Armburster Grain Silo and BASF
Friday, May 23, 2008
We began the day with a typical European breakfast (breads, meats, fruits, and juices) at our hotel in France, the Hotel Diana. After loading our luggage into the tour bus, we ventured off early at 8:00am.
Around 9:00am we arrived at our first stop, Armbruster Frères, a port silo in Strasbourg, France. Right along the Rhine River and the German border, this large grain elevator stores different commodities in extremely large quantities for shipment by barge up and down the river. We listened to a presentation about the different functions of Armbruster and then toured the facility. We began our tour by taking an elevator to the roof. As a large silo, it provided a great view of France, Germany, and the Rhine, and we took many pictures. Then we toured the rest of the facility, noting its extreme cleanliness—quite different from most American grain elevators. All of the different chutes and augurs were painted different bright colors to distinguish each type of grain that flows to each individual silo. Next, we walked out on a catwalk over an enormous bin in which several metric tons of grain are stored; at this point we were about 25 meters from the bottom, so that was quite exciting and scary for some.
Next, we went to the bus, collected our souvenir DeKalb seed caps, said goodbye to our French Monsanto tour-guide, Sylvain Pottier, and took a group picture. We boarded the bus and enjoyed the sandwiches, fruit, and cokes that had been prepared for us by the hotel.
After a couple of hours of talking, telling stories, and laughing on the bus, we arrived at our next destination: BASF in Limburgerhof, Germany. After having some delicious appetizers, we sat down to listen to three lectures about BASF. We learned more about the functions of BASF the chemical company, the different products they produce, and the struggles they are currently facing. One of the lecturers gave a particularly interesting explanation of exactly how GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) are created. After another big snack of the area’s famous rhubarb and strawberry desserts, we toured the greenhouses. We had very pleasant weather and saw everything from potatoes growing outside to soil maps to a greenhouse particularly designed to mimic the weather in the United States.
After leaving BASF, we went to Speyer, Germany, to tour around. An executive showed us around a famous Catholic cathedral (which was made of red and white sandstone hundreds of years old) and the tombs underneath housed important Kaisers dating back to the 1100s. We then went to an authentic German restaurant decorated in typical German fashion for another good meal. The waitresses in national costume served us chicken, salmon, or ham with regional white asparagus. Strawberries and a scoop of vanilla ice cream was served for dessert.
From there, we thanked our hosts at BASF (who had joined us for dinner) and boarded the bus for the hotel. After arriving at the hotel, we all got dressed and ready for our memorable last night out together. We took the bus to Heidelberg and had a very fun time.
Posted by Meredith Blumthal
