At the National Association of Corn Growers banquet at Commodity Classic Friday night Indiana farmer Mike Shuter received the organization’s Good Steward Recognition. Shuter is just the second recipient of the honor, one he proudly accepted after many years of stewarding the soils on his Frankton farm.
“We actually started no-till in corn back in ’83 and that was a PIK year when we didn’t have as many acres and we could mess with it and work with it, and try to get it to where it really worked right. But, back then we were seeing high fuel prices. We were seeing low commodity prices and it was just one way of helping keep some of the costs under control and actually doing a better job of farming the soil we work with and been given the stewardship of for our lifetime.”
As for the industry as a whole in adopting and implementing conservation practices, “We’ve got a long ways to go,” Shuter says. “There’s still the mentality that the more steel you can put in the ground the better off you are farming. We just don’t believe that anymore and we’re trying to help educate producers that there is a better way of maintaining the soil health. We’re actually improving organic matter in our soil two-tenths of a percent in the last 6 years. A lot of producers are not going that direction.”
For the past president of the Indiana Corn Marketing Council, it has been quite a year. Shuter was also honored with the Purdue ag alumni Certificate of Distinction in early February.
“Ya, it’s been quite a year for me! I went through quadruple bypass surgery the 23rd of December, so it has been quite a year in several different ways.”
See more with Shuter in the HAT video. Also Friday night Herb Ringel accepted the award as the Indiana Corn Growers Association was honored for the highest percentage annual growth for a state association. Ringel of Wabash is the president of the Indiana association.