The North Dakota Corn Growers Association started with a trade policy issue with Canada. In the 1980s, a Canadian Countervailing Duty challenged the corn market. As the issue got bigger, affecting not only corn growers in the eastern United States, but also in North Dakota, the National Corn Growers Association got involved. Page, North Dakota farmer Robert Thompson says NCGA was in expansion mode at the time. “They saw North Dakota picking up acres of corn and multiplying them. We had two senators and that gave NCGA more clout in Washington D.C. We also know corn is king.” The North Dakota Corn Growers Association formed at the Fargo Doublewood Inn in the spring of 1987. Thompson served as the first president of the policy-focused group. According to Thompson, there weren’t even half a million corn acres in North Dakota at the time. That’s changed in the last 35 years. In 2019, North Dakota had more than three million acres devoted to corn production. “It’s not enough to grow the corn, but you also have to find a market for the corn. That was one of the reasons we started the NDCGA.” Hear the story.