(lively upbeat music) (transition whooshing) (lively upbeat music fades) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll meet Crookston, Minnesota artist Trey Everett.

But first, our guest, joining me now is Dr. Cheryl Wachenheim.

Professor of Agribusiness & Applied Economics at NDSU.

Dr. Wachenheim, thanks so much for joining us today.

- Thanks for having me.

- As we get started, we always do, tell the folks a little about yourself and your background maybe.

- So, thanks for asking.

So, I grew up in Central Minnesota and I went to school at University of Minnesota, particularly in animal science at the time, and I moved into agribusiness at Michigan State University, and I had the opportunity to come to the home region.

So I took the position at NDSU about 25 years ago.

And another thing that affects my life and how my outlook on how things are is, I'm a 25 year member of the Minnesota National Guard, so I've... - Well, thank you for your service.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Well, thank you.

Very interesting, something else we should talk about, but that's not what we're here to talk about today, here to talk about a new interdisciplinary program at NDSU.

Tell me about it.

- Okay, great.

Thanks.

So, we've added a specialization area to our traditional master's degree in agribusiness, and it's called agribusiness and data analytics.

And it, essentially, students learn about agribusiness and they learn about data analytics, and we'll talk about what that is, perhaps in the future.

But they also learn, they work with businesses and they'll have mentors within the department, and they specialize in things like economics and agribusiness, of course, data analytics, but also computer programming and data mining, and also communicating with, and sharing otherwise with businesses about what they found in that data and how it can help those firms succeed.

- So how did this new program or field come about?

I understand maybe there was a grant written.

- Right, so, the idea came from a joint group in computer science, statistics, business and agribusiness because there's an incredible growing need for people that can take this mass quantity of data that we have available to us and make it into a meaningful recommendation for our firms and our government partners and organizations.

And they actually suggested the idea that they needed help in that area, we need graduates in that area.

So we developed a grant and the United States Department of Agriculture funded that grant.

So our first cohort in the first few years, seven students will be funded through a fellowship program paid for by the United States Department of Agriculture.

- Hmm, okay, so how does agribusiness and economics merge?

You know, they're interesting to me.

- Okay, it's good.

So, in fact, most folks in agribusiness are actually what they call agricultural economists.

So, we have, within our department, we have both economics and agribusiness.

So, the difference is essentially we're looking in agribusiness, we're looking more particularly at problems and opportunities that face the agribusiness and agricultural sectors.

So it's a... - Okay, so, you mentioned this a little bit, what is big data analytics?

- Okay, that's a great question.

So I wanna start by saying it's a process.

And essentially, what I mean by that is we have what we call big data, right?

This massive quantity of data about everything in our lives available to us, right?

And we need to be able to understand that data.

The first step is just understanding the data, right?

And the second step is sort of understanding why things happen, why predictive things, correlations between data and sort of taking information from that dataset and analyzing it, so that it predictive, we can tell what's gonna happen in the future.

We can analyze risk and so on.

And we can take from that recommendations to firms, organizations, government, and so on.

And we can make specific recommendations that are data driven.

And if I can back up for a second, I just, one reason it's important that I'm in the Minnesota National Guard, I've spent a lot of time in other locations, right?

And I've always wondered why they make the decisions they make because they don't make intuitive sense to me, coming from the United States agriculture and I realized that we use heuristics all over the world.

So, for example, I go to the grocery store and my kids were home for spring break, so I was trying to stock up their refrigerator.

And even the bread aisle at Hornbacher's is incredibly, it takes up, you know, a lot of space, right?

So I'm looking at it and I'm trying to remember what kind of bread they like and so on.

And I just fall back on the idea, I'll buy what they were here last time, I'll buy that brand.

So, I'm not looking at price, I'm not looking at nutrition facts and all that information that's available to us, right?

So we fall back as a society just because there used to be almost no data, no information available to us, and now we're just overwhelmed with it.

So we often fall back on these heuristics.

We do what we did before or other things that make decisions easy.

And if you think about your life, there's a lot of things that, we have our banking accounts, we use our cell phone service.

Things we do that we just do because we've always done them.

And what this does, big data analysis is it, it stops and it says, "Okay, is what you're doing optimal?

Does it make sense?"

And they're able to take all this information that we can't possibly process as human beings.

And it's sort of sorting it out and it's looking at different options about if we make this decision, this is what will happen.

And what happens is the students will learn how to analyze the data, you know, they'll select the data, they'll learn how to analyze it, and then they'll get this predictive information.

But most importantly, they'll be able to translate it for people that are actually decision makers.

So, we're really excited about this concept of big data analytics because it helps us make better decisions and the machines are doing the work.

- Well, you sound like you're answering this next question, but really, how does, you know, what does this do for students in the agriculture programs?

