Indiana Farmer J.R. Roesner Discusses Concerns of Corn Growers During Commodity Classic
DuBois County farmer J.R. Roesner, who also serves as Board Director of the Indiana Corn Marketing Council, as well as a member of the National Corn Growers Association’s National Corn Board, talks with Hoosier Ag Today’s C.J. Miller during Commodity Classic in Orlando.
Commodity Classic in Orlando concluded on Saturday, but not before USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack took the stage and addressed the over 10,000 attendees on site.
One of those attendees who heard Vilsack’s speech was Dubois County farmer J.R. Roesner, who is also a board director with the Indiana Corn Marketing Council and serves on the National Corn Growers Association’s National Corn Board.
“He really focused on a lot of the climate programs that are out there and some of the carbon solutions programs that are coming forward. He also spoke to how those could be used to generate more revenue on our farms in Indiana and across the country,” said Roesner. “With that, I wish he would have spoken a little bit more to the programs that we’re already using and how those may be implemented to benefit the farms—not only from an environmental standpoint, but also from a revenue standpoint.”
Roesner told Hoosier Ag Today that one of the biggest challenges facing Indiana’s corn producers is the disagreement with Mexico over their ban of imports of genetically-modified corn used specifically for use in their food products.
“It’s very concerning when they pick out a specific crop and try to ban that within their country,” said Roesner. “We did have the USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) finally step in and provide us with a pathway to resolve this issue. Canada has also joined in and said that the Mexican decree is not correct under USMCA and that we need to get it resolved. It really puts into jeopardy other trade agreements if we don’t resolve this and don’t use the mechanisms within those trade agreements to resolve it.”
Click BELOW to hear more of C.J. Miller’s interview with DuBois County farmer J.R. Roesner from Commodity Classic in Orlando as he discusses the top concerns impacting Indiana corn farmers.
