PRINCETON, Ky. — Thursday, January 16, 2025 marks the date for the 31st Kentucky Commodity Conference, to be held at the Sloan Convention Center in Bowling Green. This annual meeting of Kentucky Soybean Association, Kentucky Corn Growers Association and the Kentucky Small Grain Growers Association will provide producers and agriculture industry professionals the opportunity to discover how these organizations have advanced their interests in the past year. There is no fee for famers to attend the Conference, thanks to the generosity of industry sponsors. Registration is required to guarantee entry to the luncheon and the awards celebration.
The day kicks off at 7 a.m. CST with an Early Riser session, then 8:30 a.m. marks registration and the opening of the trade show. The event continues through the morning’s marketing session, lunch, and meetings of the three participating commodity groups. The evening schedule holds a Grower Appreciation Reception followed by the Awards Celebration.
The Early Riser Session will feature Dr. Guilherme Anghinoni, commonly referred to as “Big G,” a soil and plant nutrition specialist based in Brazil. He holds a PhD in Agronomy, and is interested in soil science and especially in soil physics, management and conservation, as well as efficient and sustainable crops production. Dr. Anghinoni will present a general overview of Brazilian agriculture production regions, production practices, challenges/advantages, markets, and logistics. There will be ample time for questions and answers following his presentation.
Following the Early Riser Session, conference-goers will have the opportunity to see the newest innovations and offerings from 30+ sponsor exhibits and take part in complimentary health screenings. In addition, the Commodity Conference is always a good time to catch up with fellow growers and agribusiness professionals from around the state.
Bill Biedermann, a co-founder of AgMarket.Net, will present the morning marketing session. He is a well-known speaker, presenter and advisor on commodities. In addition to trading commodities for 40 years, Biedermann has testified before Congressional hearings, CFTC hearings, served for the US State Department AID, and has been invited to speak in nearly every corn growing state in the US and Canada. Bill co-founded one of the largest IB Brokerage and Agricultural Economic Research firms in the US. Bill provides Agricultural research to traders, food companies and producers worldwide as well as executing futures and option orders on all major exchanges.
Biedermann graduated from Illinois State University with majors in Agricultural Production, Ag Economics and Ag Education, and he farmed from 1973-1988.
The lunch keynote address will be delivered by operational meteorologist Andrew Pritchard, who focuses on disruptive weather and weather safety. An award winning weather risk communicator, he helps people make decisions based on weather impacts.
At Nutrien, he focuses on high-impact, disruptive weather events, weather risk mitigation and severe weather safety. As a member of Nutrien’s Atmospheric Sciences team, he works closely with Nutrien’s Safety Health & Environment department, Andy helped establish and lead Nutrien’s internal Severe Weather Safety and Disaster Response team by providing modern weather safety training, monitoring weather forecast information and issuing critical weather safety bulletins to the Nutrien retail team before severe weather strikes, and facilitating disaster response after a damaging weather event. Finally, he frequently travels and presents to audiences of 50-1,000 people across North America speaking on severe and hazardous weather and mitigating weather risk in production agriculture. As an independent meteorologist and video journalist, Andrew has spent the last two decades documenting tornadoes and supercell thunderstorms across Tornado Alley.
The lunch session will also feature remarks from Ag Commissioner Jonathan Shell.
The annual members meetings of the Kentucky Soybean Association, The Kentucky Corn Growers Association, and the Kentucky Small Grain Growers Association will be held at 1 p.m., 2 p.m., and 3 p.m. respectively, followed at 3:45 p.m. by a deep dive into sustainable aviation fuel with Paul Bertels.
The Growers Reception kicks off at 6 p.m., followed immediately by the awards celebration, during which the winners of the production contests for these three commodities.
Farmers, University personnel, and sponsors may register at the conference website, www.kycommodityconference.org.
–Rae Wagoner, Kentucky Soybean Board
