Written by: Alex Broderius, U of M Student
Last summer, I had the pleasure of interning at Seneca Foods Corporation as a Field Representative Intern. Although the company’s main office is in Glencoe, I could leave from home every day and head to my area of work, which was Olivia, and westward. My duties included sampling and staking corn and pea fields in the mornings to monitor the timeframe leading to harvest. I would also perform node counts on peas and stand counts on sweet corn for Seneca’s records of each variety. The most important of my duties was preparing fields for harvest. To do this, I contacted farmers to let them know the harvest crew was coming, the fuel supplier to ensure the harvesters were full for their 24-hour shift, and mark approaches to the field that would be used by trucks. These tasks provided many chances to learn. The stand and node counts taught me more about the agronomy behind the crops’ rate of growth. Staking and sampling helped me understand how the lay of the land, soil type, and drainage practices determined how well fields would mature and yield. Interacting with employees from all sectors of Seneca Foods helped me adapt my communication style to their needs. For example, I would communicate in a more leisurely way to farmers in the field, but would converse more directly when describing fields to colleagues in the office who hadn’t seen the field. Harvesting problems relied on efficient communication, which I developed from handling many difficulties with multiple individuals. I truly believe that everything I learned will be very relevant in class and future careers. My internship included many highlights from the field. Getting to observe harvest every day for the second half of my internship always brought something new and interesting. Sometimes the operators would even let me ride along in the pickers and see the struggles of flooding in the field firsthand. On slower days, I would spend time around the fields during harvest and talk to other field representatives that have been with the company 20+ years. They always had interesting stories, and shared the overall history of Seneca Foods. The most memorable highlight was my tour of the plant! I saw the field side of things all summer, but never got to see how the produce was canned until the end of my internship. I had access to something that most of Seneca’s growers had never seen. This topped off a great summer at Seneca Foods Corporation.
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January 2020
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