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Drought is Time to Work Together, Not Attack Each Other
The Wall Street Journal today published a letter to the editor from National Corn Growers Association President Garry Niemeyer, sent to the newspaper on July 27 in response to an opinion article by the CEO of Smithfield Foods, titled "The Ethanol Mandate is Worse than the Drought." Here is the complete version of the letter, as submitted.
"To the editor: C. Larry Pope's July 27 opinion article on ethanol ("The Ethanol Mandate is Worse than the Drought") makes numerous invalid assertions. In the first place, he ignores the great flexibility inherent in the current Renewable Fuel Standard for biofuels, a flexibility that has greatly eased the potential impact on the corn supply in this drought year, with a significant surplus of ethanol and credits that equate to about a billion bushels of corn. According to one new independent study, because of this flexibility of the RFS, it has less than a 5 percent impact on the current price of corn -- even in this time of drought.
For the whole story, click here.
Membership Continues to Break Records
Membership at the National Corn Growers Association continues to climb. This July, NCGA's membership hit an all-time record of 38,369 members. The previous record of 37,447 members was reached just the month before in June. This is almost a 39 percent increase from this time last year.
"NCGA's record membership numbers are not only a testament to the popularity of our activities and member benefits but also a reflection of the growing interest of farmers to have a greater say in crafting legislation and regulations that impact their livelihood," said NCGA Grower Services Action Team Chair Brandon Hunnicutt. "Representing the voting power of over 38,000 farmer members means something on Capitol Hill when you are fighting to secure an equitable farm bill or preserve the Renewable Fuels Standard."
For the whole story, click here.
NCGA Statement on the Call for an RFS Waiver
NCGA President Garry Niemeyer released the following statement in response to the drought and the call by some for the EPA to waive provisions of the Renewable Fuel Standard.
"NCGA stands firm in its support of the Renewable Fuel Standard and will strongly oppose legislation to alter or repeal the RFS. Likewise, we believe it is premature for a waiver of the RFS provisions at this point. With the crop still in the field, it is too early to determine this year's final corn supply. In addition, the ethanol industry now has a significant surplus of ethanol and RFS credits that can greatly offset ethanol's impact on the corn supply.
For the full statement, click here.
Statement Regarding House Disaster Assistance Legislation
The undersigned farm organizations support finding a path forward to reaching agreement on a new five-year farm bill before current program authorities expire on Sept. 30. We are disappointed that the House Republican leadership has decided to not move forward with the House Agriculture Committee's bill before adjourning for the August recess. That bill would provide the disaster relief our farm and ranch families need at this time.
Instead, we understand the House may consider a separate disaster bill, under suspension of the rules on August 2, to make supplemental agricultural disaster assistance available for Fiscal Year 2012. Specifically, the bill retroactively extends the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), the Livestock Forage Program (LFP), the Emergency Livestock Assistance Program (ELAP) and the Tree Assistance Program (TAP) so that producers are helped for Fiscal Year 2012. All of those programs expired in 2011. Offsets to pay for the disaster assistance would come from imposing caps on two conservation programs, the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).
For the full statement, click here.
CommonGround Addresses Shared Interest in Common Waters
 Consumers across the Mid-Atlantic are looking at how farmers impact Chesapeake Bay water quality in a new way, thanks to the efforts of the CommonGround programs in Delaware and Maryland. Working with national staff, these women have developed a brochure which they are using to start conversations about this important issue in a variety of venues including state fairs and at baseball games. Stressing the important role that each stakeholder can play, this brochure clearly outlines 12 ways in which farmers are already working to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and offers five concrete ways homeowners can implement their own efforts.
For a copy of this brochure (7.5 MB), click here.
With six states and 17.4 million people sharing the 64,000 square miles that constitute Chesapeake Bay, many of the area's inhabitants have voiced concerns over this important ecosystem. As is often the case in such complex situations, confusion over the cause of damage to the waters abounds with a disproportionate amount of the blame often falling onto the shoulders of the area's farmers.
For the whole story, click here.
Corn & Livestock Booklet Highlights Relationship
 Documenting some of the corn industry's contributions in addressing crop and animal production at national and grassroots levels, NCGA released a report on corn and livestock recently in Washington.
To download the Corn & Livestock booklet, click here.
"Corn growers and livestock producers have long had a beneficial relationship, "said NCGA Production and Stewardship Chair Dean Taylor, a grower in Iowa. "Collectively, beef, poultry, pork and dairy producers represent corn growers' No. 1 customer. Both industries share common interests on agricultural issues and continue to need each other to be profitable and successful."
For the whole story, click here.
New Tools Make Complex Data Visible to the Naked Eye
This week, Off the Cob caught up with Maize Genomics Database Curator Jack Gardiner to find out how the project has progressed over the past three months. The MGD, which is supported by the USDA ARS, is a tool being developed, with assistance from the National Corn Growers Association that will help scientists efficiently apply the knowledge gained from the Maize Genome Sequencing project to develop varieties that perform for farmers in the field.
Gardiner began by explaining that the largest development since the last update in April was the implementation of MapMan, a freely available software developed by a group at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
To listen to the full interview, click here.
For the whole story, click here.
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