Agricultural Business Council Recognizes Dillingham Awardees
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(Left) Dustin Johansen, Julie Hurst, Blake Hurst; (Right) Dustin Johansen, Dr. Marty Vanier, Dr. Stephen Higgs
The Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City honored two stalwarts involved in regional and national agriculture with its Jay B. Dillingham Award for Agricultural Leadership and Excellence on May 18 at Union Station in Kansas City. It was the 13th Annual ceremony. Receiving the Council’s highest recognition were Marty Vanier, DVM, director of the National Agricultural Biosecurity Center (NABC) at Kansas State University, and Blake Hurst, a Missouri corn and soybean farmer who served as Missouri Farm Bureau president for ten years.
Event Master of Ceremonies and Council Chairman Dustin Johansen, senior vice president in the Livestock Division of Farm Journal, described the honorees as two of the region’s leading champions for agriculture in separate but very key areas in our region. “These individuals have had a positive and lasting effect on our community,” he said. “They are strong examples of what a leader can accomplish.”
Dr. Vanier is the director of the National Agricultural Biosecurity Center at Kansas State University. Her career span includes stints with the Animal Health Institute in Washington, D.C.; USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service; K-State’s Department of Animal Sciences and Industry; Kansas Agricultural Alliance; and has been involved in veterinary pharmaceutical and food safety initiatives and oversight.
In 2003, Dr. Vanier joined NABC, then moved to NBAF’s Program Executive Office as director of Strategic Partnership Development. In 2019 she returned to NABC as its director. Prior to be her being honored at the Dillingham Award luncheon, last week, Dr. Vanier remarked that she was very surprised that the Council had selected her. “It is a tremendous honor for me,” she said, “especially after seeing the list of past honorees.”
In her acceptance remarks, Dr. Vanier noted that NABC is an integral part of the Midwest’s expanding animal health corridor. NABC contributes to and accesses a vast network of interdisciplinary research and resources in areas such as animal diseases, foodborne pathogens, plant infectious agents, emergency management, and environmental systems changes impacting agriculture, food and One Health.
In his career as a farmer along with his involvement in regional and national agriculture affairs and legislation, Blake Hurst has become a well-known personality. His perspectives and opinions about agriculture have appeared in national media, in particular in the Op-Ed section of the Wall Street Journal. In his service to the ag industry as president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, a board member of AFBF, he spearheaded the passage of initiatives such as 2014 Missouri Amendment 1, The Missouri Farming Rights Amendment; 2019 SB 391, Standardizing The Regulation of CAFOs; 2020 Missouri Amendment 3, Cleaner Missouri.
Hurst considers the major focus of his career to have been the defense of technology and trade as not only necessary for farmers but beneficial to everyone else as well. Farmers’ income depend upon both trade and the ability to apply science to the production of food and fiber, but so do the diets of billions of people. “Without modern technology, we farmers can’t feed the world,” Hurst said. He is also proud of the role Missouri farmers played in passing NAFTA and helping consumers better understand and accept GMOs.
On hand for awards ceremony, which was sponsored by John Deere, were several past recipients of the Jay B. Dillingham Award for Agricultural Leadership and Excellence.
Gina Bowman, founder of the Agricultural Business Council
Harry Cleberg, retired president of Farmland Industries
Bill Jackson, AGRIServices of Brunswick-retired
Glen Klippenstein, Klippenstein Family Farm
Dee Likes, retired CEO of the Kansas Livestock Association
Ken McCauley, K & M Farms and past president, National Corn Growers Association
Diane Olson, retired director of education at the Missouri Farm Bureau
Dr. Ralph Richardson, retired CEO of the Kansas State-Olathe Campus
Tom Waters, chairman of the Missouri Levee and Drainage District Association and Chairman of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission
Additionally, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Mike Beam attended the event. Dr. Stephen Higgs, director of K-State’s Biosecurity Research Institute, introduced Dr. Vanier. Julie Hurst introduced her husband Blake.
As has become customary at this awards gathering, John Dillingham, the son of the elder Jay B. Dillingham, provided remarks on behalf of the family. The younger Dillingham offered a dramatic perspective on the impact Kansas and Missouri agriculture has had globally: “Every single person on the face of the earth is a potential client of the farmers, livestock producers, processors, transporters et al in our region.”