A new group launches a campaign to promote corn to Washington policymakers
Mar 11, 2009 10:08 AM
When corn prices spiked last year, big food manufacturers and oil companies claimed there wasn’t enough corn to feed everyone and make ethanol.
Now we know that was not true. There was always plenty of corn to make ethanol, not to mention corn to export and to feed ourselves and the cattle, chickens and pigs we raise on corn. And the federal Agriculture Department says there will be plenty of corn to meet demand for the foreseeable future.
So corn farmers from 10 states and the industry’s trade group — the National Corn Growers Association — formed the Corn Farmers Coalition to educate policymakers in Washington.
The coalition today launches a Web site (www.CornFarmersCoalition.org), an advertising campaign and a statistical abstract on America’s biggest crop.
“Washington needs to know that corn farmers are using some of the most advanced technologies on the planet to do more with less — to grow more corn using fewer resources every year,” said Mark Lambert, director of the coalition. “American corn farmers, the majority of them small business people, are among the most productive in the world.”
The coalition will meet with reporters, think tanks and members of Congress to talk about what’s ahead: how U.S. farmers, using the latest technologies, will continue to grow enough corn in an environmentally friendly way to meet all our needs; the prospects for making the farm bill more responsive to the market; and the future of renewable fuels, a vital issue for our economy and national security and a key issue for the new administration.
(New Course)
