NAICC News July 2026
NAICC's Leadership Program
By Laurie Bennett
Effective professional organizations, such as the National Alliance of Independent Crop Consultants, depend heavily on the active engagement and leadership of their members to sustain growth and relevance. By investing in strong leadership development initiatives, these organizations create meaningful opportunities for members to expand their skills, assume greater responsibilities, and contribute at higher levels within both the organization and the broader professional community.
One of NAICC’s key missions is to create meaningful opportunities for leadership development, recognizing that impactful leaders are cultivated over time. This commitment is reflected in a structured leadership program designed to strengthen both the organization and its exceptional members. Purposeful and mission-driven, NAICC’s program emphasizes agricultural sustainability through the development of emerging leaders. This leadership opportunity is delivered through five comprehensive modules over the course of one year, equipping participants with the skills, knowledge, and experience needed to lead effectively within the industry.
- Module I – NAICC Annual Meeting - This module focuses on acquiring a better understanding and involvement of NAICC. All Leadership candidates and their mentor focus on networking with new members, sustaining members, exhibitors and other levels of membership. A targeted focus for this module is to provide opportunities for committee involvement and a deeper exploration of the various facets of NAICC.
- Module II – Ray Young Governmental Affairs - This module focusses on advocating for NAICC and the industry it serves and being an effective resource for lawmakers and government agencies. The module takes place in Washington D.C. with participants accompanying Executive Board or other Governmental Affairs Committee members on Hill visits.
- Module III – Networking Field Visits – This module encourages networking and building rapport among Agricultural professionals. Each leadership participants is paired with an experienced NAICC member who works within the participants’ expertise and an experienced NAICC member who works outside the participant’s expertise. These focused site visits allow collaborative discussions on the dynamics and challenges of their business operation, discussion of local, state and national issues that affect their business and opportunities to discuss issues that are key to NAICC and their hosts.
- Module IV – Dale Carnegie Course - Completion of this course is to transform individuals into even strong leaders, confident communicators, and effective problem solves concentrating on the five core pillars: communication, human relations, self-confidents, leadership and stress management. This module focuses on using their Leadership skills to promote NAICC and agriculture in general.
- Module V – NAICC Annual Meeting – This module focuses on the skills and attributes learned an or improved upon during the past year. The Leadership participants will make a presentation about the Leadership Program, their experiences and opportunities from their time on the Hill, their networking field visits highlights, expanding on their growth from the Dale Carnegie course and the accumulation of leadership and professional growth from the Leadership program.
NAICC, like many other robust professional
organizations, knows that investing in leadership development opportunities
creates growth and focuses on members being more involved at a high level of
leadership. NAICC encourages members to
take advantage of the Leadership Program and develop their professional and
personal skills to the next level.
Learn more here.
By Keith Jones
July 2026
The theme of this month’s HOH is, with a hat tip to Scottish poet Robert Burns, ‘the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray”. As you recall, the House Ag Committee passed Farm Bill 2.0 on Thursday, April 30 while the Senate rolled out its draft on June 23.
Shortly after its release, Senate Chair John Boozman indicated his committee would move to mark up the draft after the Senate’s July 4th recess, which came and went with no markup.
The delay is due in part to Senator Mitch McConnell’s weekslong hospitalization which greatly complicates Boozman’s plans: without McConnell, Republicans lack the votes to advance the legislation out of committee, while Democrats have vowed to oppose the bill because it excludes their top policy demands.
While McConnell’s vote is needed, it’s not the only reason a markup has not occurred as sources continue to say that Bozeman has yet to find a bipartisan path forward given the legislation’s rejection of Democrats’ demand to delay the start date for states to begin the cost sharing of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. Democrats have been adamant they won’t back a farm bill without that delay.
Recent reports say that Boozman is discussing potential changes with state officials and Senate leadership indicating that he continues to be open to finding a path forward.
But the sand is rapidly running through the hourglass. While the House and Senate are now both in session, it’s the last time this will happen until the week of Sept. 14, nearly two months from now.
The Senate will be in session through Aug. 7, while House members are leaving on Thursday July 22nd for five weeks not returning until Aug. 31.
If Boozman can’t find a path forward when Congress returns from its summer recess, he runs the risk of trying to pass a bill during a post-election lame-duck session, where history has shown that getting a massive, trillion-dollar farm bill to the Resolute Desk becomes exponentially more difficult.
EPA's Office of Compliance Launches GLP Email
Need guidance on Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) compliance? The U.S. EPA's Office of Compliance has established a dedicated email address where GLP-related questions can be submitted directly to EPA inspectors.
Questions sent to GLP@epa.gov will be monitored by GLP inspectors within the EPA's Compliance, Inspector, and Training Division, who will provide responses to GLP compliance inquiries.
This new resource offers laboratories and research organizations a direct line to EPA personnel for GLP compliance questions and clarification.
