Michigan State University Product Center Teams with L&L Food Centers to Reward Michigan Entrepreneurs

Local food will take center stage during the Making it in Michigan conference, presented by the Michigan State University (MSU) Product Center on Nov. 11 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Lansing Center. Two winning food entrepreneurs will earn more than bragging rights at this year’s event.

L&L Food Centers will award two Michigan food products coveted shelf space in their eight mid-Michigan grocery stores as part of the third annual MSU Product Center specialty food show.

“L&L is a Lansing company,” said Rick Zahm, L&L Food Centers general manager.  “We’ve been here for 78 years and MSU has been here for more than 150, so we’re excited to work together to help entrepreneurs and introduce new products to our customers.”

Two winning products will be selected by L&L’s owner, Stan Levandowski, brand manager Martha Levandowski and their team of specialty food professionals. The products will join hundreds of other Michigan-made products offered by the grocery chain, including Legends of the Lakes Great Lakes whitefish and Grand Traverse Pie Company baked goods.

Left to Right: Rick Zahm, L&L Food Centers general manager; Chris Peterson, director of the MSU Product Center; Stan Lewandowski, president of L&L Food Centers and Martha Lewandowski, brand manager of L&L Food Centers.

The MSU Product Center serves more than 600 clients through its statewide network of innovation counselors, and has helped launch 127 new Michigan business ventures in food, agriculture, natural resources and the bioeconomy.

Learn more about the MSU Product Center Making it in Michigan Conference.

Read more about the L&L Partnership.

Find a mid-Michigan L&L Food Center!

Michigan made products are commonly found at L&L Food Centers, but two Michigan entrepreneurs will have the chance to add theirs to the mix at the November 11 competition.

 

Demmer Center takes aim at novices as well as experienced shooters.

Demmer Center

The Oct. 5 opening of the John and Marnie Demmer Shooting Sports Education and Training Center on the MSU campus has been much anticipated in local sports shooting circles since ground was broken July 18, 2008. Excitement was obvious at the open house for the new center on Oct. 2.

That, I had anticipated – what’s not to love for archery and ballistic enthusiasts?  The $3.5 million, 24,000-square-foot facility is one of the largest indoor shooting facilities in the Midwest, offering two indoor ranges and three outdoor archery ranges. The two indoor ranges accommodate small bore (.22 cal. rifle and pistol), air rifle and archery. The outdoor Becky and Bob Humphries Community Archery Park include beginner, field and competitive ranges. And, archery, .22 firearm and air rifle equipment rental is available.

Shooting instruction

What I didn’t expect was my own (non-shooter) excitement. This place is clean, inviting, safe, non-intimidating and family friendly.  I can easily envision coming here with coworkers or even bringing my kids to learn archery or to shoot air rifles.  The staff is friendly, knowledgeable and patient.  And, from the tour I received, I know that safety is their #1 priority, followed quickly by a desire to introduce more people to the joy of their favorite sport.

Outdoor 3-D Archery Range

The Demmer Center is located at 3365 E. Jolly Road at the south end of the MSU campus, midway between College and Hagadorn roads. Public shooting hours are:

• Mon., Wed. and Fri., 11:30 a.m. – 8 p.m.
• Sat., 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Sun., noon – 5 p.m. on Sunday.

(Tuesdays and Thursdays are reserved for classes and organized activities.)

Visit the Demmer Center website at www.demmercenter.msu.edu for range fees and other information.

Some targets provide extra incentive

The center is named in honor of MSU alumnus John Demmer, founder and chairman of the Lansing-based Demmer Corp., and his late wife, Marnie, also a graduate of MSU.  The Demmer family provided principal support for the building.

 

Dean Armstrong Welcomes Students Back to Campus

As the new academic year begins, CANR Dean Jeffrey Armstrong welcomes students to the MSU campus.

 

Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart (and for bringing people together)

MSU continues tradition of support for local food bank

(Editor’s Note: Greater Lansing Food Bank volunteers recently gleaned green beans from the Horticulture Teaching & Research Center.)

Today’s economy is forcing some families  to make tough choices.

That’s where a partnership between Michigan State University (MSU) and the Greater Lansing Food Bank (GLFB) comes in. The partnership, in its 26^th year, is all about providing families, individuals and agencies with fresh produce from the MSU farms.

The GLFB provides volunteers through its Garden Project Gleaning Program to harvest surplus from campus farms and distribute it to low-income families and individuals and to agencies that serve those in need.

Food is a gathering point for families. It’s another way to come together. The MSU farms, staff, volunteers and researchers know that these donations offer families in need some relief.

