Syngenta Thrive - 2Q/2013 - 8

BEST PRACTICES

Year honored for their successes at Western Agricultural Services in
Fall River Mills, Calif. “Syngenta should be commended for its proactive position of encouraging professional farm managers to strive for
high standards and competence in their chosen ﬁeld.”

ROLE MODELS

Top Guns
Long-standing awards program honors
the nation’s best farm managers.
By Mary Gordon

hen Syngenta ﬁrst supported the Professional Farm
Manager of the Year Awards program, a gallon of gas
was 89 cents, a mobile phone the size of a brick cost more than
$3,000, and Top Gun was the No. 1 movie in theaters.
Much has changed in the 27 years since then; but the strong
commitment that Syngenta and cosponsors AgProfessional
magazine and the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural
Appraisers (ASFMRA) have toward this annual recognition
program remains intact.

The Criteria
When the award was initially created, it was called the Bicep®
Herbicide Farm Manager of the Year Award. “The problem was
that people thought it went to the professional farm manager who
used the most Bicep,” says Brent Rockers, district manager for
Syngenta, who currently lives in Iowa and has been instrumental
in the awards program for the past 15 years. “But in all seriousness, this award has grown to become the professional farm
management industry’s highest honor and is a tradition that
Syngenta is proud to continue.”
Each year, the award recognizes a professional farm manager
or farm management team whose dedication and commitment to
agriculture has beneﬁted their clients, the American consumer and
our most precious commodity, the land. Recipients must be
ASFMRA members—currently numbering 2,100 and collectively
managing more than 25 million acres of land across North America.
A panel of judges, made up of representatives from the
cosponsoring organizations and other industry experts, carefully
evaluate each nominee on the following criteria:
> Number of clients and success at retaining clients.
> Innovative crop production practices implemented, including
soil and water conservation.
> Average crop yields and marketing success.
> Involvement in agricultural and nonagricultural service
organizations.
> Ability to adapt to the changing economic conditions facing
agriculture.
“It was the highlight of our careers to be recognized by our peers
with this prestigious award,” says Mary Rickert, who with her
husband, Jim, were the 2002 Professional Farm Managers of the

6 · thrive · 2Q /13

2012 Honoree
In 2012, the award went to Brent Bidner, professional farm manager
and vice president of the Monticello, Ill., ofﬁce of Hertz Farm Management, Inc. Currently in his 24th year of providing professional
farm management services for the company, Bidner manages
more than 18,000 acres in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Colorado.
Bidner’s approach to managing clients’ acreage includes
taking care of the land the same way he would if he owned it
himself. “I look at it as a long-term investment,” he says. “My goal
is to leave the land in better shape for the next generation than it
was when I took over management of the property.”
His attention to detail and innovative approaches have paid off
for longtime client Kenway Farm in Blue Mound, Ill. “After the
farmland itself, our next most valuable asset is Brent,” says Paul
Gorden, president of Kenway Farm. “Through a number of
improvements, Brent has increased our corn production nearly
12 percent and soybean production by 10 percent, when you
compare premanagement averages to recent averages.”
These improvements include implementing good fertility,
drainage and soil conservation programs, and tapping into the
latest equipment, traits and crop protection technologies.
“A lot of people take soil tests every four years, but I’ve been
taking soil tests every two years and variably applying fertilizer,”

See more photos of Brent Bidner,
the 2012 Farm Manager of the Year.

PHOTOS: (BOTTOM RIGHT) AGPROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE/RICH KELLER; ALL OTHER PHOTOS: GIBBS & SOELL/AUDREY BECKETT

Syngenta Thrive - 2Q/2013

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