Middlef ieldPOST Volume 9 ~ Issue 2
August 6, 2014
www.middlefieldpost.com
Neighborly News from Middlefield, Parkman, Huntsburg and Surrounding Communities
Inside ...
A Bright Future for Agriculture By Kim Breyley
Middlefield Village Page 4-5
Cardinal Schools Page 6
Plain Pages Pages 8 - 9
John Kempf, CEO of Advancing Eco Agriculture
things that other consultants have missed.” Word spread and the demand for his service grew rapidly. By 2009, he was consulting with more than 400 farms and training five field personnel to share the consulting workload. “We operate on the premise that plants have a functional immune system the same as people do. Some people’s immune system works better than others’ because of how well that system has been supported with good nutrition throughout their entire lifetime. We apply this same concept to plants,” said Kempf. “Plant immunity is not well understood, believed or accepted throughout agriculture because it’s been easier to apply a bandage, such as a chemical to just get rid of the pest.” He maintains that the knowledge of high-level, healthy plant growth is not taught in universities, to agronomists or farmers because there is not easy access to the information. “It was out there,” he added, “but it was scattered all over in many different research journals and books.” Kempf has compiled the information into an integrated system that works. Today, AEA is owned and chaired by New York resident, Philippe van den Bossche, an entrepreneur and investor who has dedicated his career to the issue of global food security. He acquired the company in January 2013. John Kempf is CEO, and AEA currently services more than 2,000 farms in the United States, Canada Continued on Page 2
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Middlefield Summer Fest Highlights Pages 14 -15
In 2006, John Kempf, a local Amish farmer, founded Advancing Eco Agriculture, a consulting firm offering ecologically sound, comprehensive, plant-growth methodology to farmers. Years before, when Kempf finished the eighth grade in a local Amish school, his father assigned him the plant nutrition and pesticide application responsibility on the family farm. “Year after year, I watched our crops being destroyed by diseases and insects, in spite of increasing pesticide applications,” Kempf said. “Then one year a melon crop had no disease damage. Two feet away were the same melon plants, which had heavy disease pressure and there was a differentiating line extending all the way down the field. I wanted to find the difference between those two groups of plants.” He began to question the established practices and initiated dialog with worldwide experts, researching and reading all available applicable literature. He sought out alternative approaches to prevent damage to his crops when they stopped responding to conventional pesticide treatments. To enhance plants’ natural immunity and make them less susceptible to pests and disease, he developed a comprehensive, systemsbased methodology founded on plant physiology, mineral nutrition and soil microbiology. “I am blessed with intellectual gifts. I can pull together information and see very quickly and clearly where all the pieces fit,” said Kempf. “I was able to walk into a farm and get results because I can see
(l-r) Roy Roediger, Tad Roediger, Rich Roediger, Tony Lignetta
2013 Winning Team
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