6/01 On Tuesday, April 25, officials of the National Corn Growers Association joined in ground-breaking ceremonies in Blair, Neb., where Cargill Dow will build the first world-scale manufacturing facility to make plastics and natural synthetic fibers from corn.
Expected to be on line by late 2001, the plant will use 40,000 bushels of corn a day for an annual use of 14 million bushels.
The facility will turn corn into polymers, small chips or pellets of plastic-like material that manufacturers will then process into fabrics for clothing; plastics for cups, food containers and packaging; and home and office furnishings such as carpets.
The plant could very well stand as a monument to the corn checkoff program. Indeed Cargill Dow praised NCGA for its support through the years; since 1994, corn growers at both the national and state levels have made PLA, or polylactic acid, research a top checkoff priority.
Checkoff programs on agricultural commodities frequently absorb a great deal of heat, both from industry watchdogs and, particularly in times of rock-bottom prices, from producers themselves.
Some of that criticism, in some commodity checkoff programs, may be justified. And producers can’t be blamed for being a bit impatient when their checkoff investments don’t produce dividends right away.
Then along comes a plastics plant in Nebraska that wouldn’t have happened without many years of checkoff revenue investments and suddenly, a corn grower, who has some bucks in the project, has a hook to hang his hat on.
That’s what checkoffs are designed to do... to support the research (or the education or the promotion) which leads to the commercialization and/or the expanded use and consumption of the commodity which, in turn. leads to increased farm-gate prices ... the law of supply and demand at work.