The Collegiate Farm Bureau at UW-Madison will host an informational discussion panel on genetically modified organisms, or GMOs on February 23.
Following the success of the Collegiate Farm Bureau’s ‘Antibiotics and Animals: What’s the Big Deal?’ panel last March, the group has again invited four research and industry experts to speak on a different hot topic in agriculture: GMOs. Kim Bremmer will moderate while Jeff Endelman, Daniel Moehn, Heidi Kaeppler and James Baerwolf speak and answer questions.
Kim Bremmer is a nationally recognized motivational agriculture speaker and the founder of Ag Inspirations. She grew up on a farm, graduated from UW-Madison and worked as a dairy nutritionist for 15 years prior to founding Ag Inspirations. Bremmer is the president of Wisconsin Women for Agriculture, an academy member of the National Speaker’s Association and serves on the Executive Advisory Council for the American Dairy Coalition.
Jeff Endelman is an assistant professor in the Horticulture Department and the principal investigator for the UW potato breeding program. Research in the Endelman group is focused on the development and application of molecular and statistical methods to improve breeding efficiency. Endelman teaches an undergraduate course on genetically modified crops (GMOs), as well as graduate courses on polyploids and quantitative genetics.
Daniel Moehn has invested 30 years working in agriculture. During his career, he spent six years as the senior vice president of agronomy at Landmark Cooperative Services, as well as 15 years with Monsanto and six years with Wyffels Hybrids. Moehn is employed by West Central. A 1986 graduate of UW-Madison’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Moehn brings a plethora of knowledge from working at the grower, retailer and distribution levels, as well as from his time on the Certified Crop Adviser Board in Wisconsin.
Heidi Kaeppler is an associate professor in the Department of Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin, as well as the faculty director of transformation and gene editing technology research at the Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center at UW. Her collaborative research focuses on genetic engineering-based study and improvement of crops for agronomic, nutritional and bioenergy-related traits. Kaeppler has a Ph.D. in plant breeding and genetics from the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis/St. Paul.
James Baerwolf is a third generation dairy farmer from Columbus. Baerwolf Dairies consists of two farms, one 500-cow traditional dairy and one 250-cow organic dairy. James and his brother Robert, along with their families, operate the dairies and Sassy Cow Creamery. The two dairies supply all of the milk that is processed at the creamery for bottled milk as well as ice cream. James is a graduate of UWMadison and began dairy farming immediately after college. His love for cows and his work is a family tradition that he continues to pass down to his children.
The Collegiate Farm Bureau at UW-Madison invites the public to join them on February 23 at 6:30 p.m. in UW-Madison’s Sewell Social Sciences 6104 for ‘Yes or No? GMO.’
For more information, please contact Kelly Wilfert at kwilfert@wisc.edu.
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