Grassroots Leaders: MCR&PC member Dave Vipond jumps at the chance to give back
The Minnesota Corn Growers Association and Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council are farmer-led grassroots organizations focused on identifying and promoting opportunities for corn farmers. This “Grassroots Leaders” series introduces you to the grower leaders who are working on your behalf as corn farmers.
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
In the past several years, Dave Vipond’s sons began to take a more active role in the family’s two businesses, farming and crop insurance. Mike came back when he graduated college four years ago, and Aaron fully rejoined the operation two years ago, after he finished school.
“They’ve been interested in farming since they were in grade school, but it wasn’t clear what their plans were until they got done with school. With my sons here, and my wife working at the agency, too, I have a little more time to give back and to get involved. It’s been on my mind for some time,” said Vipond.
He is one of the new members of the Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council.
In addition to sharing his experience in the crop insurance field, Vipond is eager to learn about all the farm, food and energy issues in which MCR&PC offers leadership. Whether it is helping to direct research investments, or helping consumers become more agriculture literate, he sees the farmer-led organization as a great vehicle for helping farmers.
The family farms near Mahnomen, in northwest Minnesota. Though there is a strong historic connection to wheat in the region, Vipond raised his last wheat crop in 2001, and corn has been the foundation of their rotation ever since, making up about half of their acres each year, with another quarter devoted to soybeans, and the remainder to dry edible beans.
His involvement in the seed industry has given Vipond an appreciation of the importance of research, and constant development of new technologies, to help farmers stay profitable while growing more food for a hungry world. But it’s not just food—it’s all bio-based products that offer greener solutions to the world’s needs.
The research underwritten by Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council advances those solutions every year, finding new ways that renewable farm products can replace products based on fossil fuels.
“The ability to create biodegradable plastics and polymers out of corn is just a natural fit for the direction America and the world are going,” said Vipond. “I was listening to a news program where they talked about the millions of tons of (petroleum-derived) plastic that have been created in the last ten years,” said Vipond. “Only about 9 percent of that has been recycled. You look at those numbers and you realize how much of that is building up in the environment. If corn can fill that niche with biodegradable plastics, it just makes so much sense.”
The Minnesota Corn & Research Promotion Council works with the Minnesota Corn Growers Association in the shared mission to identify and promote opportunities for corn farmers, while enhancing quality of life. Meet members of each by clicking here.
