Promotion and market development through research, education and information
The Kansas Wheat Commission is funded by a two cent per bushel, voluntary assessment on each bushel of wheat grown in Kansas and sold to a Kansas grain elevator. According to state statute, “…Such assessment shall be levied and assessed to the grower at the time of sale, and shall be shown as a deduction by the first purchaser from the price paid in settlement to the grower.”
The Kansas Wheat Commission was created by the Kansas Legislature in 1957 to conduct a campaign of grain commodity promotion and market development through research, education and information.
Kansas Wheat has developed a long-term strategic plan to help Kansas wheat producers meet the challenges of the future. Kansas Wheat is the cooperative agreement between the Kansas Wheat Commission and the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers who have joined together to be leaders in the adoption of profitable innovations for wheat. Through several below average harvests and decreasing wheat acres, the Kansas Wheat Commissioners have done their best to maintain essential investments. Even with dramatic cuts in expenditures, reserves have been depleted. Maintaining essential investments is important, but to enhance the competitiveness of wheat by facilitating the development and adoption of innovation for wheat producers, additional investment is needed.
Since 2001, Kansas State University has experienced a loss of 15 - 20% in state support, just in wheat research. For the past several years, wheat producers have been asked to fill in this gap. This struggle for funding is making it harder and harder to keep young, aspiring scientists interested in wheat.
Advances have been made in crop science to utilize biotechnology traits such as plant resistance to insect or disease as well as tolerance to herbicide and environmental conditions such as drought. Yet wheat has not enjoyed any of these new traits because of consumer perceptions about this technology.
The Kansas Wheat Innovation Center (KWIC) was built in 2012 to get improved varieties into the hands of farmers faster.
The Kansas Wheat Innovation Center was built by the Kansas Wheat Commission, through the Kansas wheat checkoff. It represents the single largest investment by wheat farmers in the nation. The Center was built on land owned by Kansas State University; the Kansas Wheat Commission has a 50-year lease on the property.