Issues History - Production & Usage

From inception, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has been committed to helping corn growers increase the value of their crop. In fact, corn has been America's number one field crop, leading all others in both volume and value, since NCGA began in 1957.

U.S. corn production has more than tripled since the mid-1950s. Value has increased more than seven-fold. With assistance from NCGA, corn usage is now at an all-time high. USDA projected total use for 1998 at some 9.4 billion bushels, up from a mere 3 billion bushels in mid 1950s.

While corn is traditionally viewed as feed for domestic livestock, historically more than 20 percent of the crop is exported as a raw commodity and in value-added products such as meat and poultry, which have shown the most increase in recent years. Maintaining export market share has been possible because NCGA has been instrumental in reform of trade policy to tear down the many trade barriers that restrict markets to U.S. corn growers.

Most recently, NCGA led a grassroots effort to extend fast track trade negotiating authority, critical legislation that allows the United States to more efficiently negotiate trade pacts that open world markets. Fast track aided passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in the early 1990s. NCGA took the lead on supporting passage of NAFTA by forming Ag for NAFTA; a coalition of more than 100 agricultural groups. NCGA also participated in GATT negotiations by sending grower-leaders to Europe to represent U.S. corn growers in international negotiations over global marketing rules.

NCGA has helped build overseas markets for U.S. bulk commodity corn through the U.S. Feed Grains Council, now the U.S. Grains Council (USGC), which was founded by Walter Goeppinger and others in 1959. Together, NCGA and USGC support trade liberalization that enables U.S. corn growers to take advantage of their competitive productive capacity. At the same time, NCGA has been working at home, developing markets for the four out of five bushels consumed domestically each year.

Total food, seed and industrial use during the last 20 years has been the fastest growing segment of corn use. Much of that growth can be attributed to market development by NCGA, and market protection. NCGA efforts to educate key policymakers in the late 1980s about the value of corn sweeteners sustained the 790 million bushel market when the U.S. Sugar Program was under fire.

There are now more than 3,500 food and nonfood products containing corn. Corn can be found in everything from ethanol and peanut butter to shoe polish and mass-produced plastics to antifreeze. These efforts continue to help increase corn's value at the farm gate.

Perhaps the greatest example of NCGA bringing research, policy development, marketing and promotion together on local, state, national and international levels is the market for cleaner-burning ethanol. Ethanol consumes about 7 percent of the U.S. crop, adding about $4.5 billion in farm revenue annually. The ethanol market has grown by more than 16 times since the mid-1970s, and market potential remains large.

NCGA will not only continue to grow already-successful markets in the future, the organization will focus on new opportunities, such as more specific needs of end-users. NCGA recently completed a large-scale study of high-oil corn, which shows the product's value in meeting the needs of poultry, pork and beef producers, while increasing grower profits. The study will serve as a model for other projects that may be developed so that NCGA may better assess future quality traits of corn that can be targeted to the livestock industry.

NCGA has set the goal to increase the farm-gate value of the U.S. corn crop markedly within the next few years, achieving a $40 billion value from an 11-13 billion bushel crop each year. Efforts such as those described in this section, as well as new endeavors, will help NCGA meet that goal in the new century.

Last reviewed May 6, 2003