Iowa Learning Farms Webinar Features Leopold Center Director

AMES, Iowa — The Iowa Learning Farms’ Wednesday, Feb. 20, webinar will feature Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture director Mark Rasmussen. The webinar, which begins at 11:30 a.m., is part of a free series, hosted by ILF, through Adobe Connect. The series is usually held on the third Wednesday of each month. All that is needed to participate is a computer with Internet access.

Rasmussen began work June 1, 2012, as director of the Leopold Center. His professional and scientific expertise extends to various areas of agriculture, microbiology, food safety, animal health, ruminant nutrition and antibiotic resistance. His appointment to LCSA followed a long and successful career as a research microbiologist at the National Animal Disease Center, the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service facility in Ames, Iowa; and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine in Laurel, Md. At the Center for Veterinary Medicine, he was supervisory microbiologist and research director. In that position he provided technical guidance and research support for regulatory decisions on drugs, feed additives and contaminants in animal feeds. At the USDA-ARS National Animal Disease Center, he managed food safety research including projects on E. coli, Salmonella, antibiotic resistance, plant toxins and gut microbiology/ecology. He holds two patents for optical scanning instrumentation that detects contamination on beef carcasses.

Rasmussen grew up on a farm in northeastern Nebraska. He has a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and a master’s degree in animal science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a Ph.D. in dairy science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a master’s of business administration from Iowa State University.

Rasmussen’s webinar presentation will provide some background on the Leopold Center, the Center’s view of some of the challenges facing agriculture and some areas of special interest as the Leopold Center moves past its 25th year anniversary.

To connect to the webinars, go to https://connect.extension.iastate.edu/ilf/. Rasmussen will be able to answer questions from webinar “attendees” via the Adobe Connect chat box. The ILF website contains links for archived webinars from previous months at http://www.extension.iastate.edu/ilf/Webinars/.

Iowa Learning Farms is a partnership of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa Natural Resources Conservation Service and Iowa Department of Natural Resources (USEPA section 319); in cooperation with Conservation Districts of Iowa, the Iowa Farm Bureau and the Iowa Water Center.

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