National recognition for local UW Extension agent

Mike Hogan, NACAA president and Ohio State Extension agent, presents the 2015 Distinguished Service Award to Waupaca County Extension Ag Agent Greg Blonde at the NACAA annual conference July 15 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Greg Blonde recently received the 2015 Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of County Agriculture Agents.

The award is given to agents who have more than 10 years of service in Cooperative Extension and have exhibited excellence in the field of Extension education.

Presented during its annual conference held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the association give the award to 2 percent of the County Extension Educators in Wisconsin each year.

Blonde has been Waupaca County agriculture agent since 1984. His work focuses on dairy, forages and farm management.

Blonde was recognized for his efforts in developing a conservation easement donation program to help protect local farmland from development and his work on a statewide conference highlighting modern farm animal wellbeing practices.

Other recent highlights in Blonde’s work include dairy price risk management, foliar fungicide research on forage crops, fact sheets for pricing standing hay and corn silage, as well as a new smart-phone app developed last fall for pricing high moisture corn.