Monday, November 30, 2015

Fall Ag Trip

The week before Thanksgiving 30 individuals from the Agribusiness and Beef Science Clubs took a trip to St Louis, Lousiville, and Nashville. Following are some pictures from the trip.













Sunday, August 23, 2015

NICC to Build New Beef Education Facility



The number of beef science students at Northeast Iowa Community College has seen a dramatic increase in last 5 years with close to 30 students enrolled in the fall beef science class. In response to this demand NICC will be building a new Beef Education Facility. The facility is being built to the same high standards of the Dairy Facility keeping to the theme of a "Center of Excellence for Value Added Agriculture." With this new facility NICC will continue to be a leader in developing our next generation of agriculture leaders.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

NICC Agriscience Program is adding Drones to their Curriculum


In order to keep up to date with latest technologies in agriculture we will be adding five Drones to our curriculum. Four of the drones will be small hobby drones that will be used to train students how to operate and fly a drone. The fifth drone will include GPS and a High Tech Camera and will be used for aerial observations and videos. NICC has applied for a section 333 exemption to allow them to fly the drone outside.

The drones will be available in mid September for practicing indoors. When the Section 333 exemption is approved we will be using the drone in an outdoor environment.


Friday, July 24, 2015

Winneshiek County Soil and Water Conservation District held a field day at Northeast Iowa Community College. This past year the college has made a decision to go to no-till and cover crops to help maintain long term soil health and productivity.

Several demonstrations were part of the day including a Hagie cover crop seeder and the SWCD rain table.


Monday, June 22, 2015

Tad Mueller attended a workshop on UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Drones) in Louisville KY on June 11th to learn more about teaching drone technology and the laws related to using them.



Friday, May 22, 2015

Agriculture: Job growth to boom over next five years


WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Nearly 58,000 jobs will open annually across the United States in occupations involving food, agriculture, renewable natural resources and environment over the next five years, according to an employment outlook led by Purdue University.
The report, released Monday (May 11), was produced by Purdue University's College of Agriculture with grant support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
The jobs reflect a need for a highly skilled and trained workforce to support the food, agriculture and national resources industries amid projections of a world population that is expected to grow from 7 billion people today to 9 billion by 2050, noted Sonny Ramaswamy, NIFA director.
That will create many opportunities for college graduates in those fields, said Allan D. Goecker (pronounced GER’-ker), assistant dean emeritus of Purdue's College of Agriculture and lead author of the report "Employment Opportunities for College Graduates in Food, Agriculture, Renewable Natural Resources, and the Environment, United States, 2015–2020."
"These graduates are essential to address U.S. and global priorities of food security, sustainable energy and environmental quality," Goecker said.
The report projects that 46 percent of the estimated 57,900 new job opportunities each year will be in management and business. Twenty-seven percent will be in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the so-called STEM areas. Jobs in food and biomaterials production will comprise 15 percent, and 12 percent of the openings will be in education, communication and governmental services.
Details of the report are available on a website created by Purdue at https://www.purdue.edu/usda/employment. Some highlights:
* While most employers prefer to hire graduates of food, agriculture, renewable natural resources and environment programs, graduates from these programs only fill about 60 percent of the expected annual openings. Even as enrollments in these programs increase and the job market becomes somewhat more competitive, good employment opportunities for the next five years are expected.
* Growth in job opportunities will be uneven. Employers in some areas will struggle to find enough graduates to fill jobs. In a few areas, employers will find an oversupply of job seekers. 
* There should be a strong employment market for e-commerce managers and marketing agents, ecosystem managers, agriscience educators, crop advisers and pest control specialists.
* Job opportunities in STEM areas are expected to grow, with the strongest markets for plant scientists, food scientists, sustainable biomaterials specialists, water resources scientists and engineers, precision agriculture specialists and veterinarians.
* Women make up more than half of the food, agriculture, renewable natural resources and environment higher education graduates in the U.S.
The report is the eighth in a series of five-year projections initiated by USDA in 1980.
Marcos Fernandez, associate dean of Purdue Agriculture and director of its academic programs, said this newest edition might be the most comprehensive of all. He convened his counterparts from across the country during a joint session of both land-grant and other colleges of agriculture directors of academic programs during a meeting of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities in Washington, D.C., to analyze and discuss the data.
"Academic and non-academic leaders from throughout the country - over 70 in all - reviewed a draft of the report and extensively discussed the findings, trends and recommendations with one another and the report's authors," he said. 
Writer: Keith Robinson, 765-494-2722, robins89@purdue.edu
Sources: Allan D. Goecker, 765-463-1269, goecker@purdue.edu
Marcos Fernandez, 765-494-8472, mfernandez@purdue.edu
Ag Communications: (765) 494-2722;
Keith Robinson, robins89@purdue.edu
Agriculture News Page

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Soil Sampling the High Tech Way

As part of the development of a Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan for the NICC farm land we brought in Soil Investigating Services http://www.soilinvestigativeservices.com/ to update some of our soil sample zones. They use a machine from Ag Robotics http://www.agrobotics.com/ to automatically take up to 40 cores per sample.







It's also planting day. As part of an NRCS demonstration project the NICC farm is moving to complete No-till


Wednesday, April 22, 2015


NICC staff and students attended the 2015 Iowa FFA Students to visit with prospective students and talk about the outstanding opportunities available at Northeast Iowa Community College

Monday, April 13, 2015


Beef science students visit Carlton Kjos as part of our beef lab and talked with the Samantha Wagner of Farm Bureau as part of their tour.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

NICC Students Do Well at National


Congratulations to NICC students who attended the National Post-secondary Agriculture Students Conference in Boise Idaho the week of spring break. At the conference students had the opportunity to demonstrate their skills bringing home numerous awards.

Agricultural Machinery Service Technician Contest
2nd Place Team: Mitchell Czapiewski, Caleb Frank
5th Place Team: Luke Johnson, Jedidiah Byers

2nd Place Individual: Caleb Frank

College Bowl
3rd Place Team: Summer Johnson, Clare Cook, Justin Schaffe, Cody Opperman, Caleb Frank

Dairy Specialist Contest
3rd Place Team: Summer Johnson, Clare Cook, Justin Schaffer
5th Place Team: Chase Saxton, Brittany Nelson, Cody Freland
9th Place Team: Austin Vander Haak, Bryon Franks, Adriana Aldinger

2nd Place Individual: Summer Johnson

Overall Livestock Contest
5th Place Team: Cody Opperman, Joe Goedken

5th Place Individual: Cody Opperman

Thursday, February 12, 2015

The following teams qualified at the State Post-secondary Agriculture Students to advance to Nationals

College Bowl
Kayleigh Hauber Alex Jech Kaytlan Langreck Baxter Pufahl Colin Scholz

Dairy Specialist 
Clare Cook Summer Johnson Justin Schaffer
Shelby Bodley Sam Schwartz Austin Vander Haak
Cody Freland Chase Saxton

Livestock Specialist - Overall 
 Kayleigh Hauber Kaytlan Langreck Cody Opperman

Pictures from State PAS