Fargo, North Dakota, USA
July 30, 2014
Mark Fowler has joined the Northern Crops Institute (NCI) team as a Milling Consultant. Fowler will direct efforts to improve operating performance and efficiencies in NCI’s Flour Mill, train NCI staff in the mill’s basic operations, teach educational programs related to flour milling, and build partnerships with private industry who want to utilize NCI’s facilities.
Fowler will continue his duties as Associate Director of the International Grains Program (IGP) Institute at Kansas State University.
“I am extremely pleased that Mark Fowler has agreed to serve in an advisory capacity to manage our flour mill,” says NCI Director Mark Weber. “He has over 20 years of experience in the milling industry. He is well respected in the milling industry and has taught flour milling courses at IGP Institute for many years,” he concludes.
Fowler was the lead instructor for the IGP-NCI Durum Milling course held this spring at the NCI. That successful effort led to the formation of this exciting new partnership between the NCI and IGP Institute.
Fowler comments, “I am looking forward to working with the NCI team. I place a high value on partnership and collaborations when two organizations such as the IGP Institute and Northern Crops Institute can advance our mission by working together to serve U.S. wheat farmers. I bring both international and domestic milling experience to the NCI classroom and experimental milling program. The milling capacity of NCI’s pilot mill is complimentary to that of the Hal Ross flour mill at Kansas State,” says Fowler.
In 2009, NCI’s pilot durum mill was converted into a dual-purpose or “swing mill” to give the region the capability to mill pilot-scale or test-scale quantities of bread wheats (Hard Red Spring, Hard Red Winter and Hard White) into flour for quality and test baking/processing evaluations. The mill retains the capability to mill durum wheat into high quality semolina.
Northern Crops Institute (NCI) supports regional agriculture and value-added processing by conducting educational and technical programs that expand and maintain domestic and international markets for northern-grown crops. NCI is funded by the states of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota and commodity groups in those states and Montana.
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