The National Governors’ Association will be holding its first-ever Agricultural Summit today at the Scheman Building, beginning at 9 a.m.

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and North Dakota Gov. Edward T. Schafer are hosting the summit.

“This will be the first time governors and leading agricultural figures have gotten together to discuss the problems and opportunities in agriculture,” said Colin Scanes, dean of the College of Agriculture.

The summit will cover topics such as crop insurance, value-added agriculture and biotechnology.

“The summit is geared to provide long-term, long-range ideas to help the farm industry now and in the future,” said Madhu Chugh, press secretary for the Iowa Office of the Governor.

Many academic leaders in the field will make presentations at the summit, including Art Barnaby, professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University; John Miranowski, chairman of agricultural economics at Iowa State and Pat Schnable, professor of plant biotechnology at ISU.

“We’re very excited for the opportunity to share some of the ground-breaking research that is being done in the field of plant biotechnology with important government officials,” Schnable said.

“Whole new horizons in this field are enabling us to create plants that require fewer pesticides, thus making crop production much more eco-friendly,” he said.

Schnable said he also sees plants being used in new, unconventional ways in the future.

“There is an emerging field of bio-plastics that will allow us to make plastics without petroleum, which is another eco-friendly way that plants can be used,” he said.

Registration is at 8 a.m. in the Scheman Building. The summit costs $10.