The president of the National Corn Growers Association spoke today before the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture about the key challenges corn growers are facing and offered reflections on existing farm bill commodity programs.
“NCGA has a long history of advocating for market-orientated farm policies, including commodity and crop insurance programs that help growers manage their risks,” Iowa farmer and NCGA President Chris Edgington told the committee. “Our focus continues to be on accessible and defensible tools geared towards revenue, which factors in both yield and price risks that growers may face throughout the growing and market seasons.”
Edgington was invited by the committee to speak at the hearing, entitled “A 2022 Review of the Farm Bill: Commodity Group Perspectives on Title 1.”
During the 2018 Farm Bill, NCGA supported increasing the opportunities for producers to choose between the commodity programs, Edgington noted. Thanks to that work, producers were able to elect between the Agriculture Risk Coverage County, ARC-Individual and Price Loss Coverage programs in 2019, and, since 2021, they have an annual opportunity to change their elections. Growers are currently working with their Farm Service Agency offices ahead of the March 15, 2022, deadline for program elections for the upcoming crop year.
Read the testimony here.
