'Look and listen' tour in Indiana concludes

The group visited The Anderson’s Ethanol Group’s Indiana facility that supplies bulk dried distiller’s grains.
The group visited The Anderson’s Ethanol Group’s Indiana facility that supplies bulk dried distiller’s grains. | File photo

The "look and listen" tour in Indianapolis between officers of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) and stakeholders in the grains, livestock and ethanol industries wrapped up during the last week of March.

“To build profitable demand for U.S. corn, we need strong relationships with the customers who are using our products. An important part of that is being able to see their facilities and operations, and hear directly from them about what’s happening in their industry,” NCGA First Vice President Wesley Spurlock, a farmer from Stratford, Texas, said. “This trip provided us a great opportunity to ask how we can be better partners with our customers, and what we need to do, working together as the corn industry, to help them succeed.”

The group visited The Anderson’s Ethanol Group’s Indiana facility that supplies bulk dried distiller’s grains. They heard from managers on the challenges of moving product to market.

NCGA and USGC officers also learned how to engage with customers better through the meeting with the Elanco Pulse Institute who uses social media conversations on food, pet care and health issues in real time.

The officers met with researchers from Purdue University about plant phenotyping, spoke with a representative from Rose Acre Farms about the feed needs of the egg-laying industry, and toured the livestock operations at Fair Oaks Farms.