Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, left, with NCDA&CS employees who completed the 2015 N.C. State Tobacco Short Course, from second left: John Shotwell, Robert Overton, R.T. Elliott and Mike Wilder. At right is Matt Vann, N.C. State University tobacco extension specialist. Not pictured is Jonathan Barbour.
Five NCDA&CS employees participated in the 2015 N.C. State Tobacco Short Course in Raleigh. The educational program is aimed at helping participants better understand all facets of tobacco production and marketing.
The department’s participants were Mike Wilder, a regional agronomist with the Agronomic Services Division; Jonathan Barbour, field crops supervisor at the Central Crops Research Station; and Oxford Tobacco Research Station technicians R.T. Elliott, Robert Overton and John Shotwell.
The 38 course participants took part in two days of classroom studies on everything from greenhouse production of seedling plants to curing leaf ready for market. Instructors included N.C. State extension specialists in agricultural economics, agronomy, biological and agricultural engineering, crop science, entomology and plant pathology.
The group also spent a day touring several tobacco-related companies or organizations in Eastern North Carolina.
“Since the tobacco industry faces continuous change, we need to make sure our younger farmers, their advisers and other allied industry representatives are able to focus on how to attain efficient quality tobacco production,” says Dr. Bill Collins, retired director of N.C. State tobacco extension programs and co-director of the course.
The 2015 N.C. State Tobacco Short Course was conducted by the North Carolina Tobacco Foundation in partnership with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University. It was funded with a grant from the N.C. Tobacco Research Commission.
–Information and photo courtesy of Jim Haskins, Agribusiness Communications Group