Milling Journal - Q2 2008 - (Page 32) An Interview with Brian Sorenson Helping Millers Diversify with Northern Crops The northern tier of states in the Great Plains produce a wide diversity of crops. The Northern Crops Institute helps educate buyers and processors around the world about the region’s crop assets. Northern Crops Institute Director Brian Sorenson talked with Milling Journal from the NCI office at North Dakota State University, Fargo (721231-7736), about the role of the Institute and how it is planning for the future. Sorenson became NCI director in January following the retirement of Dr. Patricia Berglund. for the benefit of their growers. We remain true to our founding principles by constantly focusing on our mission – to promote our region’s crops through education and technical services. NCI was founded on the gramming to educate agriculprinciple of providing current tural commodity buyers and and innovative information on processors from the United the quality, availability and utiStates and the world. It is our lization of our crops. We job to help tell the world about achieve this through our short the quality of the crops grown courses and other educational in the four states of North Daprogramming, as well as kota, South Dakota, Minnethrough our technical services. sota and Montana. NCI’s facilities include To accomplish this task, laboratories for grading, millwe partner with regional coming, baking and flour quality Brian Sorenson modity groups and their natesting of the many grains, tional organizations to determine how we pulses and oilseeds from our four-state can work with them to expand markets region. NCI has pilot scale milling, pasta and twin-screw extrusion processing laboratories, as well as the NCI Feed Production Center (FPC) for incorporating our feed grains and co-products into feed products for utilization in the United States and globally. In addition, the NCI FPC works with regional universities to expand animal agriculture right here. The Mission The role of the Northern Crops Institute (NCI) is to develop and conduct pro- Achievements To sum up our major accomplishments, we need to start with the number of countries that have attended NCI short courses or visited NCI as part of an international trade team. That number is now at 127 countries and growing. . Through our pilot-scale processing activities, we have helped many food companies develop new food products, which if successful, result in increased utilization of our region’s agricultural products. We know that our courses are having an impact when we hear from the grain trade about specific quality factors or buying practices that the buyers learned about at NCI courses. Specialty Crops Our four states have long been known for the broad spectrum of crops that are produced here; however, we have seen tremendous growth in not only the number of specialty crops that are grown, but 32 Second Quarter 2008 Response No. 321 MILLING JOURNAL http://www.norvellco.com http://www.norvellco.com
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