IARN — A farmer from Clarion was recently elected to serve a new role on the U.S. Grains Council.
Deb Keller is a past USGC chairman who continues her full-time farming career in Wright County. She has more than 25 years of experience in production agriculture that have allowed her to learn firsthand the value of biotechnology to more predictability and higher yields.
On July 1st, Keller assumed the role of U.S. Grain Council representative to MAIZALL, which is the international maize alliance. Keller says the MAIZALL organization works with the countries of Brazil and Argentina.
“The reason we picked those two countries to work with is we are all part of the Americas,” Keller said. “And, the three counties together will export 70 percent of all of the corn that is exported throughout the world. If we can speak with one voice, it actually makes quite an impact.”
Keller says her role as a MAIZALL director is to help deliver the message that advanced crop improvement technologies are environmentally friendly, and that they deliver a safe, reliable product and help ensure nutrition and stability to all countries.
“MAIZALL is extremely important, especially to me personally,” she said. “Since my family is completely corn growers, it’s important that we have good exports for our corn. MAIZALL helps keep our markets open. As a group, we are trying very hard to work on biotechnology issues. We need to make sure our markets are open and that we can trade anywhere in the world without having problems.”
Keller served as USGC chairman in 2017-2018, having previously served as the leader of the Rest of the World Advisory Team. She is also a former chairwoman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board.
MAIZALL was established in 2013 by leaders from USGC, the National Corn Growers Association, Brazilian Association of Corn Producers, and the Argentine corn and sorghum federation.
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.
