Folded arms and furrowed brows
among frustrated farmers greeted former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) at a National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) meeting in the mid-2010s. Inglis was then a rarity among Republican legislators. He made his case for market-based solutions to mitigate the impact of human-influenced climate change. On that day, though, not many farmers wanted to hear it. “You could just feel the tension in the room, the feeling that this guy was full of it,” recalls Brandon Hunnicutt, a Giltner, Nebraska, farmer, who is involved with several NCGA boards. Many farmers skeptically view the concept of climate change. This skepticism, though, may be as much rooted in fear of government control as distrust in climate science, says Ben Riensche, a Jesup, Iowa, farmer.