Kansas Corn: NCGA’s Consider Corn Challenge Builds Opportunities for New Corn Uses and Demand

Kansas Corn: NCGA's Consider Corn Challenge Builds Opportunities for New Corn Uses and Demand

Kansas corn farmer Chad Epler highlighted the importance of a key program that identifies new uses for corn in bio-based products. Epler is the chair of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) Research and New Uses Action Team and represents southeast Kansas on the Kansas Corn Commission. NCGA is launching the fifth Consider Corn Challenge, a contest in which participants submit proposals to compete for funding for new uses of field corn that have quantifiable market demand.

"Biobased products are a win-win for everyone," Epler said. "NCGA is investing in these biobased solutions and positioning corn as the feedstock of choice. To demonstrate our commitment to identifying and developing these new uses we are increasing the prize by $50,000 to a total of $300,000."

Previous winners of the contests have scaled up to the next phase of development, received additional grant funding, entered into joint agreements and obtained registration for state biobased production incentives.

The Kansas Corn Commission supports research that has potential to increase market demand for corn through programs like NCGA's Consider Corn Challenge as well as other avenues like the Radicle Corn Value Chain Challenge Sponsored by U.S. Corn Farmers. The Kansas Corn Commission and other state corn checkoffs are funding partners in the challenge conducted by Radicle Growth, a food and agriculture venture capital company. like the Radicle Challenge funded by U.S. Corn Farmers. Kansas corn and other state corn organizations.

Låkril Technologies, a previous Consider Corn Challenge winner, recently won the Radicle Challenge, and is in advanced stages of developing a cost-effective method of producing acrylic acid and acrylates out of renewable feedstocks like corn. Acrylic acid and acrylates are used to make several products, including plastics, coatings, adhesives, paints, and can even be a key material in medical devices.

"The Consider Corn Challenge brought Låkril Technologies visibility and contact with multiple corn grower associations and industrial corporations," said Chris Nicholas, co-founder and president of Låkril Technologies and a past winner of Consider Corn Challenge III and the 2024 Radicle Challenge. "These relationships allowed us to expand our business."

If all 19 winners of the Consider Corn Challenge I, II, III, & IV reached full commercialization with products available in the marketplace, the potential for additional corn demand could be approximately 3.4 billion bushels.

"Corn growers continuously innovate by developing advanced, sustainable technologies that allow them to do more with less as they farm," Epler added. "This contest is critical in identifying and accelerating new technologies for novel uses of corn, leading to more corn grind for growers, better products for consumers and overall economic development here in the U.S."

One to three winners will be selected for the Consider Corn Challenge V, with a total prize pool of $300,000, split equally between winners. The submission deadline is June 30 at 5 p.m. CT; and winners will be announced and showcased at the Bio Innovations Midwest event in Omaha, Neb., September 15-16.

To learn more: ncga.com/ConsiderCorn.

To register for the Consider Corn Challenge V informational webinar held on Thursday, April 24 at 2 pm CT: https://ncga.zoom.us/meeting/register/ICZkXRC1R1CMc5sZS6kAZQ