ARDEN HILLS, MINN. (Dec. 13, 2021) – Land O’Lakes, Inc. is proud to announce its 2022 Emerging Leaders as part of the Fortune 200 cooperative’s efforts to invest in the leaders of tomorrow to identify innovative and practical ways to help revolutionize the agriculture industry.
The six leaders, college sophomores from five partner universities, were selected from a competitive field of candidates for the eighth class of the Global Food Challenge Emerging Leaders for Food Security® Program. They will be paired with mentors from Land O’Lakes, Inc. to solve issues across intersections of agriculture, food and technology. The Emerging Leaders come from both rural and urban backgrounds and are pursuing degrees in fields like animal science, agriculture education and biological engineering.
Land O’Lakes, Inc., a farmer-owned cooperative, created the Global Food Challenge program in 2014 to engage future leaders in the challenges and opportunities facing agriculture in the future. The program has immersed 53 students in the company’s farm-to-fork operations.
"The Global Food Challenge is about connecting the brightest young minds to the agriculture industry. We need the next generation to continue bridging the urban and rural divide," says Morgan Kinross-Wright, VP Community Relations & executive director of the Land O’Lakes Foundation. "We’re involving these ambitious students in one-of-a-kind opportunities that will serve them for the rest of their professional careers.”
Over the course of the summer of 2022, the six Global Food Challenge Emerging Leaders will be engaged with Land O’Lakes mentors to consult on projects with one of four business units: Purina Animal Nutrition, WinField United, Dairy Foods and Truterra. And if travel is an option, students will also travel to key locations including member cooperative and farm locations and, if possible, students may also travel to cooperatives abroad. Past intern classes have visited international business Villa Crop Protection in South Africa and Land O’Lakes Venture37 projects in East Africa.
For the program’s eighth year, the 2022 Emerging Leaders for Food Security are:
Dev Patel
Purdue University
Biological Engineering with BioEnvironmental concentration
Elizabeth "Libby" Putnam
University of Florida- Gainesville
Agricultural Education & Communication and Family, Youth, & Community Sciences, with minors in Leadership, International Humanitarian Assistance and Development
Kamelah Ribeiro
Virginia State University
Agribusiness and Economics
Leah Marek
Iowa State University
Global Resource Systems and Biology
Michael Heraty
Purdue University
Biological Engineering, with minor in Biotechnology
Paige Peiffer
Penn State
Animal Science
Learn more about the Global Food Challenge and join the conversation at https://www.landolakesinc.com/globalfoodchallenge