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Hartman highlights corn export, MAHA wins during NCGA presidency

The immediate past president of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) says there were several highlights during his year at the helm.

Kenneth Hartman Jr., who farms in Monroe County, Illinois, says the organization’s efforts to secure corn export markets in Mexico are one example.

“We had a good win with Mexico with the 301-case.”  He says, “We won that, and they started buying GMO corn again for white corn and for food-grade corn. And they’re actually our largest purchaser of corn in the last year or so.”

He says defending key agricultural inputs named in the initial Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) report and seeing ethanol exports increase via trade agreements were also defining moments.

“The second MAHA report that came out, the pesticides were not in there, and at the same time, they were talking about soil health and precision agriculture.”  He says, “So, we got things spun around where they realized that in order to be sustainable, we need our pesticides, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to EPA.  It’s doing a good job of reviewing our products.”

Hartman tells Brownfield that despite the wins, there’s still work to be done, especially on nationwide, year-round E15.

“This year, we worked on E15. We had calls to action. We were so close last December, I mean, it was in the text of the CR (Continuing Resolution), and then it got pulled out at the last minute with a lot of other things.”  He says, “That’s still the number one priority for National Corn Growers is to get that E15 and higher blends of ethanol passed.”

Hartman, who’s serving as the NCGA’s chairman over the next year, says attaching nationwide E15 to a funding bill later this Congressional session is its best chance of passage.

AUDIO: Kenneth Hartman, Jr. – NCGA