FROM THE SCIENTIFIC FIELD

The new president of the University of Florida has experienced corn rash, led an agriculture subcommittee of the U.S. Senate, and sent a daughter to a ranch to spend a month caring for cattle and driving a tractor.

So though I am not surprised that Dr. Ben Sasse is interested in agriculture, I saw it as a good sign that he accepted my invitation to visit Hillsborough County and Southwest Florida to learn about how UF supports Florida farming and how he can, too.

We got a preview of Sasse’s vision when he chose the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences for his very first UF commencement address. He told the graduates: “Our world needs a Silicon Valley of agriculture, and we want to make sure that that’s in Florida, built by you….”

I showed him where we at UF/IFAS are building it, at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Balm. We talked about our plan to build a Center for Applied AI in Agriculture. The visit to Hillsborough County confirmed his view that in agriculture, Florida is the future.

The future is now. New faculty members Dana Choi and Kevin Wang, hired for their expertise in artificial intelligence, demonstrated how they’re applying technology in ways that save growers labor, money and environmental impact. Nathan Boyd showed him a smart sprayer that applies chemicals only to weeds, not to the crop, and how he is helping drive an ethic among faculty that goes beyond innovation to commercialization—getting tech tools into growers’ hands.

We were also able to show Sasse that scientists, elected leaders and producers are allied in this quest to keep Florida farmers in business with innovation that gives them an edge in a competitive global market.

Sasse was accompanied by longtime Hillsborough County ag leader Kenneth Parker, who knows GCREC and its faculty so well that he was a de facto tour guide.

And a who’s who of Florida agriculture leadership converged on GCREC on that Saturday to show that even with 300 commodities, the Florida agriculture community speaks with remarkable coherence and consistency. Florida Farm Bureau

President Jeb Smith, Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association

President Mike Joyner, and Florida Cattlemen’s Association

Executive Vice President Jim Handley were among those from whom Sasse heard.

The Hillsborough visit also gave Sasse a chance to spend time with an elected leader who is also a producer and is delivering some of the resources we need to provide the science that underpins the state’s second-largest industry. Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson was with Sasse at GCREC and at a cattle ranch in Manatee County on a two-day tour that also included a visit to research fields in Immokalee.

Sasse has the mind and the heart for agriculture that I believe bodes well for Florida farmers.

For the past 10 years, Sasse has been a policy leader in the U.S. Senate, placing agriculture at the center of our national interests. He sees agriculture as a way to protect our sovereignty by growing our own food while also advancing our global interests through what he has called agricultural diplomacy.

He can connect with farmers as well as policy wonks. He doesn’t pretend to be a farmer, but he can talk about his first job as a 7-year-old “walking beans” (Nebraskans’ way of saying weeding a field) and later “graduating” to detasseling corn (and getting corn rash).

It’s not just nostalgia. The future hit close to home on this trip. Sasse brought his 12-year-old son Breck, who injected a citrus trunk, picked tomatoes and worked the controls of a robot. We have a president who thinks about tomorrow—and how we’ll feed people when it comes.