Sign up for the long-awaited Average Crop Revenue Election Program, or ACRE, started yesterday on the same day that farm broadcasters from around the nation were in Washington DC for the annual Washington Watch Issues Forum, so naturally it was a hot topic for representatives from the National Corn Growers Association to discuss. NCGA Vice President of Public Policy Jon …
A Classic Event
Everyone at Commodity Classic this year seemed to be impressed that attendance was as good or better than ever, despite the economy. “As I understand it, we are either right at the record or over it, so that is phenomenal,” said National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman. Unofficial numbers I heard were about 4500 total registration with 1500 of …
BASF Supports Young Corn and Soybean Leaders
BASF, the American Soybean Association (ASA) and the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) announced this year’s scholarship winners for both organizations at the 2009 Commodity Classic. The scholarships are awarded to tomorrow’s agricultural leaders pursuing a degree in an industry-related field. Adam Burnhams (center) with U.S. Crop Protection Products at BASF presented the students with their awards on Friday. Four …
Classic as Big as Texas
The farm economy is apparently not hurting as much as other sectors, since attendance at the 2009 Commodity Classic is expected to be as good or better than last year. According to the conference organizers, pre-registrations by the end of last week were virtually the same as last year, although the number of farmers registered was already higher. Now, that …
Meet Nancy Bunker Koester
One of the special people I got to meet this week at the Ag Media Summit was the new National Corn Growers Association, Director of Communications, Nancy Bunker Koester. AMS gave Nancy the chance to meet and interact with a hundreds of ag media professionals and other industry leaders. She is not unfamiliar with this industry, having worked for Monsanto …
Corn Blog Wins Gold Award
Gotta admit to being pretty proud of this – the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and the Center for Association Leadership has awarded the National Corn Growers Association with a 2008 Gold Circle Award in the category of “Blogs – Association Annual Budget Greater than $2 Million” for Corn Commentary. John H. Graham IV, CAE, president and CEO of …
New NCGA Director of Communications
I’m sure I’m waiting in line to meet the new Director of Communications for the National Corn Growers Association. She’s Nancy L. Bunker Koester and she started on Monday. In this position, Nancy will lead NCGA’s communications team and direct public relations and media relations for the organization. Nancy is an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) with more than 20 years …
NCGA Leadership Talks About CUTC
I wanted to interview Rick Tolman (l), CEO of the NCGA and Richard Glass (r), VP of Research and Business Development for NCGA together but it didn’t happen that way but we still have a Rick and Rick post anyway. In the picture they’re enjoying one of the presentations taking place at the CUTC. When I spoke to Rick Tolman …
An NCGA Welcome to CUTC
The CUTC is officially underway now that our keynote session and reception is over. It’s a very quiet media room as yours truly is the only one here. At least the internet access is sort of working. It won’t let me upload to Flickr but I guess that’ll have to wait until later. Post Update: Here’s some photos: CUTC Photo …
Welcome to CUTC
The fun and games are about to begin here at the Corn Utilization and Technology Conference. The event is being held at the Marriott in downtown Kansas City and I just got in and connected in the media room. In less than an hour we’ll kick things off with a Keynote Speech by USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development Tom …