- And that's an excellent idea or an excellent question because in agriculture has transformed a great deal and essentially there's so much data being collected in agriculture.

We know about drones, for example, for your audience, combines are what we use to harvest crops.

And most combines today, and it was introduced 25 years ago, have what they call a yield monitor.

So as the farmer drives the combine for harvesting through the field, it collects data on not just how the yield is over the field, but it collects data on how the yield is at different locations throughout the field.

So, that information is really important, 'cause farmers can put more fertilizer and other things where there's a higher yield and the farmer can address any kind of deficiencies where there's not a good yield, right?

So, essentially, we have that information and farmers have had those yield monitors and they can watch as they drive along how the yield changes throughout the field.

But they're not necessarily using that information to make decisions.

And as we have drones collect data about plant health, we have robots that are looking at where there's weeds and so on.

So, in agriculture, we have more data than in many fields.

But what we don't, there's so much data that we don't know how to apply for prescription, to be able to tell farmers and their supporting industries, this is what you should do going forward.

And in agribusiness, there's an overwhelming need for people that understand.

They understand what data's important, they understand how to analyze it.

And again, most importantly, they can explain it to the decision maker.

- You know, there's always challenges, but what are the big challenges in agriculture today, in your opinion, I guess?

'Cause maybe you need to qualify that.

- Okay, so, I would like to, the biggest challenge so to speak is that we have a limited amount of land, right?

- [John] Okay.

- So as we have a growing population, we need to do more with less.

Now, I wouldn't necessarily call 'em challenges.

I would actually call them opportunities because as we go along, some of the primary issues were, essentially, our mission is to take, grow what the world needs, right?

And be able to take what we grew and somehow logistically transport it to and distribute it to customers in the form that they desire.

So, big data analytics can help this a lot because it helps us from the consumer side, it helps us understand consumer preferences, what do they demand, it helps our logistical channels because this information can help predict yields.

In different parts of the country it tells 'em this is what's gonna grow and this is what's gonna be available here and therefore we can better plan logistics.

We can make alterations as things go along.

You have a bad year in a particular crop, you don't have the weather, you anticipate, you can sort of make changes on the fly.

So, agriculture has new challenges and opportunities and essentially as we've become bigger and more machine oriented, it's concentrated, right?

And that brings changes in the rural environment.

But essentially, this program is so awesome because you can take information, real time information and understand what's changing, what opportunities are showing themselves and use that to help drive the industry.

- Is this new program groundbreaking in your opinion?

- I would say it is, it's groundbreaking for a number of reasons.

One is that, there's not a lot of work in, specifically in agribusiness.

There's a lot of work in agribusiness and data analytics and a lot of companies are making great use of this.

But from the educational side, we don't have a lot of students that that can do all those things.

And I just wanna remind you, we have a lot of students that can analyze data, but the question is, we need students that can analyze the data and explain it to the decision makers.

And it's also groundbreaking, I think, so to speak, is that, for us at least, is that, we are assigning mentors, not just from our department, but each student will have mentors from all the industry, all the different departments that sort of support big data, statistics, business and computer science, so- - What kinda hands-on training might there be?

- Okay, that's great.

So, our graduate students were pretty rigorous, right?

So our graduate students receive training in statistics and we at NDSU in general, we use a lot of experiential learning.

So they learn by doing, so they learn the basics and then they try it out in the comfort and safety of the classroom, right?

So our master's programs are designed that way.

So if they're taking a class in statistics, they'll get data and they'll learn how to analyze it using programs that businesses are using today and interpret that.

So, one thing they'll do is, in their classes they'll receive this experiential learning.

And the cool part about this program is our partnership with industry, where they'll partner with an industry member, John Deere, Grand Farm, whatever it is, and identify an opportunity or a problem that industry partner is having or sees forward.

And they'll decide what data would be relevant to solving that problem, in order to generate information to come up with prescriptions, in other words, alternatives for that business partner to move forward.

So they're working on a real problem that someone cares about a lot, our industry partner and they're able to help move that forward.

So, that's practical knowledge.

- Okay, well, can you tell us some about the various majors and careers agriculture students can do and get out of studying at NDSU?

- Sure and that's a great question.

So, I mean, we have 17 majors in the College of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Natural Resources.

And so there's, we have animal science and plant science and so on.

We have many different opportunities for students if students are interested at all, and they should be, 'cause it's awesome in agribusiness, so are economics, right?

Within our department we have majors in agricultural economics, agribusiness and economics.

And they have many job opportunities in those fields.

- Talk some about maybe your research focus.

I got here, like, stakeholder assessments.

- Okay.

So, yeah.

And essentially, what I do, and I just love that I do this, is I try to figure out how people make decisions and I do that so that I can advise organizations, firms, the government and so on about how to change their product.

