New NCGA president stresses teamwork

ST. ANSGAR, Iowa — New National Corn Growers Association President Chris Edgington brings life lessons he learned from his father to the new leadership role.

“Dad has always believed in leaning on each other to get the job done, so we did, and I soon learned to appreciate the simple satisfaction of working together on a common task. That life lesson probably helped me to prepare me for my new position more than anything else,” Edgington said.

Edgington raises corn and soybeans with his wife, son, father and brother in north-central Iowa, and “it takes all of us to run our farm well.”

In addition to his row crop operation, he gains insight into livestock through a small business run by his son. He holds a bachelor’s degree in animal science from Iowa State University.

He took the helm as NCGA president Oct. 1.

“Making family farms like ours better is what drives me.”

—  Chris Edgington, president, National Corn Growers Association

As NCGA president, he also serves as president of the NCGA Foundation, an executive committee member of NCGA’s Allied Industry Council and as the association’s delegate to the U.S. Grains Council. He serves as the liaison to the Agriculture Markets Advisory Council and the Renewable Fuels Association.

Previously, he served as the board liaison to the Freedom to Operate Action Team; the Food, Feed and Industrial Action Team; and the Market Access Action Team.

He has also served on the CornPAC, the Finance Committee and the Governance Committee. He represented the Corn Board on the Syngenta Advisory Council for Enogen and the National Pork Producers Council.

A past chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board and co-chair of Corn Vision 2020, he was a member of NCGA’s Trade Policy and Biotechnology Action Team prior to his election to the Corn Board. Currently, he is chairman of Rural Development Partners.

“Making family farms like ours better is what drives me. It’s also why I ran for the Corn Board and it’s why I ran to be president of NCGA,” Edgington said.

“And just like our farm, my goal as president is to make NCGA the best team it can be. That starts with staying focused on our top priorities and these include growing demand for our products, protecting profitability of our businesses and building trust in our sustainable production methods.

“Expanding the use of higher ethanol blends is one way to grow demand. The good news is we got a bill that will do just that. The bipartisan Next Generation Fuels Act would require automakers to phase in higher levels of clean, low carbon octane ethanol. Working together, we can get this passed.

“The threat of higher taxes has us all concerned about profitability right now. Congress is considering a plan to raise taxes on farmers by removing the stepped-up basis provision, raising capital gains taxes, lowering inheritance levels and lowering the 1031 Exchange limits. It’s going to take all of us in agriculture working together to persuade them to drop this bad idea and I believe we can get this done.

“Building trust in how we farm starts with sharing our story of sustainable corn production with our value chain partners and policymakers in D.C. The depth and richness of that story is definitely something we must work together on.”

Edgington’s teleconference with the media then returned to the importance of a team.

“The thing about this job is there will always be issues to work on, good ones, bad ones and others that fall someplace in between. I can’t say for sure what they’ll be or when we’ll be confronted with them, but I can promise that my approach to solving these problems hasn’t changed a bit from what my dad taught me long ago. We’ll tackle them together as a team because working together works,” he said.

The new NCGA leader took several questions from the ag media on the call. Here’s what he said.

On Trade

“Trade is important to agriculture. It’s important to America. We have a tremendous amount of ability to produce both ag products and other products in this country. We want the Biden administration to be proactive in their approach to trade. We’ve got some long-term partners — Mexico and Canada — that we’ve done a lot with, and yet we may have some challenges with them. That’s why the U.S-Mexico-Canada Agreement is such a great piece of material.

“China is obviously the wild card and right now we seem to have pretty decent trading relationships with them, but we want to build in that Southeast Asia that is continuing to grow, add people, add demand for food products and other products and we certainly need to spend some more time encouraging and educating the European Union that what we produce is a safe, wholesome product that they need to utilize.

“Our message simply is we need trade and we need more trade and we will take it in all places from all countries because we are a good trading partner and a reliable supplier.”

On Fertilizer Prices

“Corn growers are concerned about the large increase in fertilizer prices. It’s the conversation on a lot of people’s tongues this fall in my local area and across the country. Not only is it the price, but also the supply. Can they even get it because we’re also hearing that once we get through the inventory that the fertilizer dealers carried into the fall, their replenishment stock is not real great? It is a concern.

“It will probably be a deciding factor on some people whether they go with corn, soybeans, wheat or possibly no fertilizer at all on some of those crops as far as P and K. Now obviously if you’re going to raise corn you’re going to need some nitrogen of some form. Anhydrous is up, but the urea and UAN products are up even more. With supply and demand, right now the supply does not equal the current demand situation.

“It will be a scenario we will be working not only this fall, but it’s going to go into next spring and potentially even into next fall.”

On RFS Changes

“It certainly is not going to help trust if the Biden administration goes against what he campaigned on and said he liked renewable fuels, wanted to work with renewable fuels and then a year later to do something different than that is not the way to move forward as a team. It’s not moving forward in a method that’s working together.

“I understand people are all excited about electric vehicles and they have a place. There are a lot of places they don’t fit. Ethanol, biodiesel and renewable diesel are here and now. They are immediate ways to improve the environment. They are immediate ways to lower the cost to the consumer on the miles that they drive, and they need to remember that. And we continually have to re-educate that the tool that has been around a while and is not so shiny like electric vehicles is still a fantastic tool to use and needs to be used on a daily basis.”

On EPA

“The EPA is a very interesting organization because they touch lots of things. We deal with them on Waters of the U.S. and sometimes we’re on the same page and sometimes we’re not. We deal with them with ethanol and renewable fuels and energy policy. Sometimes we’re in court siding them and sometimes we’re in court against them. So, it seems to be that our challenges with EPA or our opportunities to work together will be there on many, many issues.

“The current administration and the current administrator has been very forward, very frank and he wants to work with us. He says we may not agree on everything, but we need to work together as a team to touch on the bases that they touch on that we’re also engaged in.

“I’m hopeful that with type of open dialogue, while we may not agree on all issues, at least we will have a good robust discussion around those issues and how we got to the point we’re at.”