(DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.) - William R. “Bill” Cotton, a Hastings-area farmer and the late Herbert H. Bryan, a researcher with the University of Florida/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead, received Florida Farm Bureau Federation’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service to Agriculture Award, Oct. 23 at the organization’s 62nd Annual Meeting at Daytona Beach.
“These two men have made life-long contributions to the agricultural industry in their respective communities,” said FFBF President Carl Loop Jr., who presented the awards during a Thursday evening awards banquet at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. “They join dozens of other prominent agriculturists Farm Bureau has honored over the years.”
Cotton, 77, has served as executive director of the North Florida Growers Exchange since 1993 and has been active in the organization since its inception. The Exchange is a cooperative made up mainly of potato and cabbage growers in Flagler, Putnam and St. Johns counties. He became a director of the Putnam-St. Johns Farm Bureau during the 1950s and served for six years on the Florida Farm Bureau state board of directors. He graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture in 1949 and earned a master of science in agriculture degree from UF in 1950. Since then he has been involved in the production of potatoes, citrus and other agricultural products in the tri-county area.
Bryan contributed greatly to the modernization of vegetable crop production. He pioneered the use of plastic mulch and drip irrigation on raised beds and developed methods of increasing the uniformity of seed germination, use of plant growth regulators and new methods of seeding, transplanting and harvesting. He also contributed to the development of soil fumigants and was an important member of the team that developed high-yielding varieties of tomatoes with resistance to verticillium wilt, fusarium wilt and gray leafspot disease.
During his last decade, Bryan developed an odor-free simplified system for composting cafeteria waste and yard trimmings into a material that improves the gravelly loam soil characteristic to much of Miami-Dade County. He earned a bachelor of science degree in agriculture from the University of Florida and a masters of science and doctor of philosophy degrees from Cornell University. The agriculture community suffered a great loss when Bryan died in a car accident on April 11, 2003.
The Florida Farm Bureau Federation is the state's largest general-interest agricultural association with more than 151,000 member-families statewide. There are Farm Bureaus in 65 counties in Florida, where agriculture comprises a stable, vital leg of Florida's economy, rivaling the tourism industry in economic importance. Headquartered in Gainesville, the Federation is an independent, non-profit agricultural organization and is not associated with any arm of the government. More information is available on the organization’s Web site, http://FloridaFarmBureau.org.
Florida Farm Bureau Federation