The Greenest Generation

Alltech President, Dr. Pearse Lyons, provided the final remarks here at this year’s Symposium.

He summed up the key concepts that were focused on at the Symposium like the greenest generation, re-defining the industry, new technologies, new business practices, having fun and being socially responsible, supporting young people and re-defining education. Then he left a take away message which was “To have a dream, to conspire with them, to let them make that dream come true.”

To add punch to the dream concept we had one final chance to hear from opera superstar Reginald Smith, Jr. from Decatur, GA.

You can hear Dr. Lyons’ concluding remarks and Reginald’s song here:

I want to thank Dr. Pearse Lyons and all the Alltech staff for allowing me to be your Symposium blogger.

Dr. Karl Dawson opened up the Symposium on Monday morning and he gave a concluding talk at the end of the Symposium. I think one of the key terms that stood out for me was “emission farming.” In his talk about the greenest generation and the future of animal production he covered 10 ways that animal agriculture can become greener.

One of those ways talked about carbon credits and farmers getting paid to help offset carbon emissions by practices they put into place on their farm. He had an example of a dairy farmer who captures methane and by doing so qualifies himself to get paid by the Chicago Climate Exchange.

You can hear Dr. Dawson describe this example here:

The other Dr. Lyons, Dr. Mark Lyons, presented a closing general session talk titled, “From Dream to Reality: Creating the Greenest Generation.” He said he had to do a lot of research to prepare his talk, which included not talking to his father, Dr. Pearse Lyons for 3 weeks, something that he said he’d never done before. But he wanted this talk to be completely his own and it was very well done.

He spoke a lot about his generation and what it can do to help accomplish the goal of being the greenest generation. A theme that ran through his talk was being connected, something that this generation is very good at. He also said that this generation needs to erase apathy and step up as leaders.

You can listen to Dr. Lyons conclude his remarks here:

Hear about the diverse range of educational opportunities provided at the Alltech Symposium directly from the speakers.

In this interview you can hear from Dr. Gerald Huntington, NC State University.

Providing an inspiring talk at the closing general session of the Symposium was John Y. Brown, Jr. His talk focused on Superbranding and of course it was all about Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

I always love to hear success stories and this is the first time I’ve heard the story of the Colonel. He said that Alltech has huge potential for the future as it continues to build its brand. However, I don’t think anyone suggests that Dr. Pearse Lyons grow a goatee and walk around in a white suit!

You can listen to Brown talk about Colonel Sanders here:

Hear about the diverse range of educational opportunities provided at the Alltech Symposium directly from the speakers.

In this interview you can hear from Alexandros Yiannikouris, Alltech.

Day two of the Alltech Symposium has ended and what an action packed day it was.

This is the fountain outside the Lexington Convention Center which is very pretty at night.

Tomorrow we’ll continue the discussions with topics like “Creating The Greenest Generation” and we’ll hear about superbranding and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’m looking forward to it.

Until then . . .

On Tuesday evening at the Alltech Symposium it was time for a series of topical discussion dinners. Labeled “Food For Thought” these were dinners in which a moderator facilitated a general discussion in the room on the topic.

I attended the one titled “Biofuels or Biobust?” The moderator was Dr. Mark Lyons seen here handing the microphone to one of the attendees. We got a variety of perspectives on biofuels in our session. Others included species related topics of interest to Symposium participants.

You can listen to this short sound bite to hear what our discussion sounded like:

Hear about the diverse range of educational opportunities provided at the Alltech Symposium directly from the speakers.

In this interview you can hear from Jean-Pierre Jouany, INRA, France.

Our former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns, is now running for Senate. He was one of our Greenest Generation Debate participants. I’m posting the first question he was asked by debate moderator, Aidan Connolly, Alltech V.P., which was if he thinks agriculture can be seen as the greenest generation.

Johanns answer was yes but he said it in more words than that:

The issue of biofuel production, a hot topic in modern agriculture, was also very much a part of the debate and Secretary Johanns kind of summed things up by saying, “Biofuels can be part of what I call an American Rural Renaissance.”