NCGA board member, Pam Johnson, is a northern Iowa corn and soybean grower. She farms with her husband and sons and is one of the participants in the Truth About Trade & Technology, Global Farmer to Farmer Roundtable. She is not only participating in the roundtable discussions but was also on the panel of this morning’s Biodiversity World Tour town …
Global Farmer To Farmer Roundtable
It’s World Food Prize week in Des Moines, IA and there are a variety of activities taking place surrounding this annual event. The National Corn Growers Association is sponsoring one of them – the Global Farmer To Farmer Roundtable which is organized by Truth About Trade & Technology. Believing that farmers must work together on a global table to expand …
Look Overseas to See What You Have at Home
It is only human nature to take the freedoms that we have for granted. Likewise, freedom taken for granted is often taken away. Though this may seem like rambling waxing of the philosophical, today it applies to something vital to life in the United States and around the world – food. In the U.S., we take affordable, plentiful food for …
Getting More Crop Per Drop
One of the sponsors for this year’s Corn Utilization and Technology Conference was Monsanto. Besides sponsoring and exhibiting, Monsanto also had Dr. Robert Reiter, Vice President of Breeding Technology, on the program. His presentation focused on improving the efficiency of corn. Monsanto has a goal of helping corn growers double their yield by 2030. Reiter says their biotechnology pipeline is …
Sorry Grandma But We Have A Better Way
Call me radical but I don’t want to eat like my grandmother, even though journalist/food activist Michael Pollan says I should. Nor do I want to “Know Your Farmer” as USDA says I should. I love farmers and have worked with them my entire life. They are some of the coolest people I know. But I really don’t need to …
Report Finds Biotech Crop Benefits
A new report out this week finds that biotech crops are good for both farmers and the earth. According to the report released Tuesday by the National Research Council, “farmers who grow genetically engineered (GE) crops are realizing substantial economic and environmental benefits -such as lower production costs, fewer pest problems, reduced use of pesticides, and better yields – compared …
Less Resistance to GMO Crops?
We may be seeing less resistance to genetically-modified crops developing among the sustainability conscious. Discover Magazine has a little pictorial on “Frankenfoods That Could Feed the World” which include golden rice with vitamin A, purple tomatoes with an antioxidant punch, and multi-vitamin corn on the cob (image from National Academy of Sciences). Maggie Romuld, who “studies rivers, teaches Earth Sciences …
Agricultural Progress Must Be Considered in Climate Talks
In what is being reported to be the busiest day to date at the UN Climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) President Darrin Ihnen had a private meeting with US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. The time was spent discussing NCGA’s perspective on climate change and several other pressing issues. Key to the visit was NCGA’s …
Let’s Hear a Cheer for the Guys in the Lab Coats!
I want to see Oprah wax poetic about the nobility of science and the implications of the full exposure of the corn genome. Instead of Martha Stewart prattling on about the merits of a vegetarian Thanksgiving, and what is wrong with the family farms producing our food, I am waiting for a provocative look at what this understanding of our …
Think Tank Supports GM Crops
A California free-market think tank report finds that genetically modified (GM) crop regulations are often based on fear, and encourages evaluating GM crops by comparing their net benefits to current conventional alternative. The Pacific Research Institute (PRI) released a new report examining the environmental and health concerns associated with genetically modified (GM) crops, called “The Way in Which We Produce …