Hello, CALS,
It seems we are always in a season of change, whether it's the weather and it's reminders of a shifting climate, or how we think about local and international development, trade and decision-making. Grain needlessly stuck in ports trying to get to those who are hungry is but one example of the ways the world can change quickly.
Last year at this time, there was no common talk about such grain vulnerabilities and change, yet here we are. This week I am at an agricultural food chain think tank meeting in Colorado, and the impact the war on Ukraine is having on food supply will be a featured topic.
I'm not sure if anyone at this meeting has lived and thought through such a conflict-driven change in food supply at this scale before. But there are lessons from the further past. Iowa's own Herbert Hoover made his mark pursuing wartime food relief during WWI, for example.
It's unclear how each of us might respond to such change, in our teaching, research, extension, outreach or service, but we should all contemplate this. Just as our colleagues in human and life sciences were called upon to respond somehow in their work to the pandemic, so, too, should our agriculture and life sciences colleagues think about how to inform their work with these kinds of pressing realities. At the very least, our students need to know we're thinking about it, and that we want them to think about such things, as well.
My best for a great week, whatever your end of the academic summer plans might be. And wishing for happy Iowa State Fair goers and gentle rains on all those thirsty fields. My best, Dan
Scenes from CALS
Iowa Farm Bureau Federation board members were on campus last week and were given a tour of the new Iowa State University Kent Corporation Feed Mill and Grain Science Complex. They are pictured below standing atop the tower at the facility.
Late summer flowers are in full bloom on campus, including these daylillies and hibiscus outside Curtiss Hall.
Last week I snapped this photo of a sunset behind clouds and a field of corn near Gilbert, north of Ames.
