SUBMITTED PHOTO - IVCCD Ellsworth Community College students look at some calves during an agriculture trip to Germany and Czechia in November. The students went to attend Agri Technica, a large annual ag machinery fair.

During their regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, the Iowa Valley Community College District Board of Directors learned about a trip taken by 18 agriculture students from Ellsworth Community College (ECC).

The report was part of the Strategic Presentation series of the meetings. Introduced by Marshalltown Community College Provost Barb Klein, she said students traveled to Germany and Czechia (formerly the Czech Republic) for 10 days in November.

“There were rave reviews from those students when they came back,” she said.

ECC Dean of Academic Affairs Honoria Balogh said the trip, which included four staff members, was used primarily to enrich the students’ academic experience, as well as to expose them to other cultures and gain global perspectives. Before they left, several mandatory meetings were held in which all aspects of the trip were discussed.

“We had a lot of students studying farm management, precision ag, a couple of equine students, so every student who came with us was associated with the ag program in one way or another,” she said.

Ag Student Support Specialist Wanda Koehrsen shared various trip experiences, such as the cancellation of a train 10 minutes before they were supposed to board as they were standing on the platform.

“We were lucky enough to reroute the train, had to make two trips, both of which were 10 minutes,” she said.

Koehrsen said learning how to read the train monitors came in handy during their time in Berlin.

Ag instructor Eric Weuve said the trip was taken in November because of Agri Technica in Hanover, an annual trade fair for agriculture machinery.

“Agri Technica has over 2,800 vendors, 28 buildings of equipment from all over the world,” he said. “In Iowa, we’re pretty good at growing corn, soybeans, alfalfa, swine cattle and chickens. That’s really the realm of agriculture we know, but this show had everything from [ordering] a brand-new horse-drawn plow, which is still used in parts of the world to the newest John Deere combine.”

If there is a specific duty attached to agriculture, there was an area in the fair dedicated to it. Weuve said the fair is where New Holland unveiled a new combine, which will be available for purchase next year. Another notable machine he told the board about that captured students’ attention is a “weird concept” which is a “one-in-all planter, combine, you name it, it converts in 20 minutes.”

“Students really got exposed to the vast diversity of props and machinery involved in that production worldwide,” Weuve said. “Like I said, everything from horse-drawn equipment up through the latest and greatest machine.”

Agriculture instructor Kevin Butt said they were previously working with German instructors in Dresden before the COVID-19 pandemic. The trip allowed them to reopen that communication, and Butt and Weuve were able to make some presentations about Iowa agriculture.

Weuve said some agriculture people from Germany want to return to Iowa, after previously making a trip to ECC in 2018.

“There’s some future opportunities we have going forward,” he said.

In other business, the board:

Heard from MCC Provost Robin Lilienthal about two Marshalltown Community College Mario Kart teams playing against each other to claim the championship title.

Learned MCC doubled the amount of money and increased donated time by 82 percent to the Marshalltown Area United Way in one year.

Heard from Business Outreach Coordinator Neysa Hartzler about job training agreements with Green Products in Conrad and Manatt’s in Brooklyn.

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.