By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent
 
LANSING, Mich. — After being the so-called “quiet commodity” for years, wheat may be getting ready to speak up a little louder.

People in the wheat industry in Michigan are in the midst of trying to get a new checkoff program for the little talked-about commodity. Late last year a group of wheat producers approached Bob Boehm, Michigan Farm Bureau manager of the commodity and marketing department, about initiating a checkoff program for wheat. It’s been 10 years since such an initiative was last attempted. That attempt failed by a small margin.

Producers have to approve such a program under Michigan law, which is Public Act (P.A.) 232 of 1965, the Agricultural Commodities Marketing Act. This law “sets the parameters for the program,” said Debbie Merrill, an assistant to the administrative law unit at the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA).
Merrill was contacted and gave a presentation to the group about how the process works, she said. Sometime not long after, the group turned in a petition with language that would be used for a signature drive. Two hundred signatures or 25 percent of commercial producers are needed to move forward, whichever is less.

The process would culminate in a vote of those producers affected by such a checkoff. Merrill said the language in a petition like this is pretty standard. As of this writing, 130 signatures have been gathered.

Currently there are 12 checkoff programs in Michigan, including, most prominently, corn and soybeans. A checkoff program for wheat would mean wheat growers would be assessed a fee on their harvest; typically this amounts to one-half of 1 percent of its value. The proceeds would be used to help producers market their product and to communicate their concerns to others who use it, such as millers. Much has changed in the 10 years since the last time a checkoff program for wheat was attempted, according to Martin Nagelkirk, a Michigan State University extension educator based in Sanilac County.

“Support from the public sector has really diminished over the past 10 years,” he said. “Looking down the road, I think it’s clear the leadership needs to come from growers. I think it’s timely that they play a more predominant role.”

To put it bluntly, Nagelkirk said, there is not nearly as much support from either the MSU or MDA anymore to help wheat producers deal with their problems.
“We’ve seen the success of other checkoffs,” he said. “They’ve helped convene the discussion of issues. I think that’s different now. I also think there’s the realization that wheat is a very important crop. We need to be supportive of those industries that support Michigan. The wheat industry is very important in Michigan.

Matt Frostic, a farmer from Sanilac County, is chair of the Farm Bureau’s Feed Grains and Oilseed Committee and a wheat grower. He farms about 3,000 acres of land with a friend. He thinks a checkoff program for wheat would be helpful.
“There’s just a lot of issues that we’ve had,” Frostic said. “We talked and decided we really need to deal with these issues collectively. The checkoff would be huge in dealing with marketability, research and development, breeding and dealing with industry issues from year to year.”

As long as the group gets enough signatures, public hearings will be held over the summer, with a possible vote on the checkoff later in the year.