see us differently. We’ve always wanted to be a neighborhood place for ice cream with the kids, a four-course meal in the evenings, or just a quick breakfast,” he says. “Some people see us as a fancy place, but our intention has simply been to serve good food and take good care of people.”

Developing a taste for  the restaurant business

Rettig got his start in the restaurant business as a dishwasher at the Ames favorite, Aunt Maude’s. There he met the two men who would become his profes-sional mentors and business partners at The Café: Bob Cummings and Pat Breen.

As he attended Iowa State, Rettig quickly worked his way to tending bar, then to the kitchen where he cooked alongside the head chef at Aunt Maude’s for three years.

“My ability to cook and the knowledge to do so was gained by trial and error, lots of interest and great teachers and critics,” Rettig says. “I was afforded the luxury of being able to bring in an idea and to work with it until success, or sometimes failure.”

He spent time as head chef and general manager at O’Malley and McGees restaurant in Ames, and as a sous-chef in two restaurants in Portland, Oregon, for several years before he reconnected with Cummings and Breen to create The Café.

Flavor is always in season

The Café’s seasonal menu runs on a six-week cycle.

“Menu ideas come from everyone involved. We have great arguments about why something should or should not be on the menu,” Rettig says with a smile. “We find ideas from websites, trade magazines, newspapers, all over.”

One thing they all agree on is the use of local produce.

“Using local foods has a cause-and-effect relationship on the menu. It forces us to change with availability so that can be challenging. Plans can be ruined based on crop performance. But, the quality is better. An heirloom tomato needs to be picked and served when ripe, as with any vegetable,” says Rettig.

The Café orders food from farmers daily during the growing season and often produce is delivered the same day  it is picked. They work with about 25  different area growers. During the winter months, Rettig and his colleagues meet with farmers to plan for the next season.

“They come armed with seed catalogs and we have fun picking out new and unusual possibilities that they or we may like to try,” he says.

Rettig enjoys the focus on fresh, local produce but values food produc-ers at every scale. “Commodity beef and other products have  a place here. Our hamburger is local, but our steaks aren’t from  a single producer,” he says. “Plus, we’re in a state you can’t grow certain ingredients year-round. We can’t get local olive oil and I need to supplement using canned tomatoes in the off season for example.”

The Café’s approach to food has proven successful, says Rettig, “we couldn’t have drawn a more perfect growth ladder.”

Today staff includes an executive chef, two sous chefs and others totaling 95 employees—of which half are university students. The Café serves an average of 800 customers per day and it is common to find a wait for a table any day of theweek during peak hours.

Click here for Rettig’s Lamb Ragu and Pasta recipe

SUCCESS BREEDS SUCCESS: Leopold Center and ISU Extension help increase demand and capacity for local foods

Teresa Wiemerslage, ISU Extension program coordinator (’96 MS plant pathology), visits with Brian Nordschow (left) of Prairieview Vineyard and Bob Raymond of Village Creek Farm at a recent food safety workshop.

It’s like a delicious cycle.

Local growers increase production of fruits and vegetables; consumers appreciate the improved availability and ask for more; growers expand to meet increased demand.

The Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative is driving such a cycle in their region by bringing together growers, community members and Iowa State Extension staff who work together to increase access to locally produced foods.

The coalition from northeast Iowa was selected as the first pilot goup by the Leo-pold Center for Sustainable Agriculture Regional Food System Working Group in 2006.

The Working Group is a network of 16 autonomous groups covering the state of Iowa that support local food system efforts.

“Each group determines what is important for their region, and the Center assists them with strategic planning and organization,” says Craig Chase, interim program leader of the Leopold Center’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative.

The creation of Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness Initiative’s plan brought their group to the national stage and caught the attention of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which designated Northeast Iowa as one of nine communities to become models of change.

The foundation provided funding to create a multi-year plan for Allamakee, Chickasaw, Clayton, Fayette, Howard and Winneshiek counties to grow their local food infrastructure.  The initiative addresses policies, practices and systems that support healthy communities and provide affordable food. It works with regulatory agencies to mini-mize barriers to local food purchases from both sides, and it leverages funding and expertise to serve its mission.

Bob Raymond operates a small market garden and farm stand near Lansing. The initiative provided training to prepare farmers for on-farm food safety audits. Raymond is one of 13 producers who passed a U.S. Department of Agriculture Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) audit.

“They offered the unique opportunity to get a GAP audit performed at no cost, with just a small cost for two days of intensive food safety training. It was won-derful. About 13 of us went through and passed,” Raymond says. “If we want to be involved in selling food to the public we’re going to have to develop our GAPs. Coaching and training are part of that—I’m encouraged and condent we can get through the obstacles to get through the GAP if we combine ISU Extension and the Initiative.”

