NCGA Consider Corn Challenge III Contest New Uses for Corn
The National Corn growers Association (NCGA) has launched the Consider Corn Challenge III Contest. The NCGA is asking for participants to answer the call and submit proposals for new uses of field corn as a feedstock for producing sustainable chemicals and products with quantifiable market demand. Quite simply the NCGA is using check-off dollars to try and find new uses for corn. Who finds or pays into the corn checkoff you may ask? That would be all farmers that raise and sell corn! Corn is an affordable, abundant, sustainably grown crop that has a myriad of uses and applications, which is why we are holding our third Consider Corn Challenge contest, said NCGA Market Development Action Team Chair and Iowa farmer Bob Hemesath. Past winners of the Consider Corn Challenge I and II have scaled up to the next phase of development and received grant funding, entered into joint agreements and even obtained registration for
Wheat can help farms in many ways, ag official says
Adding wheat to a crop rotation can be challenging. It can also make good sense, an Extension official says. 5:30 am, Jan. 22, 2021 ×
Wheat can play important roles in crop rotations. (Erin Ehnle Brown / Grand Vale Creative LLC)
Jared Goplen understands that growing wheat may not appeal to many area farmers including ones in Minnesota. But the the University of Minnesota extension educator thinks they might to do well to consider it anyway.
The region s diverse weather is just one of the reasons to do so. Some years, we have really good corn weather. Other years, we have really good small grain weather. A lot of times they don t necessarily overlap that well. It (growing wheat) does help to help hedge some of that risk as far as weather, he said.
Smentek and Amanda Bilek, senior public policy director with the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, spoke Jan. 12 during the 2021 Virtual Small Grains Update Meeting. The event, sponsored by the University of Minnesota Extension, Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers, Minnesota Wheat Research and Promotion Council, Minnesota Soybean and Minnesota Corn Growers Association, was open to the news media.
The Minnesota Senate is under Republican control, albeit by a slim 34-33 majority, while the Democratic-Farmers-Labor Party controls the House with a 70-64 majority, down from a 75-59 margin. It s the only state nationally with a divided legislature, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. House members are elected every two years, Senate members to four-year terms.
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
In 1900, two out of three Americans farmed. Today, less than two percent of us raise the food, fiber and renewable products that feed, clothe and fuel us.
Approximately 95 percent of today’s American farms are owned and run by families. However, it easily could have been elsewise. A critical turning point came in 1977, with a farm economy crisis brewing, when a small group of farm women gathered in Appleton, among them Anne Kanten, to organize the American Agricultural Movement (AAM). Its one aim: to save the family farming way of life. Tractorcades in Washington, and many other grassroots efforts, great and small, came along in its wake. Today, the value of the family’s role in agriculture continues to be celebrated by many organizations, like CommonGround Minnesota.
Tuesday, the Minnesota Legislature convened for its 92
nd Legislative Session. As with many other things in the past year, the Minnesota Legislative Session will not be the same as past sessions.
The House of Representatives plans to conduct all business (committee hearings, floor sessions and individual meetings) mostly remote. Floor sessions will have limited attendance by members with most members voting remotely.
The Senate will conduct business with a bit of a hybrid approach. Committee meetings can be attended in-person by members, and there will be a remote option for Senators and potential testifiers. All activity of the legislature will mostly be streamed, and access to the capitol grounds and office buildings is mostly closed to the public, unless there are changes to capitol operations later in session. Even with these different dynamics, the Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA) will be advocating for important priorities on behalf of Minnesota’s corn farmers.