The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has announced the second Consider Corn Challenge contest, which aims to discover innovative uses of field corn globally. In 2017, American corn farmers produced 14.6 billion bushels of corn, and the NCGA’s strategic plan is to partner with industries to establish three new uses, totaling a minimum of 75 million incremental bushels by 2020.
NCGA Feed Food and Industrial Action Team Chair, Dan Wesely, highlighted the untapped potential of corn, which can be converted into various high-value products like plastics, solvents, and fibers, meeting the increasing demand for environmentally friendly items. The contest will have three to six winners who will share a prize pool of $150,000. An informational webinar will be held in January, and submissions are due by March 20th, with winners being announced in July.
The primary motivation behind the competition is to find new applications for corn and expand its market beyond the traditional customer base. In the previous edition in 2018, the contest received 33 submissions from eight countries, and the winners included companies like Annikki, The Iowa Corn Promotion Board, Lygos, Sasya, South Dakota State University, and Vertimass.
The NCGA, established in 1957, represents around 40,000 dues-paying corn farmers nationwide, along with over 300,000 growers contributing through corn checkoff programs in their states. Their mission is to create and enhance opportunities for corn growers. For more details on the contest, visit https://9sig.co/UseCorn.
Source: prweb.com