(Brownfield Network) -- The nation’s grain buyers and processors want more CRP acres returned to production. Randy Gordon of the National Grain and Feed Association says the need for grain-based products continues to grow, both in the U.S. and around the world. But he explains that most of the growth in acreage has been outside of the U.S. in the past eight years. “(The U.S. has) only increased our acreage base by about a million acres since 2008, whereas in South America they’ve increased theirs by over 58 million acres,” Gordon says. Gordon says the Grain and Feed Association will ask the new Obama administration to allow farmers to pull CRP acres back into production without paying a hefty penalty, and that there are a number of acres in CRP that can be farmed in an environmentally sustainable way.