For example, a program, like a conservation reserve program that farmers enter into, how can they change that program, so that it's more attractive to farmers or how can a firm better package their meat product in order to that customers it would be more attractive to them.

So, I essentially, I work with different agencies and different firms.

Most of them are external to NDSU.

They're industry partners to try to understand how people in their field make the decisions that are important to them.

And then I advise those organizations as to what kind of changes they need to make and either how they go about business or what products they're offering.

- Okay.

You mentioned, I think, the meat, how important is food security in the world today?

- Okay, that's a awesome question.

So, I'll start by defining what I think food security means.

So, essentially, food security is providing the right products, products that are safe and nutritious to individuals at the right time.

And in my opinion, providing some kind of assurance that it's gonna go on long term.

So, what is food security?

And we used to look at food security from an individual country standpoint, but now we look at food security more generally.

So, essentially, we are trying to, and it's really important that we as economists and ag-economists and participants in agriculture, look at what's important there.

One is, of course, growing the right products, growing the products that people need, but importantly as well as moving those products to where they're needed, right?

So you need good storage, good transportation, logistics.

You need the infrastructure to take the product from North Dakota to the folks that need it, right?

And then finally it needs to be distributed to the individuals that need it.

And that's one of the challenges in the world today is making sure that the people, it's not necessarily we don't have enough food, it's making sure that food is food that is safe and nutritious for those individuals and make sure it gets in their hands.

- Is there more that we can do to achieve that security issue?

- Okay, that's a great question.

So, we have a lot of opportunities on the policy side, right?

And the program side, right?

And we essentially, if the system's not working, we need to figure out why.

And mostly we do that through policy, like, logistics, how do we help those products move and so on through the channel.

And all of this is very much facilitated by having information and that's where the big data stand comes from.

We know what's going on in the world, we just need to understand it and how to change it in order to ensure food security.

- Okay, well, with what all is going on, how about opening opportunities for women and underrepresented groups?

- Okay, that's a good question.

So, there's women and other underrepresented groups are lacking a little bit in the area, underrepresented in the area of STEM, with the science, technology, engineering and math.

And what we're trying to do, and this is ongoing, NDSU is good at this, but many firms as well are trying to increase opportunities for women to understand that they're good at this, right?

That this is something that might interest them and that they're skilled in, right?

And we do that in number of ways.

There's a number of initiatives for us, we're gonna use mentoring, right?

Most of the partners in this particular program are women, right?

To, show them that in fact this is something that women do.

And also at NDSU and throughout the world we have different programs that sort of encourage and provide the networking for women who are interested in this field.

So, my favorite is Girls who code, you know, let's get girls interested in that.

So there's a lot of initiative to help individuals who have traditionally not been in STEM fields move into them.

- Well, can you talk about some of the other professors, who will be involved in this and what departments they represent?

You mentioned some of it and I think you said you're gonna be a mentor also.

- Right, so, I'm excited.

In our department, we have a couple of female members as well as Sandro Steinbach, who is going to be the overall project director and sort of drive and make sure things work.

And he's really very experienced in project direction and within our team we have individuals who have mentored over 150 graduate students.

So they're good at this mentoring thing, right?

So, we have partners, Anne Denton and Simone Ludwig in the Department of Computer Science.

And they are not just experts in data mining and big data analysis, but at NDSU, but they're experts in their field overall.

So, and then we have an individual from statistics and I think he'll bring in Dr. Yuan and he'll bring in some other people in statistics because statistics is a big part of our doing the data analysis.

And we have a professor in the Department of Business, Dr. Tian and this group is not only well established in terms of mentoring grad students and experts in the field of data analysis, but they're excited about this and it's great interdisciplinary team.

- Now, how do you bridge academia with the practical world of day-to-day agriculture?

- Okay, that's a awesome question.

So the question is, are we relevant?

And in our department, we have advisory boards, not just for the department, but we have advisory boards for each of our five centers.

And essentially, what that means is we have people from government and business and organizations telling us what students need to know and what students need to be, so to speak.

So it advises us on our curriculum and it helps us become relevant.

And we've, if I could give a quick example, I teach ag finance, right?

So, I used to teach this concept called "The time value of money," which essentially means money's worth more now than it is in the future.

And it's an important concept in finance because it looks at how our money grows.

And I used to think it was really important for the students to understand the different formulas and the theory behind it and so on.

And I had a agribusiness partner in ag finance take me aside and say, "It's an important concept, but they really don't need to know that, it's more of a black box idea.

They need to know how to calculate things and they need to know how to interpret it."

So that has completely changed the way I do it.

They don't use formulas anymore, they use computers, Excel and financial calculators.

And so, we have partners that not only advise us, but they come into our classrooms, they work with our students and we are very, very thankful for our alumni and other industry partners and we use their information a lot to educate the students.

