Immediate Release:
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Nebraska Corn Board contacts:
Randy Klein: 800.632.6761
Corn farmers to highlight their sustaining innovation at Nebraska State Fair
LINCOLN, NE – The Nebraska State Fair begins Aug. 28, and Nebraska corn farmers will be on hand to share how they are sustaining innovation – producing more corn with fewer chemicals, fertilizer and water.
A display by the Nebraska Corn Board and Nebraska Corn Growers Association in Ag Hall will provide visuals and information to help people understand how farmers are taking better care of the environment and being more sustainable than ever.
“Farmers today make good use of technology to reduce the use of crop inputs, and research shows farming today is more sustainable than just a few years ago,” said Mark Jagels, a farmer from Davenport and member of the Nebraska Corn Board.
“We believe it is important to get our message out,” he said, “and the State Fair is a great place to continue our Sustaining Innovation campaign that began earlier this year.”
Some of the positive messages included in the campaign and within the display are the fact that farmers are growing five times more corn today than they did in the 1930s but doing so on 20 percent less land.
“We’ve also slashed the fertilizer needed to grow a bushel of corn by 36 percent in the last three decades and cut erosion 44 percent in the last two decades,” said Brandon Hunnicutt, a farmer from Giltner and president of the Nebraska Corn Growers Association.
“Farmers spend their lives working with the land,” Hunnicutt said. “It is our home and future – we want to leave the land, air and water in better condition than we found it so our children have the opportunity to farm, too.”
Jagels said visitors to the booth will be able to take away some of today’s farming facts in a pocket-sized handout. “We’re looking forward to seeing folks in Ag Hall at the State Fair,” he said, “and letting people know about the good work we do and explain that we do it responsibly.
The Nebraska State Fair runs from August 28 through September 7.
The Nebraska Corn Board is a self-help program, funded and managed by Nebraska corn farmers. Producers invest in the program at a rate of 1/4 of a cent per bushel of corn sold. Nebraska corn checkoff funds are invested in programs of market development, research and education.
The Nebraska Corn Growers Association is a grassroots commodity organization that works to enhance the profitability of corn producers. Now in its 36th year of service to its members, NeCGA has more than 2,000 dues paying members in Nebraska. NeCGA is affiliated with the NCGA, which has more than 35,000 dues paying members nationwide.
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