A bill introduced in the Nebraska Unicameral would modify the structure of the state’s wheat checkoff.
The legislation, introduced by ag committee chair Tom Carlson of Holdrege, would allow the checkoff to be based on a percentage of total value rather than the current per bushel flat rate.
If implemented, the wheat checkoff would be set—at least initially—at one-half of one percent of the total value.
Nebraska Wheat Growers Association president Dayton Christensen of Big Springs says that would be a big improvement over the current one and one-quarter cents per bushel rate, where it’s been since 1989.
We’re the second lowest checkoff of all the states,” Christensen explains. “Over the last 20 years, we’ve had a steady decrease in acres planted (to wheat).”
That drop in wheat acres in recent years has sliced the Nebraska Wheat Board’s budget from approximately 900-thousand dollars in 2006 to around 660-thousand this year.
“We’ve actually turned down or cut funding on 15 different projects in the 2011-2012 fiscal year,” Christensen says.
The Wheat Board would use the extra checkoff dollars to support university research programs to develop higher-yielding wheat varieties, Christensen says—as well as programs to increase wheat consumption in the U.S. and around the world.
AUDIO: Dayton Christensen (6:05 MP3)
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