A No-Till Farmer Staff Report

Humble is the word that comes to mind when describing the newest class of No-Till Innovator Award recipients. Fueled by passion rather than fame, the two people and two organizations honored with the title of 2023 No-Till Innovator have spent decades forwarding the practice of no-till.

The No-Till Innovator Award program, sponsored by Calmer Corn Heads and No-Till Farmer, strives to honor farmers, researchers, businesses and service providers, and organizations for their contributions to the growth and success of no-till practices. New this year, we enlisted No-Till Farmer’s inaugural advisory board to help us evaluate nominees on their experience with no-till, advocacy and outreach efforts, innovations, community involvement and more.

After narrowing down the pool of nominees to a select group of finalists in each category, the judges determined the 2023 honorees are:

• Mike Starkey — Crop Production
• Jeff Moyer  — Educator
• H&R Agri-Power — Business & Service
• Conservation Technology Information Center — Organization

The most dedicated of readers may notice that Starkey is listed on our masthead — the list of names on p. 8 — as a member of the advisory board. Starkey recused himself from the running when he found out he had been nominated, but the other members of the board told him they wanted to fairly consider his nomination. When the time came to vote on the crop protection nominee, Starkey excused himself from the meeting — but not before telling the board that he thought there was…