Success breeds success.

Efforts of the Initiative have increased the growing season in the region as growers set up more greenhouse space in response to increased consumer demand. The increased availability of off-season produce in the area has led schools, care centers and private consumers to realize they can purchase local produce for nearly nine months out of the year.

“By tracking food sales from just four to fiveproducers, our region saw an increase of more than $1.2 million in increased local food sales last year, bringing local food sales to more than $1.7 million last year,” says Brenda Ranum, regional extension education director.

The cycle continues.

Click here for Ranum’s autumn harvest chowder recipe, Wiemerslage’s cheesy pasta with summer veggies recipe, and Raymond’s leek and potato soup.

GROWING SUCCESSFUL MANAGERS

Wet springs, planting delays and bad weather as well as high yields, good prices and great markets are all part of the business of food production. Dealing with those ups and downs is a challenge Iowa State University students have experienced firsthand since 1943.

Today, that hands-on learning approach has expanded and students can choose between managing a conventional corn and soybean operation or a horticultural enterprise.

Bill Murray, an agriculture economics professor, developed the Agriculture Education and Studies 450 Farm Management and Operation class in 1943. The concept was simple—teach hands-on farm management by putting students in charge of an actual farm.

The concept was backed by the philosophy that the farm had to support itself. Louis Thompson, the farm’s instructor in the 1950s, and later an associate dean, emphasized the importance of letting students run the farm without financial support. In a 1983 interview he stated, “If we can’t teach farmers to make money, we have no business teaching farm management.”

The 450 Farm has grown into a successful program that allows students to make choices, while facing the same challenges other producers juggle. Throughout its 68 years students have raised corn, soybeans, chickens, dairy cows, sheep, beef cattle and hogs. Each class maintains detailed records, daily logs and recommendations for future classes.

“This collaborative approach allows students to use problem-solving, decisionmaking, critical thinking and communication skills,” says Tom Paulsen, assistant professor in agricultural education and studies. “This is a capstone course designed to provide an opportunity to manage a real farm operation.”

Jesse Deardorff, a senior, and Chad Krull, a junior, both agricultural studies students volunteered to finish up some business for the 450 Farm after the class ended last spring. The two drove four hours at 30 miles per hour in the sweltering July heat to pick up a soybean harvesting head. They wanted to make sure the next class was ready for harvest. Both say the class provided practical management experience they couldn’t have gotten elsewhere.

“The class gives you an idea of what happens from bottom to top, as far as grain production,” Deardorff says. “If you didn’t have any idea how the process works, you would have after taking this class. It’s also about learning farm management, which is different than farm operations.”

During that same heat wave, Kyler Sheets and Joe Jacobs spent a couple of days thinning onion seedlings. The two mstudents were part of the first summer 465 Horticulture Enterprise Management course, which began in the spring of 2011. The new course was based on the same idea as the Ag 450 Farm.

During the spring session students wrote a business plan and decided what to plant, grow and harvest. Members of the summer session, Jacobs and Sheets, worked on implementing the plan.

“This class is modeled after the Ag 450 Farm, but the challenges, especially for marketing and labor, are completely different,” says Jacobs, a senior in horticulture.

In July, the students hosted a tour at the All Horticulture Field Day to share what they learned. Attendees listened while Jacobs and Sheets talked about successes and obstacles they encountered planting tomatoes, potatoes, watermelon and onions on the one-acre plot located on the Iowa State Horticulture Station north of Ames.

One recommendation for future classes, “don’t plant onion seeds. It’s labor intensive and costly,” says Jacobs.

Along with onions, the first horticulture 465 class planted tomatoes, potatoes and watermelons. Sheets, a senior in horticulture, says the class is an opportunity for students to apply what they learned in previous classes.

“I’ve never farmed before. I’ve raised a few tomato plants, but not 1,000,” Sheets says.

The class is in the business of raising food, says Malcolm Robertson, the instructor and program coordinator with the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. The idea, he says, is to let students make business decisions and solve problems.

“This course is focused on the direct marketing of local foods, which is essentially relationship marketing and meeting the needs of customers,” Robertson says.

The class supplied locally grown food to Iowa State University Dining Services, grocery stores and restaurants, while the Ag 450 farm class decided how to sell commodities that could be used to feed livestock. This fall both classes focused on harvesting, marketing and beginning plans for the 2012 planting season.

Click here for Krull’s scalloped pineapple recipe, Paulsen’s butterscotch squares recipe, Deardorff’s roasted corn salsa recipe, and Robertson’s Boerewors sausage recipe.