National Corn Growers Association
Greenwashing
Bayer-Monsanto
RoundUp Promotion
The NGCA's May 2021 Podcast Interview with Brett Begemann, the COO of Bayer Crop Science (and a 35 year veteran (former VP) of Monsanto), began by describing their mission as giving farmers a "say... with key leaders who are shaping the future of agriculture."
Jon Doggett, the CEO of the National Corn Growers Association, conducted the interview, and minimized controversy surrounding Monsanto-Bayer's toxic polluting RoundUp herbicide as a "minor issue", proclaiming that "we (the NCGA) absolutely believe glyphosate is an essential tool for farmers to have" and thanking him with a "debt of gratitude" for "defending this chemical" - especially in the context of environmental opposition and of efforts to greenwash RoundUp with carbon farming.
Bayer-Monsanto's COO used the platform to pontificate that "farmers are going to be able to rely on glyphosate and, in our case Roundup now and well into the future" and didn't pass miss the opportunity to greenwash the massive carbon emissions of Big Ag: "this industry of agriculture has done as much or more than any other industry to improve our carbon footprint over the past 50 years."[1]
Former President & Current Advisor of the NCGA, Fred Yoder, is also a member of the Monsanto Leading Grower Advisory Council.[2]
RoundUp Litigation
Along with the American Soybean Association, the NGCA led dozens of commodity and other ag groups in writing a letter urging the Biden administration to withdraw a recently filed brief in the Supreme Court. The case revolves around a lawsuit which awarded California resident Edwin Hardeman $80 million in damages, finding that Bayer-Monsanto had failed to adequately warn him of the herbicide’s health risks, which was implicated in his development of cancer. The NCGA and its consortium argued that allowing states to award tort damages in cases where federal labeling laws were less strict "undermines science-based regulation."[3][4]
USDA
The NCGA is also a major participant in the USDA's greenwashing Climate-Smart Commodities program:
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture and food giants such as Land O’Lakes, Corteva, Bayer, and Cargill are paying farmers millions of dollars to sow... (cover) crops after, or even before, they harvest their corn and soybeans."[5]
As part of "Farmers for Soil Health," through this program the NCGA and collaborators are similarly planning to award massive grants to farmers to plant cover crops after harvesting corn and soy across 30 million acres of land - largely monoculture - and half of which is sprayed with the toxic polluting herbicide RoundUp manufactured by Bayer-Monsanto.[6][7]
Sources
- ↑ https://ncga.com/stay-informed/media/in-the-news/article/2021/03/ep17-short-stature-corn-and-other-new-ag-tech-with-bayer-crop-sciences-brett-begemann
- ↑ https://ohioagcouncil.org/fred-yoder/
- ↑ https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/17733-ag-groups-urge-withdrawal-of-administrations-scotus-brief-in-roundup-case
- ↑ https://soygrowers.com/news-releases/growers-disappointed-supreme-court-decides-not-to-hear-glyphosate-case/
- ↑ https://thefern.org/2022/12/a-pillar-of-the-climate-smart-agriculture-movement-is-on-shaky-ground/
- ↑ https://www.nfwf.org/programs/farmers-soil-health/farmers-soil-health-2023-request-proposals
- ↑ https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/toxic-herbicides-map-showing-high-use-state-rcna50052