2026 NAICC GAC Washington DC Trip By Brady Dreamer I have been a member of NAICC and have attended meetings since 2023. Last year I was encouraged to apply to the Leadership Program, and I couldn’t believe it when I was selected. I was excited, but nervous at first when I learned at the Annual Meeting in January that the DC trip was just a month away, and I would be standing in front of Senators, House Representatives, Ag Agencies, and speaking on behalf of NAICC, which was something I had never pictured myself doing. So fast forward a month, and I’m walking onto Capitol Hill with no idea what I had gotten myself into. The NAICC Leadership Program is a yearlong program with five different modules that allow the participant to become more involved with the operations of NAICC. There is Foundation for Environmental Agriculture Education (FEAE) fundraising at the Annual Meeting, a trip to Washington, DC with the Governmental Affairs Committee (GAC), in-field visits to contract researchers and crop consultants, a Dale Carnegie leadership course, and a final presentation back at the next Annual Meeting to share your experiences with the rest of the NAICC members. The first day of the Washington, DC trip was a prep day, which helped calm my nerves a bit. James Todd, Keith Jones, Matt Eich, Allison Jones, and the others attending did a fantastic job at explaining the issues and the reasons for meeting with the people lined up on the schedule. There were meetings set up with members of Congress, the Senate and House Agriculture Committees, the American Farm Bureau, the EPA, CropLife America, to name a few. The common topics of discussion revolved around MAHA, pesticide use, getting the Farm Bill passed in 2026, and working with the different agencies when it relates to endangered species. I was impressed by the GAC members’ extensive knowledge on these topics and tried my best to be a sponge and soak it all in. Every Tuesday, Senator Joni Ernst and her staff meet with people during a coffee and donuts hour to listen to people advocating for different things. Laurie Bennett, Angel Palacio (the other Leadership Candidate), and I attended this gathering on Tuesday morning. Angel and I spoke with a few of Senator Ernst’s staff about NAICC and why we were visiting DC. It was amazing to see that most of the staff are my age or younger, which is something I don’t think most people realize. A lot of the time, the staffers are the ones collecting information and doing research on topics, and then providing that information to the members of Congress. On Tuesday afternoon, I had some time between meetings to go sightseeing. Laurie and I visited three different museums which was awesome. The State of the Union was taking place Tuesday night, so the security was intense walking around downtown DC. We went on a monument tour and got to see all the statues and memorials that I used to read about in my history textbooks. My favorite view was standing in the Jefferson Monument, looking across the water at the Washington Monument. By Wednesday, I was rolling into these meetings feeling more confident. In two of them, I had people from two different agencies ask me about drones, which I was delighted to answer. Drone image analysis on small plot research has been my whole career to this point, and I was pleased to be able to contribute my expertise to the conversation. It was a reminder that everyone on this trip brings something different to the table and you never know which piece of your background is going to be the one that comes up. For someone who walked onto Capitol Hill that first day with no idea what I had gotten myself into, I left on Thursday with the feeling of accomplishment. The Leadership Program has shown me a different side of NAICC that I was unaware, and I’m only halfway through the program. If you have been thinking about applying, or if you know an NAICC member who would be a good fit, please nominate them. It’s an experience that is difficult to describe until you have experienced it yourself. I am looking forward to the rest of the modules and the conversations that come with them. |
SPOTLIGHT ON SUSTAINING MEMBER: AskMyFarm
By Rinkal Patel
Stop Typing, Keep Consulting
How AskMyFarm Automates Scouting and 45Z Compliance
For independent crop consultants, the value you bring to the farm is your agronomic expertise, not your data-entry speed. Yet, between relentless summer scouting routes and the looming complexity of new carbon programs, consultants are spending more time behind a screen than ever before.
Growers rely on their advisors to make sense of the noise, but managing disconnected software, matching shapefiles, and manually transcribing field notes simply isn't sustainable.
The Double-Data Entry
Trap
The
challenge for the modern crop consultant is that execution lives in one place
(the tractor monitor), while observations live in another (a notepad or a text
message). When you add the new burden of calculating Carbon Intensity (CI)
scores for the 45Z tax credit—which now requires continuous Nitrogen Use
Efficiency (NUE) math and strict T-DISC (soil-disturbance index) tillage
thresholds—the manual approach breaks down completely.
Voice-to-Workflow
Scouting
AskMyFarm
(AMF) was built to eliminate this friction. We are an unbiased,
farmer-controlled "Command Center" designed to get consultants out of
the spreadsheet and back into the field.
Our platform features an offline voice-scouting engine. You simply speak your field observations from the truck or the cab. AskMyFarm’s AI automatically structures the note, geo-tags it, pulls the hourly weather and inversion risk, and syncs it with the grower's John Deere Operations Center. What used to take hours of evening data entry is now a verified, real-time ledger created instantly in the field.
In the last 2 months alone, scouts, consultants and growers have logged over 1,600 verified voice-scouting observations across 8 states using AskMyFarm. To see our Voice-Scouting in action, visit: www.askmyfarm.us/field-notes
Automating the 45Z
Headache
Because
AskMyFarm is passively ingesting John Deere machine data, we also solve the 45Z
compliance nightmare automatically.
