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NCGA Customer & Business Development
Action Team Reviews Corn Checkoff-Funded Profit Opportunities (8-3-01)
The National Corn
Growers Association's (NCGA) Corn Congress is always a busy event. Held
twice a year, it is a time for NCGA officers and NCGA's 125 farmer-representatives
of Corn Congress to discuss and take action on issues pertinent to the
nation's corn growers.
Key elements of
Corn Congress are the NCGA Action Team meetings. The Customer and Business
Development Action Team, along with the other three Action Teams --
Grower Services, Production and Stewardship, and Public Policy -- are
an important part of the decision-making process for NCGA leadership,
said Gerald Tumbleson, Corn Board liaison and Sherburn, Minn., farmer.
"The Corn Board
looks to the Action Teams for guidance and recommendations," he
said. "We have to take the philosophies we talked about in these
meetings and take them to our 31,000 members, the grass-root supporters.
We have to give ideas to the people we represent, something they can
use."
The Customer and
Business Development Action Team, chaired by Oelwein, Iowa grower Vic
Miller, met in Washington, D.C., before Corn Congress. The purpose of
the meeting was to review the progress on the many research projects
NCGA is currently working on to create new markets for corn.
Over the two days
the Action Team met, some of the topics covered were:
* 1,3-Propanediol
* Livestock
* Butanol/Extremophiles
* Fiber Fermentation
* Corn Genome and Applications
* AgVision 2020
* Polyols/Acrylates
* Degerm
* Ethanol
"That's what
this Action Team is about," Miller said, "moving from project
to project, finding new opportunities for corn growers.
Due to the research
NCGA is involved in, we're looking at licensing technology that has
the capability to open a whole new market for corn and that's what we
need to do."
The Action Teams
accomplished a lot during two days of meetings, said NCGA Vice President
of Operations Mike Rohan. "We really packed a lot into a short
time," he said. "The Action Team received excellent reports
from staff and contractors. We had time to discuss the results and we'll
be following up to implement team decisions on genome, degerm and several
other programs."
"I just want to commend each of the 17 farmers who serve on the
Action Team," Miller concluded. "They've really done a great
job managing these efforts to invest checkoff dollars in projects that
will increase profit opportunities for all corn growers."
For more information
on the Customer and Business Development Action Team and the research
projects NCGA is involved in, visit the website at http://www.ncga.com/research/main/index.html.
Last
reviewed August 3, 2001
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