- Well, we are out of time, so we'll be interested to follow up and see how the program goes for the future, but if people want more information, where can they go, who can they contact?

- So, that's a great question.

So, they can reach us, our department.

Now just Google up ndsu.edu and search for agribusiness and we'll pop up.

So, I'd be delighted to talk to anybody about the program and we're looking forward to working with students in this.

We're really excited.

Thank you.

- Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us today.

- Yeah, sure.

- And best of luck to you.

- My pleasure.

- Yeah.

Stay tuned for more.

(lively upbeat music) Trey Everett is a versatile pen and ink artist from Crookston, Minnesota.

Trey specializes in the kind of tattoo style calligrams that are unique.

He also does large-scale murals that can be found in and around Crookston, and he infuses spirituality in everything he does.

(spirited upbeat music) - Sometimes I feel like I'm in a really good creative space and it doesn't take me very long to come up with something that I really like, and other times it's more of a challenge.

(spirited upbeat music continues) I am primarily a pen and inc artist, so it's just white paper with black pens and I do sort of tattoo style artwork, heavy line work, heavy outline around the image.

There's all kinds of different tattoo styles, but it's a kind of a style that is not photo realistic, but it's more of this image that kinda pops when you look at it.

So it's not your typical artwork most people would wanna hang on their living room wall or show grandma, no offense to grandma, it's more of this kind of edgy type of work.

(spirited upbeat music continues) I've always been interested in art and drawing.

I moved up here to Crookston and I was working with the Minnesota Institute of Contemplation and Healing, and a coworker of mine saw that I liked to draw and doodle during meetings (gentle music) and he said, "Well, why don't you do that more?"

(gentle music continues) And in a weird way, it just kind of exploded.

Before I knew it, I was drawing a lot and then people were asking me to do commissions and I created a little book and I was going to seminars and doing live drawing and that's kind of how it resurfaced.

(gentle music continues) I also like to do a lot of mural work, mostly in color, but some are black and white, but I love to do indoor, outdoor murals for businesses or organizations or schools.

(gentle music continues) Right now I'm working on a mural at the Care and Share, which is here in Crookston.

I'm working on a few different murals, but this one in particular is in the entryway (gentle music continues) and it's a mural designed to honor Sister Justina, who was the instigator of the Care and Share originally.

(gentle music continues) Figuring out what I'm gonna do for the rest of this mural.

I come up with a few different ideas and then I look 'em over and sleep on it.

I decided I'd create it, so that she has this stained glass look, like, she's a stained glass image.

(gentle music continues) The Highland Elementary School and I created a mural there.

(bright upbeat music) Last year I was the artist-in-residence, so it's this long 50 foot mural that is sort of a giant insect image.

(bright upbeat music continues) At The Grand Theater here in Crookston, I created this movie style series of murals, Batman and Gotham City, Yoda and "Star Wars," the Death Star, and then Scooby-Doo.

(bright upbeat music continues) The side of the Ace Hardware store in town, it's a huge mural I created about three years ago, and it's a series of six different hands, giant hands with different skin tones.

(bright upbeat music continues) Then there's another outdoor mural on the side of the building of the Crookston Community Theater building.

(bright upbeat music continues) In my artwork, often there are words within it, and I just find that really evocative and kinda brings out what I'm trying to say.

(gentle music) The theme is always trying to look at our inner lives.

That's always the theme.

So there's this outward image, but there's always this, what's happening below the surface.

And so it's very symbolic, (gentle music continues) a lot of metaphor, and I try to create images that evoke something, that people can look at and it kinda pulls them in or they think, "Oh, that's interesting."

(gentle music continues) Spirituality, the idea of compassion, of unity, (lively upbeat music) of there's something much greater than we often see or acknowledge.

That kind of informs my artwork.

(lively upbeat music continues) A colleague of mine, Teresa Blythe, who lives in Phoenix for the last few years, we've been collaborating and making these different cards, which are the size of tarot cards.

We're working on a series of mystics and saints.

We've done 20 of those, we're working on the next set of 10.

(lively upbeat music continues) You know, sometimes I just feel like, "Wow, I can't believe I'm able to do what I'm doing," and I'm excited that people love my work and the style and that's been a nice surprise for me.

(gentle music) I'm not that interested in people wanting to purchase my art, even though that's great.

I'm really more interested in (gentle music continues) this is what is calling me, this is what really interests me.

This is what is coming out of me.

And I feel like it connects with a lot of people and I want them to have that similar connection of unity and compassion and there's something powerful and good within all of us.

(lively upbeat music) (lively upbeat music fades) - Well, that's all we have on "Prairie Pulse" for this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music fades) - [Narrator] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008 (bright lively music) and by the members of Prairie Public.

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