MSU & GLFB, by the numbers:

Pounds of food donated

600                             Pounds of beans harvested and donated during recent green bean harvest

21,689                        Pounds of fresh food donated by MSU farms so far in 2009

216,833                      Average number of pounds per year donated by MSU farms over 25-year period

266,447                      Pounds of food donated to GLFB by MSU farms in 2008

5,673,650                  Total number of pounds of fresh food donated from 1983-2008

Estimated dollar value

$605.88                     Estimated retail value of beans harvested on Friday, Aug. 7

$34,990.90                Retail value of food donated by MSU farms so far in 2009

$308,177.67               Estimated retail value of the food donated in 2009 

*Numbers are tallied and tracked by the Greater Lansing Food Bank

 

Can Those “Amber Waves Of Grain” Become Perennials?

Every time a farmer plants a cash crop, he or she makes a substantial investment of money, time and labor resources. But what if that crop wasn’t something that had to be planted every year, but instead, sprouted out of the ground each spring and was ready for a summer harvest?

Michigan State University (MSU) associate professor of crop and soil sciences at the Kellogg Biological Station, Sieg Snapp, is addressing that question. Her team is studying the possibilities for developing perennial wheat as a crop for environmentally friendly agricultural production. She’s conducting this work thanks to a four-year, one million dollar U.S. Department of Agriculture organic research grant.

Snapp is leading a team that includes MSU professor of agriculture, food and resource economics, Scott Swinton; MSU outreach specialist, Vicki Morrone; MSU wheat breeder, Janet Lewis; Michigan farmers; and colleagues at Washington State University. Their work builds on research that leads to a new type of perennial grain crop. “Our goal is to go the next step and develop perennial wheat varieties and management that are practical for farmers to adopt, to use as a ground cover, a forage AND a grain crop.

“Washington and Kansas have conducted innovative plant breeding, crossing intermediate wheat grass forage to annual wheat to get the annual wheat grain characteristics and a close to marketable product,” Snapp says. “I realized that nobody was focusing on agronomic management, and practical aspects of variety development, so my student, Brook Wilke, started about three years ago to evaluate varieties suitable for Michigan.” Snapp and the team will study these perennial wheat varieties at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS), a Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station facility located in southwestern Michigan.

“We’re going to be investigating them for their adaptation to Michigan farms at the research station and on farms,” Snapp says. “We’re looking at organic production practices, and different management options, like whether we could possibly graze the crop in the fall to obtain multiple products, forage and grain.”

The research team will study the wheat over three to four cropping seasons so they can observe its hardiness under different weather conditions and extremes in temperature and precipitation. The perennial wheat isn’t just a money-saving crop –it also protects the environment — helping to keep the soil in place and capture rain and snow.

“It’s always growing and keeps roots in the soil to prevent erosion,” Snapp points out. “We’ve already found that the roots of the perennial wheat can reach three-times deeper than annual wheat roots and this is promising for a crop that could capture carbon.”

The perennial wheat may save farmers money at planting, produce enough yield to allow them to realize a profit, provide a secondary income source and protect the environment, but it also has to fit in on the typical Michigan farm. Snapp won’t be conducting her studies in a vacuum, but will include farmer cooperators who will be part of the research team, giving input into the experiments and sharing the results they find in using it on their farms.

In a year or two, the researchers will produce enough seed at KBS to provide farmer experimentation opportunities. Snapp plans to include growers who can help test the wheat under different conditions on farms of varying sizes around the state.

“We’ll also look at some of the economics and how it does as a single and dual crop,” she says. “That’s where the agricultural economist will come in and look at profitability of the dual use crop.”

Snapp says she’s looking forward to seeing how farmers will fit perennial wheat into their crop systems. “My experience with participatory farm research is that you learn new ways from the farmers to make it work,” she says.

The studies will continue at KBS while the on-farm research gets underway in a systematic effort that Snapp has developed that is used by plant breeders in Africa and Asia, a research design called “mother and baby trials.”

“The research station trial is the ‘mother’ and that’s the big-scale trial that includes all of the varieties and agronomic treatments,” she says. “The on-farm trials are the ‘baby’ trials. We’ll give farmers the opportunity to choose a few varieties to test on their farm, which will facilitate testing across many environments and under different management systems including organic production. Farmers will have the opportunity to provide feedback on varieties they test.”

So what will become of this information? It will be used to inform basic science research conducted at universities around the world, but Snapp will also disseminate the study’s outcomes via MSU Extension to farmers who might want to grow perennial wheat in fields across Michigan and beyond.

“MSU Extension is part of our advisory group and we work with several specialists,” Snapp says. “Their role will become even more important as we get more seed and do this on a larger scale — we couldn’t do it without Extension.”

