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NCGA adopts new climate change policy

The National Corn Growers Association says it has adopted new climate change policy in response to the latest ideas out there.

Nathan Fields, vice president of NCGA’s production and sustainability, tells Brownfield Ag News a lot has happened in the last five or six years, “We’ve seen some companies like Indigo talking about carbon markets. We’ve seen organizations come into existence like the Ecosystems Services Market Consortium out there. And we’re participating with a lot of these things.”

Fields says NCGA wants to be ready in case there’s a switch in administrations, “If we see a change in administration there’s going to be a shift in focus in this area from a governmental standpoint. So, we want to be prepared for that, first and foremost, and we are preparing for that. If there’s a switch we want to be standing front and center with solutions, ready to go.”

And if the current administration continues, Fields says the private sector is moving on climate change anyway.

He says NCGA wants its policies laid out with growers in the lead, “We want to make sure that what they’re proposing with some of the ideas that have been kicked around over the last couple of months that they are practical, pragmatic, they can be implemented by growers and they make sense to the entire food system.”

NCGA supports the Braun/Stabenow bill that infuses more money into current conservation programs and creates eco-system markets.