U.S. corn growers don't harvest a crop in April. But during the last week of April corn growers began harvesting a crop of new corn marketing opportunities that had been planted and nurtured with grower checkoff funds.

First, on April 25 at Blair, Nebraska, Cargill Dow broke ground on the first world-scale manufacturing facility to make plastics and natural synthetic fibers from corn. When completed in late 2001 the plant will process 40,000 bushels of corn per day or 14 million bushels of corn annually to produce polylactides (PLAs), plastics and fibers for clothing and carpeting. Second, on April 29, a group of Missouri farmers opened the Show-Me state's first corn ethanol plant. The Macon, Missouri, plant will turn 6 million bushels of locally grown corn into 15 million gallons of ethanol and about 100 million pounds of distillers dried grains.

Both events are examples of the state and national projects that farmers fund with checkoff dollars to create and expand markets for U.S. corn.

Checkoff funds are similar to research and development dollars private companies reinvest in new
products, markets and processes. Farmers in 19 states have established programs to pool money generated by collecting a fraction of a cent per bushel on each bushel sold. The resulting fund is managed by a board of farmers. In some cases the money is pooled into bigger projects at national level through the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA). In other cases, the farmers at state level chose to fund projects and activities within each state.

"Besides encouraging Cargill Dow and helping the company seek funding through Department of
Commerce grants, NCGA invested checkoff dollars from farmers to fund basic research to get things going. And, Cargill helped us evaluate research opportunities,'' said Lee Klein, the NCGA
president-elect and a farmer from Battle Creek, Nebraska, referring to the new PLA plant development. "NCGA members and all corn growers who pay the checkoff can take pride that their dollars funded the research that has led to this new facility. Since 1994, corn growers at the national and state-level organizations have turned this research into a top priority.''

Klein further illustrated some of the longer-term opportunities for corn, opportunities that will need
checkoff investment. "This opens the door to the possibility of other price-competitive consumer
products made from renewable resources such as corn. The tremendous potential for consumer
goods could eventually lead to demand for another 500 million bushels. That additional demand could add 25 cents to the price of a bushel of corn.''

Saturday's grand opening of the Northeast Missouri Grain Processors (NEMOGP) ethanol plant was not only the opening of Missouri's first ethanol plant, but also for a new generation, farmer-owned, value-added cooperative.

Again, corn growers' checkoff dollars played a big part. Through the Missouri Corn Merchandising
Council, the farmers who administer the state's corn checkoff funds, corn growers provided seed
money in 1995 to help NEMOGP organize. With that investment priming the ethanol pump,
NEMOGP grew to 311 farmer-owners of the $23.5 million plant.

As Klein concludes, "Grower checkoff funds support research and marketing that ultimately sells
corn. And that benefits growers. We believe our checkoff is paying off and will continue to be a
valuable investment for our nation's farmers.''

And, it won't take corn growers many more weeks such as last week to prove his point.

For more information about these and other checkoff-funded programs, visit National Corn Growers Association web site: www.ncga.com; the Missouri Corn Growers Association web site,
www.mocorn.org; the Nebraska Corn Development, Utilization and Marketing Board web site,
http://linux1.nrc.state.ne.us/cornstalk/; or the Cargill Dow web site, www.cdpoly.com .  

NCGA news release
N2661