Instead of asking you or the grower to fill out 40-page manual surveys, AskMyFarm uses the exact as-applied JD Ops data to run the new June 2026 USDA FD-CIC math. We calculate the NUE, verify the tillage passes, and standardize the yield moisture to generate an audit-ready CI score payload for the ethanol plant. Read our breakdown of the new USDA rules and try our free 45Z Calculator at: www.askmyfarm.us/45z-explained
Built for Independent
Advisors
Like
NAICC members, AskMyFarm is fiercely independent. We do not sell seed or
chemicals, and we don't sell data. Today, AskMyFarm is actively managing over
450,000 acres across the Midwest, providing an automated verification engine so
you can focus on maximizing grower ROI.
To learn more and connect with our team, visit: www.askmyfarm.us
What our users are saying:
"When you are managing 30 to 35 fields in a single day, typing quick notes often leads to details blurring together by the end of the day. AskMyFarm's voice dictation and AI summarizing allows us to generate detailed field reports without slowing down our workflow in the truck." — Independent Crop Consultant, KS
"We had three or four wind and hail events happen this summer. Trying to track field notes and photos for crop adjusters manually was chaos. AskMyFarm gives us a verified, GPS-stamped record of exactly what happened in the field." — Producer, NE
2026 Agronomy Conference & Expo
As a member of NAICC, qualified crop consultants are eligible for complimentary registration. Please complete this form to request complimentary registration.
GLP Research Scientist
North Rose, New York | Full-Time
Lange Research & Consulting, Inc. is seeking an experienced Research Scientist to lead operations at our Northern New York research facility. This position oversees research staff, daily site operations, regulatory compliance, client relationships, and seasonal business development.
Required Qualifications:
- GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) experience
- Proven leadership in agricultural or contract research
- Strong organizational, communication, and team management skills
We offer a competitive salary, comprehensive benefits, and the opportunity to lead a well-established research location.
TAKE YOUR PROFESSIONALISM ONE STEP FURTHER
NAICC offers its members valuable opportunities to advance their professional credentials through the Certified Professional Crop Consultant (CPCC) program. Earning certification from NAICC not only strengthens your credibility and demonstrates your expertise but also provides new avenues for career growth in the agricultural consulting industry.
The CPCC program is recognized by the EPA, USDA, and other federal agencies when recommending experts for federal and state initiatives. CPCC certified professionals are listed in programs such as the Worker Protection Standard, Endangered Species Act strategy documents, and can serve as Technical Service Providers. Additionally, CPCC-certified individuals are regarded as “agricultural experts” by USDA’s Risk Management Agency, which enables them to provide Good Farming Practice (GFP) recommendations for documenting growers’ Federal Crop Insurance Claims.
For details on certification requirements, scan the QR Code below or visit the NAICC website at https://naicc.org/about-us/cpcc-certification/.
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Exclusive NAICC Member Benefit: Save 50% on the AcreBlitz Advisor Tool
NAICC is pleased to partner with AcreBlitz to bring members an exclusive 50% discount on the AcreBlitz Advisor Tool. As part of this introductory offer:
NAICC Members: $0.15 per acre
Non-Members: $0.30 per acre
The AcreBlitz Advisor Tool simplifies ESA compliance by bringing all the information consultants need into one platform. Import grower fields, and AcreBlitz automatically retrieves county-level mitigation points, soil types, hydrologic zones, and slope data. The system assigns available mitigation points, generates pre-filled compliance reports, and allows consultants to document additional field-specific mitigation practices—all in real time.
Instead of spending months gathering information from multiple government databases, consultants can complete the process in minutes, saving valuable time while improving efficiency and accuracy.
Take advantage of this exclusive NAICC member benefit while introductory pricing lasts. Sign up today at acreblitz.com/advisor-signup.
NAICC Academy is dedicated to empowering our members for the agriculture of tomorrow—helping ensure a strong, sustainable future for our industry. As the hub for NAICC’s webinars, online training, and educational sessions, the Academy provides year-round professional development tailored specifically for our members, their employees, and industry partners.
Visit our website to explore available webinars and start learning today.
Answer the following question for a chance to win a $50 Visa Gift Card:
Which crop is naturally capable of adding nitrogen to the soil through a symbiotic relationship with bacteria?Submit your answer HERE!
Last Issue Answer Was: North Carolina
Deb Green
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BEWARE OF SPAM EMAILS! Several members reported receiving emails about the 2027 NAICC Annual Meeting. These emails are not from NAICC. Please note that NAICC does not use third-party companies to contact attendees about hotel reservations, travel arrangements or attendee lists. If you receive an email or phone call offering to book your hotel room or requesting payment, it is not authorized by NAICC. Annual Meeting materials will be available September 14, 2026. Official NAICC communications regarding the Annual Meeting will only come from one of the following email addresses: If you receive a suspicious email regarding the Annual Meeting, please do not respond, do not click any links, or provide personal information. If you are unsure whether an email is legitimate, please contact NAICC office before taking any action. |
Thank you to the Newsletter/Marketing Committee
Thank you to the Newsletter/Marketing Committee Members for putting this issue together!
If you would like to submit an article or have a suggestion for the NAICC News, please contact Karla Jensen or Allison Jones.