His career in agriculture began on the family farm riding on the back of his grandfather’s tractor during an era when implements were attached to the front of the tractor. While his grandfather cultivated, if a corn plant got covered up by the soil, it was his job to jump off the tractor and uncover the plant.

Today, he is FMC Corporation’s regional director for technical service, a decorated agriculturist with years of experience in academia and the industry and the 2018 recipient of the Norman Borlaug Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Dr. Ken Smith was awarded The Texas Plant Protection Association’s most prestigious award in December at its 30^th annual conference. And according to TPPA founder Dr. Ray Smith, the honor fits Ken Smith like a glove.

Smith is a longtime supporter of TPPA, according to Bob Whitson, emeritus professor, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. “He's a huge supporter of farmers. He wants to help agriculture be viable,” says Whitson who also serves on the nominating committee. “He's got a job with a company, but he’s still thinking, ‘How does this help the farmer? How are we going to take care of agriculture?’ His passion is agriculture and that drives us pretty hard and that's what Borlaug did.”

Norman Borlaug was an agronomist, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate who is known as the “Father of the Green Revolution,” “Agriculture’s Greatest Spokesperson,” and “The Man Who Saved a Billion Lives.” Borlaug completed his career as a member of the Texas A&M University staff, serving as a distinguished professor of international agriculture.

“Ken has been involved in the crop protection industry (FMC) for many years,” said Dr. Bob Sasser, TPPA executive director. “He has given presentations at the TPPA conference and at many other ag conferences. His university experience, as well as his contributions to Texas agriculture and to the conference, has earned him this award.”

Upon receiving the prestigious honor, Smith looked at crowd and said, “Wow. That’s the best thing I can say. It’s truly an honor.

“It’s an honor when you are associated with a name like Borlaug and when you are associated with all of the previous winners.”

The 2017 recipient was Farm Press Senior Editor Ron Smith.

“I've worked in the university, industry, and lived on the farm. So, what is impressed upon me about this is that all of us, whether we're in an industry, publication, or whatever we do, let's not lose sight of what Borlaug stood for,” said Smith. “He had a vision of feeding the world. We can do that in an American agriculture and we're all part of it. Sometimes as an industry, we seem to get caught up in quarterly sales or what's going on in the short term, but if we stop and think about what we've contributed as a whole to feeding the world and mankind — it's pretty amazing.”

Looking ahead

As Smith looks to the future of agriculture he said he’s excited. “It’s so mind-boggling. There is so much opportunity for us. We've made tremendous advances,” Smith said. “We saw all kinds of corn and cotton yield data from the 50s to where we are today, and it's just been phenomenal. I don't think we've scratched the surface.”

With concerns about the world’s growing population and questions about whether or not we’ll have the food supply to feed it, Smith says he has the answer. “Give the American farmer an opportunity. Give him an incentive. Every time we've given the American farmer an incentive, an opportunity to make a little bit of money, what do we do? We overproduce. We can do it. But my fear is that society will not realize that until things get really bad.

“I have all of the confidence in the world in our farmers, our industry, our university systems. I'm confident we can make this work.”

Also honored at the awards banquet were:

A poster contest was also held displaying current research. The following individuals placed:

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The top three winners of the annual Pest ID contest, hosted by Chairman Barron Rector, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, also were announced:

For more information about TPPA or to join the association, visit http://texasplantprotection.com/ .