By Eric Jenks, Special to NEAFA
For October, NEAFA spoke with Kevin Putnam, a Northeast Dairy Specialist for Pioneer and a member of NEAFA’s Board of Directors. “I cover Delaware to Maine,” said Putnam. “I do a lot of training for sales representatives; I work with them on larger accounts for best management practices and on the farm training. I have a dairy nutrition and forage background, where I worked a lot with corn, soybeans, wheat, and inoculants for 18 years. I didn’t grow up on a farm, but my father was in agribusiness his entire career, which sparked my interest. I went to Cornell University for Animal Science. I like agriculture, I like being outside and working with animals, and it all meshed together for me during my time there.”
Putnam worked as a dairy nutritionist for four years before joining Pioneer to focus on forage. “Pioneer is the largest seed company in the world,” said Putnam. “2026 will be our 100th year in business. They’re based out of Johnston, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines. Working in the Northeast, I’m based out of Lansing, NY. I like the ability to concentrate on the forage side for Pioneer. Forage doesn’t get as much attention as it should, and the people that we have working in the industry are great. The resources that Pioneer has available for forage means that we’re doing more work than anyone else can in the field. We have an immense amount of information that we can share with our customers and their nutritionists for best management practices and which products will get the job done efficiently. I truly love every minute of what I do.
Putnam’s term on NEAFA’s Board of Directors expires in 2027. “NEAFA asked if I would be interested in joining the board, and to be honest I hadn’t done that for any organizations or groups like this before,” said Putnam. “The first step in effective lobbying is to know what your members need, which means that my background in seeds, agronomy, and crop space is an asset. I’ve been on the board for over a year, and it has been a good opportunity to learn how groups like NEAFA work, and how they pick the topics to fight for in the industry. I’ve been really intrigued at the things that NEAFA is getting done. The passion for agriculture and agribusiness in the group is awesome, and the things that we’re tackling for the industry is motivating to me. There’s a lot involved in the process of getting things in front of our government representatives, and I’m glad to have a roll in that with NEAFA. Specific for my work with Pioneer, there are a lot of regulations for crops. Whether you’re talking about new products, watershed regulation, etc. We want to be able to use the latest and safest technologies that we can. We’re looking forward to future products and technology, and having a group like NEAFA to help get legislation passed and products regulated in a responsible and timely manner is wonderful. There’s a lot of products in the Northeast that we can and can’t use because of regulations. These technologies are only going to get more in-depth and better as time goes by, and I see NEAFA as a positive force to make sure we can utilize those technologies in the Northeast as they come available.”
For more information on Pioneer and their forage division, visit: https://www.pioneer.com/us/products/forages/dairy.html