 

Summer Memories

As we slip toward the second half of summer, I’m looking back on a rather cool season – but one full of activities, outdoor entertainment, get-togethers, great fun and memories.  Here are a few photo memories from Ag Expo 2009. (Photos by Alicia Burnell, Beth Stuever and Francie Todd.)

 

Even City Girls Can Appreciate the Wonders of Agriculture

This is a week of “firsts” for me and at my age those don’t come along too often! We’re celebrating Michigan agriculture all week at Michigan State University with both Ag Expo and the 4-H Dairy Expo happening on the East Lansing campus. The Michigan Livestock Expo also hosted events at the Ingham County Fair Grounds and MSU Livestock Pavilion.

In addition to actively participating in my first Ag Expo, I drove my first tractor, milked my first cow, attended my first livestock auction and saw my first cow with a hole in its side – put there on purpose.

Driving the Champion tractor manufactured by Massey Ferguson was a thrill ride. Sitting 16 feet above the ground [the tires were taller than me]; the inside of the cab was first class.This tractor’s ride was smooth and the cab filled with high tech equipment including a Global Positioning System that could guide any planting diagram I wanted . The automatic transmission was easily managed and the steering turned on a dime – well more like a half dollar — but it still was very impressive. More impressive was the trust put in me by the market representative to drive and back up the big rig. It was easy, exhilarating, and empowering.

The second “first” was milking a big, beautiful dairy cow at the Great Dairy Adventure. I marveled at the size and gentle nature of this creature and how easy it was for me to sit down and milk her. Equally impressive was that the exhibit was staffed by young women. What wonderful role models for all the thousands of young people who attended throughout the day! These strong, confident young women knew their stuff, took control of the situation and were excellent ambassadors for the dairy industry.

My third “first” was attending a youth livestock auction which was as entertaining as it was informative. Tens of thousands of dollars were raised to support scholarships and continued leadership development of youth who participated in the show. The animals were elegant, exceptional and expertly groomed. What a lesson in entrepreneurship that these young people experience! They learn responsibility, accountability, presentation skills and the roller coaster ride of competition. As I was reviewing the animals prior to the show, a cherubic nine year approached me and in her most confident marketing voice asked if I was interested in a market sale animal at the sale. She was sizing me up to bid on her animal later that evening. Regretfully, I was not a bidder, but if I was, she had me sold.

Together these unique experiences added up to a deeper appreciation of the growing ag sector and its high tech, high touch character. For a week of firsts, it was second to none.

 

It’s Time to Rethink our Perceptions of Agriculture

There are few bright spots on Michigan’s economic horizon but those that are shining are beacons of opportunity. Michigan’s agriculture sector — a broad value chain of agri-food and agri-energy interests — is one of those bright lights that can and will lead our state in the years ahead.

As the state’s second largest economic sector, Michigan’s agri-food and agri-energy sector represented an economic impact of $71.3 billion, an increase of approximately $7.6 billion or 11.9 percent from the adjusted interim 2006 study.

Michigan State University shines a spotlight on this important economic engine at a major event happening at the East Lansing campus this week. From July 21 through July 23, thousands of people involved in the agri-food/energy system will gather at the 30th year of Ag Expo.

As a leading land grant university, we work every day in laboratories, fields and classrooms to bring new ideas and innovation to Michigan residents. As a strategic partner with agri-food, agri-energy and agri-business stakeholders, MSU – through the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the Michigan Agriculture Experiment Station and MSU Extension – leverages public and private support to provide relevant, focused, value-added information and programs. Our progress and partnerships will be celebrated and cemented during these events.

Ag Expo brings together businesses, MSU educators, commodity groups, small, medium and large farmers and the general public to see the latest technology, learn about advances in research and interact with hundreds of vendors who can provide any number of agri-oriented services.

The agriculture value chain is highly technical and broad in scope. While many have a nostalgic view of the pastoral, family farm powered by horse drawn tractors, agriculture today is innovative, science driven and implementing sophisticated management systems. Michigan is one of the most diversified growing states in the nation. In addition to a wide variety of crops, our state has both large farms that produce a majority of the products but also supports a growing interest in organic and “local foods” supplied by small and medium farms.

Tractors today are mechanical whiz machines with GPS systems that guide planting with space age precision. Farm managers are focused on the environmental impact of their operations, concerned about animal behavior and welfare and worried about the bottom line.

