Farm policy impacts our members, their farms, and their families
Our overarching goal is to promote policy that drives corn demand, as demand will ultimately help family farmer profitability.
Our specific priorities are:
-
Ethanol policies like clearing up the Renewable Volume Obligation issue and maintaining the Renewable Fuel Standard will ensure the health of the ethanol market.
-
Trade policies like new free trade agreements and new investment in international markets will provide new avenues to sell Illinois corn.
-
Secure funding for the Navigational Ecosystem Sustainability Program (NESP) which will enable new and upgraded locks and dams along the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. This relates to our second priority, as adequate infrastructure is needed to ship more corn overseas.
-
Preserve a robust and sustainable crop insurance for U.S. farmers to help them manage weather risk. Our members tell us that crop insurance is working to keep them in business.
Our IL Corn membership survey told us that trade and export issues are on the top of your mind. That’s not surprising to us, given that over half the Illinois corn crop leaves the state bound for...
More
Illinois farmers should contact their congressmen and demand a farm bill before the end of 2018. Congress only has a few days to act if they hope to complete this legislation for the farmers in...
More
Sign up for the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) began on September 3, but if you haven’t made it to your local Farm Service Agency (FSA) office yet to sign on the dotted line, rest assured that...
More
If you checked in with us last week, you might have heard the IL Corn Executive Director tell us that there’s a risk farmers might lose trade program funding if the Farm Bill expires on September...
More
We are officially ten days away from the Farm Bill 2014 expiration date. On September 30, farmers are operating under no farm policy, unless Congress either finalizes a new bill or extends the...
More
President Trump announced earlier this week that he had reached agreement with Mexico on updates to the NAFTA agreement, although he then hinted that he might kill the NAFTA deal after all, if...
More
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue spoke to corn and ethanol industry constituents this week at a rally to support the Renewable Fuel Standard, held at Progress City in...
More
Breaking news today, all of which will impact Illinois and American corn farmers, is that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced the details of the $12 billion trade aid package and...
More
The confidential crop survey from the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will be arriving in the mailboxes of Southern farmers soon, and it is very important that recipients take the...
More
Trade is becoming increasingly important to corn farmers, since nationally, we export upwards of 20% of our crop if you consider corn in all forms (corn, feed, DDGS, ethanol and livestock) and...
More
U.S. Department of Agricultural officials held a press call on Tuesday to provide comment on President Trump’s recently announced $12 billion trade aid package, as it’s come to be known. In his...
More
BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Illinois Corn Growers Association President Aron Carlson, a farmer from Winnebago, Ill., released the following statement regarding the Trump Administration’s announcement of...
More
Jonathan Coppess and Scott Irwin from the University of Illinois Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics said it best in the title of their July 12, 2018, farmdoc daily article, so we...
More
In a recent interview on CNBC’s SquawkBox, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue indicated that his Agency is studying the complex situation regarding how the Trump...
More
Yesterday, the Senate passed a farm bill with a significantly smaller ordeal than the previous debate in the House. The bill passed as a bipartisan bill, and our number one priority – crop...
More
We may just get a farm bill in 2018. Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a very partisan farm bill that makes minor updates to farm programs, creates a vaccine bank for...
More
If you’re a farmer who is interested in farm policy and the changes to the farm bill represented in the version passed out of the Senate Ag Committee last week, here’s an article that you won’t...
More
After the failure of the Farm Bill (H.R. 2) on a 198 to 213 vote this past Friday, a motion to reconsider was filed. The House has several days to act on that motion to reconsider, but it’s...
More
The House Rules Committee last night decided on the list of amendments that would be allowed for floor debate on the next farm bill. You can find the current farm bill legislation, H.R. 2 –...
More
The House Rules Committee met yesterday and approved the first 20 amendments that can be offered during the Farm Bill debate. These 20 were not controversial. The Committee is meeting again...
More