How does NCGA work with the U.S. Grains Council on a organization level?
We have a long history of working together. In fact, National Corn Growers is one of the founding members of the Council and I spent 18 years working for the Council. A lot of the same leaders come and go through each group. On a practical sense, we consider the Council our international trade partner. They are our sister organization that does international trade. They’re very good at it, that’s their expertise. We do the domestic side of things — lobbying, trade policy. We cooperate on biotech issues, sharing information, and joint communications. We have a really strong working relationship.
What does NCGA Hope to See on the Council’s Agenda?
We are interested, of course, in keeping our corn export numbers up, and also in expanding exports of other value-added products. The Council has done a great job of promoting the export of U.S. distiller’s grains. The real growth market for NCGA members is ethanol and biofuels use. One-third of the corn that goes into the ethanol plant comes out as distiller’s grains. While we can use a lot of it here in the United States, there is enough that we need to have a home for it internationally. We’re interested to see the things the Council is doing to continue to expand that market. It’s an area we cooperate closely. We share technical information with them on how it’s used in feed rations and they’re able to get that information to people overseas. They bring the buyers here to the United States so they get to see how people are using it here.
Well, there’s just a whole list of challenges and opportunities. Two weeks ago the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) announced the final rules on the Renewable Fuel Standard II and how they were going to implement that. There were some welcome new changes where they clarified things, made some improvements in their preliminary plan. There are some nuggets we’re going to pull out of that and be able to move forward. It gives hope and optimism to the ethanol industry for growth. But one of the biggest things that came out of that, which is still a huge challenge, is they are still giving a very significant penalty to the ethanol industry for indirect land use change. That is like tying an anvil around the ankle of the industry and trying to move forward to compete. It’s one issue that we have to continue to try and work for with EPA and perhaps the legislative channel to get that changed. It is an unfair, unreasonable ruling that EPA has put on the industry. And it’s exclusive to ethanol. It’s not being applied to oil, the electricity industry or anything else. That’s probably our biggest challenge that we’re working on with the ethanol industry.
What is the hot topic item for NCGA right now?
One of the things we’re really excited about is that we’re engaged in a very active and aggressive image and activism campaign. I’m sure many are aware of the negative things that come out about agriculture and the misinformation. We’re working with the United Soybean Board and several other groups to try and put the right facts and information out there. We’re working with good folks in the media and others to do that, but one of our greatest tools is the individual farmers. We want an aggressive, active army of farmers who are shedding the light on the facts and misinformation. When things get in the news that just aren’t right, not only with corn, but all of agriculture, we all need to set the record straight. We’re doing some training, we’re trying to get tools out there to farmers so they can have the facts, figures and information.
For more information about this campaign, check out www.ncga.com.