(West Lafayette, IN) - A new leader of Agriculture Studies at Purdue University says they intend to make no major changes in the near future.
Michael Langemeier has taken over as Director of the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture at the West Lafayette campus. He replaced Jim Mintert, who officially retired on December 31. Langemeier was formerly the Associate Director of the center formed in 2011 to try and maintain and enhance the longstanding efforts of the university to help commercial scale farmers through its agriculture related research as a federally recognized land grant college.
“I think we got quite a bit of recognition in terms of what we’re currently doing. So, we’re going to try to continue to do a lot of the same things that we’ve been doing the last several years,” he said.
Mintert, 69, also stepped away from the university in his other capacities as professor and lead investigator for the monthly Purdue/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer, which provides updates on how farmers currently feel about future economic conditions in the industry.
He called the 10 years he spent as director of the center “the highlight of my career.”
Mintert was at Purdue University for 15 years after previously serving 23 years of agriculture related duties at Kansas State University, which is also a land grant college.
“Developing and conducting educational programs and applied research designed to address the needs of commercial agricultural producers has been immensely rewarding. I could not have chosen a better career path,” Mintert said.
Mintert said he and his wife, Susan, plan to continue living in West Lafayette while spending more time with their three granddaughters and traveling to places they have talked about going for a long time.
Langemeier, 63, has been second in command at the center for much of his 12 years at Purdue University. He and Mintert often crossed paths during their work in agriculture at Kansas State University where Langmeier was employed from 1990 to 2012.
“It’s kind of sad to see him retire but he’s had a long career and a very successful career. I wish him the best,” he said.
Langemeier said one of his priorities in the coming weeks is beginning the task of finding a new associate director of the center, a process he hopes is completed by summer. He’s looking for an individual capable of taking over as director when he retires maybe within the next five years or so.
“This next person we hire is someone who can step in and continue what me and Jim have been doing,” he said.
According to the university, the decision to create the center was made by faculty members along with leading members of the agribusiness and farming communities to primarily serve the educational and research needs of commercial scale farmers striving to generate a majority of their income from production agriculture.
Professor Brent Gloy, the founding director of the center, was soon joined by Langemeier as associate director. In 2014, Mintert replaced Gloy, who decided to return to his family’s farm in Nebraska.
At its inception, priorities for the center included a focus on helping producers improve their managerial skills with an emphasis on managing risk and making better use of data generated by today’s farm businesses. Ever since, the center has developed and offered a wide variety of programs concentrated on various aspects of farm management as well as supported applied research on topics of interest to commercial farmers.
According to university officials, the center today is the nation’s leading provider of farm management education and applied research. Langemeier said more researchers have recently been hired at the center but there are still openings he hopes to fill by training more graduate students to work in those capacities.
“There’s a need for people who know production agriculture to work in applied research. We’re trying to plug that hole,” he said.
