Risk and Profit Conference will bring former US chief ag trade negotiator to Manhattan

Ambassador Richard T. Crowder, former U.S. agricultural trade negotiator and current Thornhill Professor of Agricultural Trade at Virginia Tech, will headline Kansas State University’s Risk and Profit Conference planned for Aug. 16 to 17.

Crowder will speak at the opening luncheon on Aug. 16. The conference will be at the K-State Alumni Center in Manhattan.

Crowder will address “Trade Policy Changes: Risks and Opportunities for Agriculture.” He also served as undersecretary of agriculture for farm and foreign agricultural services. Prior to his career in public service, he worked in private industry for such companies as Exxon, the Pillsbury Company and Armour Swift-Eckrich.

Another highlight of the conference will be “A Conversation with a Kansas Producer,” this year featuring Shawnee County corn, soybean and wheat producer Bob Haselwood at the Thursday evening general session.

K-State Research and Extension agricultural economists Dan O’Brien and Glynn Tonsor will present the grain market outlook and the livestock market outlook, respectively, during the conference, which also features 22 breakout sessions on a variety of topics. Those topics include updates on the Farm Bill; factors affecting net farm income; attitudes toward groundwater use in the Ogallala Aquifer; Kansas farm finance issues; principles of hedging livestock sales; and others.

Online registration is available at https://bit.ly/2KGB5O8. More information is available by contacting Rich Llewelyn at 785-532-1504 or [email protected].