Ag Expo offers insights into all of this in addition to showcasing new machines, new ideas and new techniques. It is an opportunity to showcase how the agri-foods and agri-energy economic sector impacts the quality of life in Michigan and its potential for continued growth. From the concept of large urban farms in Detroit to alternative energy plants in the Upper Peninsula, to new systems that environmentally manage waste to power small and medium farms to new food products developed by entrepreneurs, Michigan agriculture is bringing businesses, jobs and opportunities to Michigan. These business and community leaders are finding new ways to do it better, faster and more efficiently.

While the ag sector is not immune to this economic downturn, it also holds hope for a redefined vision for Michigan. Whether it’s feeding the world, fueling the world or saving the world’s resources, Michigan’s agri-foods and agri-energy sector holds the promise and potential for leading our state to be at the center of new ideas and initiatives.

 

Don’t miss the Great Dairy Adventure! It’s close to home, makes a fun staycation!

This post is courtesy of my colleague, Sara Long, a communications manager in ANR Communications at MSU. Thanks Sara!

The buzzword this year is “staycation.” We’ve all heard it once, twice, 30, 72 times, right? With the state of the current economy, families are looking for fun, engaging and free activities or events to attend within a day’s drive from home or extended family.

Whether you’re a native Michigander, visiting the state, heading up a daycare, summer camp or other alternative venue, and looking for something that fits the “free, fun, engaging and good for young and old alike” category, then consider attending the 11th annual Great Dairy Adventure! consumer education day.

This annual event occurs in conjunction with the Michigan Dairy Expo (July 20-24) at the Michigan State University Pavilion for Agriculture and Livestock Education on the campus of MSU in East Lansing. The Great Dairy Adventure owns its own special day – Wednesday, July 22 – and takes place from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

My advice: arrive early. Last year, more than 3,000 young people along with their families or providers, attended the event.

I could go on and describe the event in detail, but here’s a better idea: visit the Web site at www.michigandairyexpo.com. Here you’ll learn all about the Great Dairy Adventure!, but also about Michigan Dairy Expo and Ag Expo. Ag Expo takes place July 21-23 across the field to the north of Michigan Dairy Expo, and there are all sorts of fun and interesting things to do and learn about.

For families looking to schedule a full day of activities, I strongly encourage you to plan for both events. Whether you are actively involved in farming or not, it doesn’t matter. Ag Expo is not strictly reserved for “real” farmers. This is MSU, after all, and education and outreach are two things we do quite well. Plus, a free shuttle takes you between the two events. If nothing else, ride the horse-drawn wagon around the grounds and stop off when something looks interesting. Whatever you do while there, don’t miss the CANR (College of Agriculture and Natural Resources) tent on the north side of the grounds. There is free MSU Dairy Store ice cream inside. This is in addition to all sorts of other interesting things for young and old alike.

Oh, and other thoughtful tips: pack sunscreen, wear comfortable shoes and don’t forget the camera!

 

Fireworks and dry vegetation a bad mix

It doesn’t take an expert to figure out that fireworks and dry grass or leaves are a bad combination. The fire and heat that fireworks produce can easily set dry vegetation on fire.  With the July 4 holiday upon us, people need to be aware that they could be the cause of a costly wildfire.
           
“Each year we see homes and other structures damaged or destroyed by fires caused by fireworks,” said Mark Hansen, Michigan State University Extension wildfire specialist.  “In 2007, for instance, a wildfire near Saugatuck that was caused by fireworks destroyed three homes.” 
           
Hansen said fireworks are a common cause of wildfires around the holiday because of youngsters and careless adults lighting fireworks too close to combustible vegetation.  Chances are that the average person would never think of lighting an entire box of matches in or near a field of dry grass or a bed of leaves. Lighting fireworks in that same vegetation could be even worse.
           
Hansen said that avoiding wildfires saves not only homes and buildings but also taxpayer dollars to pay for the use of fire department resources.  A typical fire run with one truck and crew will cost between $700 and $1,200, Hansen noted, and often more than one truck responds.  The fire near Saugatuck required a large number of fire departments and crews to respond.
           
“People really underestimate both the number of wildfires we have in Michigan and the number of homes that are damaged or destroyed,” he observed. “Only a few weeks ago, the Black River Falls fire near Marquette in the Upper Peninsula destroyed more than 20 homes and another 10 to 15 other structures. That fire was not caused by fireworks, but the outcome can be the same.  The Pinery fire, which also occurred in mid-May, did not destroy homes but did burn more than 600 acres of U.P. wildland.”
           
For more information on wildfire behavior, pick up a copy of Extension bulletin E-2882, “Understanding Wildfire Behavior in Michigan,” at any MSU Extension county office, or visit with your local fire department or area Michigan Department of Natural Resources fire officer.