2021 MCGA Scholarship Recipients: Growing the future
Photo L to R: Bethany Groos, Carson Kahler, Camren Saxton, Justin Thomforde
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
Four of the best and brightest ag scholars in the Midwest have gotten a boost to their education through the $5,000 scholarship awarded by the Minnesota Corn Growers Association. Meet the 2021 MCGA scholarship recipients!
“These kids represent the exciting direction, the incredible potential for science, for research and development that will keep American agriculture strong for decades to come,” said Jim Kanten, a member of the MCGA board of directors, who farms in Milan, Minnesota.
The excitement of the MCGA scholarship recipients and their families is hard to overstate.
“Hearing this news made me so happy, and my family happy,” said Bethany Groos, of Howard Lake, Minnesota, who is currently a freshman at Iowa State University in Ames. “Obviously, it’s going to be very influential in my ability to pursue my career vision.”
Having grown up on a dairy farm, she is pursuing a degree in biological systems engineering with an emphasis on the food engineering option, and she dreams of developing processes and products that feature a more digestible form of lactose.
Interest in animal science and entrepreneurialism is well-represented among this year’s scholars—two of them have already started their own livestock herds. Camren Saxton, a junior at Iowa State University, is the 2018 Minnesota FFA Star Farmer. With a 25-head cattle herd (started at age 15), Saxton is a junior majoring in ag engineering-animal production systems.
“In the future I would like to design animal facilities, or possibly grain handling facilities that would tie into a feed mill or an elevator,” says Saxton.
For Saxton, the scholarship means he can devote fewer hours to an outside job and focus more on coursework, and put more energy into extra-curriculars that will build his agriculture industry network and help establish his career path.
Justin Thomforde is a sophomore at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, who is double-majoring in ag and food business management, and animal science. His family has a beef cow-calf and feedlot operation and crop farm, in Goodhue, a small farming community in southeastern Minnesota.
“Growing up I was heavily involved in 4-H and FFA,” said Thomforde. “Showing livestock was a big part of life for me and my siblings. We started getting more heavily involved with show genetics and the show side of the beef cattle. That’s where I really wanted to major in animal science and eventually bring home the knowledge and skills that I gain at college and incorporate that back into our operation.”
Thomforde raises his own herd to emphasize genetics that not only succeed in the show ring but in the pasture too. Each year he sells bull and heifer calves to young people who want to raise cattle for an FFA or 4-H livestock project.
All of the MCGA scholarship recipients show an avid interest in the role of technology in agriculture, but perhaps none more than Carson Kahler, a second-year student at South Dakota State University in Brookings.
“I am majoring in agricultural systems technology, minoring in precision ag and informatics,” said Kahler, from Sherburn, Minnesota, just a stone’s throw from the Iowa border. “I’m really focusing on the technology side of farming. GPS. The maps. Farmers take in so much data, and I think they have only just started putting that information to work.”
His extended family has a farm with eight active partners that raises both crops and animals. Carson has made a special project with his dad and brother where they are transitioning several hundred acres of ground to raise organic corn and soybeans, to sell as feed into the organic livestock market.
“It’s an experiment as we go along. Everything is new,” said Carson. “Everyone has their favorite thing to do on the farm, some like planting, or harvesting or driving truck. My favorite thing to do on the farm is to try to find new ways to make our farm more efficient. I absolutely love that.”
In addition to the MCGA scholarships offered annually, county corn grower organizations across the state support future agricultural leaders in their area through scholarships for students pursuing a degree in agriculture or an agriculture-related field. Deadlines are approaching quickly for several county scholarships. To learn more visit mncorn.org/scholarships.
