US no-tillage farmer wins farmer-of-the-year award with New Zealand drill.
The Manitoba-North Dakota Zero Tillage Farmers’ Association honoured Kevin Larson of Willow City, ND with the “U.S. Zero Till Farmer of the Year award”. The presentation was made on January 10, 2012 at its 34th annual workshop in Minot, ND. Reasons cited for the award included: his serving on the association’s board for six years; the implementation of zero tillage on his farm for the last 30 years; and his bringing the Cross Slot® seeding system to the region.
The NZ company that supplied the Cross Slot toolbar to Mr Larson in 2011 (Baker No-Tillage Ltd of Feilding) said that other farmers in both Canada and the USA are now also sharing Mr Larson’s conviction about the New Zealand equipment, which augers well for the future. “It’s another example of New Zealand marketing its tools of agriculture, not just its products of agriculture. And there is virtually no limit to how many superior agricultural tools we can produce in a given year.” says Company CEO, Dr John Baker.
North Dakota experienced a particularly wet spring in 2011 but Mr Larson found he could handle the conditions with his New Zealand-designed Cross Slot machine better than most other US-designed machines, which remained parked in their sheds. “Now we can hardly wait for a dry year” says Dr Baker, “because our equipment is even better in dry soils”.
Kevin Larson (right) with son Adam and Brian Sefton (left), Design Engineer for Cross Slot
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No-Till Farmer magazine (USA) names top no-tillage influencers
The long-running US no-tillage magazine, No-Till Farmer (Lessiter Publications), has published its list of "The Top 11 Worldwide No-Till Influencers" spanning the last 40 years. At the top of their alphabetical list is Dr John Baker, founder, Chairman and CEO of Baker No-Tillage Limited.
John initiated and led a research and development project at Massey University, New Zealand, that resulted in a biologically and mechanically unique Cross Slot no-tillage opener. After "nursing" this project through its development stage and supervising 26 separate post-graduate studies, John took the design into the commercial world when, in 1995, he founded Baker No-Tillage Limited in association with two of his university colleagues, Bill Ritchie and Dave Robinson.
The technology is now operational in 17 countries world-wide and is used on machines ranging from very narrow specialist research machines to 18m (60ft) broad-acre toolbars.
John is joined on the list by other well-known international no-tillage "gurus" such as Herbert Bartz (Brazil), Bill Crabtree (Australia), Carlos Crovetto (Chile), Rolf Derpsch (Paraguay) and Wolfgang Sturny (Switzerland).
No-Till Farmer magazine has also honoured numerous farmer and research contributors from the USA in the same issue (November, 2011. Volume 40, No 11).
Congratulations to John and all those on the list for their combined contribution to a more sustainable agricultural world and to No-Till Farmer magazine for 40 years of reporting on it!