American Corn Growers Foundation
Continues Wind Power Information, Education and Outreach Project
With New W. K. Kellogg Foundation Grant
WASHINGTON, DC, August
10, 2005---The American Corn Growers
Foundation (ACGF), through its Wealth From The Wind
program, is continuing its information, education and
outreach project aimed at developing the economic
and environmental potential of wind power generation for the
economic benefit of farmers, the people living in rural
communities and for the future energy security of American
society.
The wind energy education and
outreach project is funded by a two-year $200,000 grant from the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan and continues
throughout calendar years 2005 and 2006.
“Wind energy offers tremendous
economic development opportunity for rural America as well as an
important means to establish diverse, dispersed and
decentralized energy sources,” said Dan McGuire, ACGF CEO.
“Wind energy is an excellent source of renewable, sustainable
and clean energy for the 21st century. The American
Wind Energy Association estimates that wind could provide six
percent (6%) of America’s electricity by the year 2020. This new
grant will help the ACGF aggressively pursue that target.”
Gale Lush, ACGF Chairman stated,
“A new 2005 Nebraska Rural Poll, conducted by the University of
Nebraska, confirms a strong majority of Nebraskans think that
ten percent (10%) of the state’s electricity should be generated
from alternative energy sources. These new poll results
reconfirm ACGF national corn farmer surveys conducted in 2003
and 2004.” A May 2005 Yale University survey found that
eighty-seven percent (87%) of the public support expanded wind
farms. This level of support was found across all regions of the
country and in every demographic group. “The American Corn
Growers Foundation and American Corn Growers Association look
forward to continuing our lead agricultural sector role in
promoting community-based, farmer-owned wind energy as a
renewable, inexhaustible, new cash crop,” said Lush.
The American Corn Growers
Foundation (ACGF) is a nonprofit foundation that was formed in
1987 and is dedicated to meeting the needs of America’s
agricultural producers and rural citizens through the
development of educational and informational programs. The ACGF
works closely with the American Corn Growers Association as well
as other foundations, governmental agencies, farm, commodity,
rural and community-based organizations in carrying out its
educational and informational programs.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was
established in 1930 “to help people help themselves through the
practical application of knowledge and resources to improve
their quality of life and that of future generations.” Its
programming activities center around the common vision of a
world in which each person has a sense of worth, accepts
responsibility for self, family, community, and societal
well-being; and has the capacity to be productive, and to help
create nurturing families, responsive institutions, and healthy
communities.
To achieve the greatest impact,
the Foundation targets its grants toward specific areas. These
include: Health; food systems and rural development; youth and
education; and philanthropy and volunteerism. Within these
areas, attention is given to the crosscutting themes of
leadership; information and communication technology,
capitalizing on diversity, and social and economic community
development. Grants are concentrated in the United States,
Latin America and the Caribbean, and the southern African
countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa,
Swaziland and Zimbabwe |