Wesley Spurlock of Stratford, Texas is the new First Vice President for the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and he was at the recent National Association of Farm Broadcasting convention to talk about issues impacting corn farmers this year.
First of all is the big crop expected this year, despite challenging growing conditions in many areas. In Texas, Spurlock says they had a radical change from four years of drought to quite a bit of moisture this year. “We’ve had a tremendous year,” he said. “We had some flooding and some problems, but the bulk of it has been beneficial….the corn has done real well. We’ve had exceptional yields across the board.”
The higher yields that corn growers are experiencing make maintaining and expanding markets more important than ever, and that includes both ethanol for the domestic market and new trade agreements to increase exports.
In this interview, Spurlock talks about the importance to corn growers of the Renewable Fuel Standard, the Trans Pacific Partnership, and legislation to allow for voluntary labeling of non-GMO food products. [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/nafb15-ncga.mp3″ text=”Interview with NCGA vice president Wesley Spurlock”]
