Mark Fowler has joined the Northern Crops Institute, known as NCI, as a milling consultant. He will direct efforts to improve operating performance and efficiencies in the institute’s flour mill, train staff in the mill’s basic operations, teach educational programs related to milling and build partnerships with private industry who want to utilize institute facilities.
Fowler will continue his duties as associate director of the International Grains Program 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,” said institute 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 for many years.”
Fowler was the lead instructor for the IGP-NCI durum milling course held this spring at the NDSU campus. That successful effort led to the formation of the new partnership between NCI and the IGP Institute.
“I am looking forward to working with the NCI team,” Fowler said. “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 classroom and experimental milling program.”
In 2009, the institute’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, such as Hard Red Spring, Hard Red Winter and Hard White, into flour for quality and test baking or processing evaluations. The mill retains the capability to mill durum wheat into high quality semolina.
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. The institute is funded by the states of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota and commodity groups in those states and Montana.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.