Jan. 6: In a special NCGA “Our View” column, First Vice President Bart Schott, a farmer from Kulm, N.D., talks about the importance of conventional agriculture in meeting global food needs. Click on the title for the article.

November 24: In his latest “Our View” column, National Corn Growers Association Chief Executive Officer Rick Tolman addresses claims that ethanol demand affects food prices, explains how some food industry players scapegoat commodity prices.

Aug. 10: In a new commentary, National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman compares the self-indulgent utopianism of Michael Pollan to the words and work of Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug, an agricultural expert whom Congress once awarded with a gold medal for having “saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived.”

July 8: In an article to appear in our upcoming quarterly report, National Corn Growers Association President Bob Dickey discusses the importance of the organization’s playing an active role in the pending Waxman-Markey climate change bill, to ensure that if it passes Congress it more clearly accommodates the needs of U.S. farmers. “As a result of our being ‘at the table,’ the climate change bill that recently passed in the House is dramatically different and much more favorable than the initial bill.”

By Rick Tolman
CEO, National Corn Growers Association

Another Fourth of July is upon us and as we prepare to celebrate this nation’s independence it is also a good time to reflect on our dangerous reliance of imported petroleum and ask what more we should we be doing to assure our energy independence.

June 15 In his latest “Our View” column, National Corn Growers Association Chief Executive Officer Rick Tolman wonders when ethanol critics will give up and recognize that food price inflation has many more significant causes than ethanol demand – causes that together comprise up to 90 percent of the spike in food costs.