Leaders from the National Corn Growers Association were among those in attendance at the U.S. Grains Council delegates meeting this week in San Diego, including First Vice President Darrin Ihnen of South Dakota and Chairman Ron Litterer from Iowa.

I talked to Darrin about a number of topics, including how NCGA works with USGC. “We work very well together,” Darrin said. “The Grains Council is kind of the export arm of the corn industry and so from the National Corn Growers perspective, we need our sister organization to handle our exports. We do export roughly 15-20 percent of our corn crop, so that’s a very important market for us.”

He says the export outlook is not as good as it was a year ago because the world economy and the recession have taken their toll and growers are looking at producing another huge crop this year. “We gotta find a home for all this corn,” Darrin says.

See photos from the USGC Delegate Meeting here on Flickr.

Listen to or download my interview with Darrin here: