Milling & Baking News - October 18, 2022 - 29

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DeMarchi keys on transparency,
reinvigorated activity at NAMA
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. - Transparency,
reengagement and collaboration were
watchwords for the North American Millers'
Association over the past year, said
Jane DeMarchi, president of NAMA. The
organization was able to accomplish much
with a modest budget and has ambitious
plans for the coming year, she added.
Ms. DeMarchi offered comments
about the group in a state of the
association presentation Oct. 2
during the general session of the
group's annual meeting at the
Royal Palms Resort & Spa in Scottsdale.
She further fleshed out her
remarks in an interview with Milling
& Baking News later that day.
The annual meeting was NAMA's
second held in person since Ms.
DeMarchi was named president in
August 2020.
A monthly call to update members
interested in what is transpiring
at NAMA is one example
offered by Ms. DeMarchi of how the
group is working to communicate
openly and effectively. The state
of the association presentation at
the NAMA annual meeting represents
another example. It has
been decades since the organization's
head has presented such an
organizational update during the
meeting, and the remarks in the past were
delivered to the group's board rather than
in a general session.
Also new, Ms. DeMarchi shared sumA
mill to be built as part of the project is
expected to be one of the nation's largest
wheat flour mills. Several non-milling
companies joined NAMA as associate
members, including Bayer AG, Great
Plains Analytical Lab, Lesaffre, MC Muehlenchemie
and Nestle SA.
Activities that had gone dormant
industry professionals.
Collaborations are key to making
NAMA's advocacy more effective and cost
efficient, Ms. DeMarchi said. Areas of
work that featured meaningful collaborations
over the past year included:
* Agricultural research - which
helped generate $750,000 of new government
funding for oat research and aflatoxin
mitigation;
* Food aid - NAMA takes a leadership
role convening agricultural groups;
* FDA engagement - NAMA met with
representatives of the agency on
Texas farmland to show how when
cattle are allowed to graze on
wheat farmland, sanitation issues
may emerge;
* Turkish flour subsidies -
working with US Wheat Associates;
*
IAOM - working together to
bolster the Department of Grain
Science and Industry at Kansas
State University and jointly developing
comments on a potential heat
standard.
On agricultural transportation
issues, NAMA has been working
together with the National Grain
and Feed Association.
During the annual meeting,
Jane DeMarchi
mary financial data for the organization,
showing budgeted revenues for the fiscal
year ended Sept. 30 of $1.8 million. While
NAMA targets a near breakeven budget
with a modest surplus, she said the association
had a significant surplus in fiscal 2022,
helping replenish an operating reserve
that had been depleted in the late 2010s.
A new member - Amber Wave -
joined NAMA during the past year.
Amber Wave is in the process of building
a large production facility for vital wheat
gluten and ethanol in Phillipsburg, Kan.
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during the COVID-19 pandemic resumed
over the past year, including food aid
work, with a mission to Kenya. Representatives
of Didion Milling Co. and SEMO
Milling LLC participated in the mission.
In April, 175 flour millers and others
attended the NAMA 2022 Spring Conference
in South Carolina. Two months later,
21 millers attended the group's annual
policy conference in Washington, an
event that featured visits to the offices of
48 members of the US Senate and House of
Representatives.
Ms. DeMarchi encouraged the millers
to bring summer interns to the policy conference
as a way to generate excitement
about milling among potential future
a strategic planning task force
agreed to engage an outside consultant
to facilitate a strategic planning
process for NAMA. It would
be the third time since NAMA was
established in 1998 that the group
would develop a strategic plan and the
first time an external professional consultant
was used for the process.
After interviewing representatives
of three firms, NAMA selected Roots
and Legacies, based in Manhattan, Kan.
NAMA will work with a team at Roots and
Legacies that includes Emily Lehning, one
of the firm's co-founders.
Ms. DeMarchi said a strategic plan
adopted by the millers in the 1990s largely
had been left unchanged for about 20
years. Broad objectives adopted in the
1990s included supporting free trade,
promoting an adequate supply of optimal
quality grains, ensuring member interests
are represented through political
MILLING & BAKING NEWS 29
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Milling & Baking News - October 18, 2022

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