CROOKSTON, Minn. -- After December's defeat of the referendum to raise the Minnesota wheat checkoff rate, the Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers and the Minnesota Wheat Promotion and Research Council are conducting surveys to assess what the growers would support. The results are encouraging.
"We're really happy with the support that this survey brought out," Executive Director Dave Torgerson says. "There is a large percent (82 percent) that said we should develop a new proposal that growers could support and vote on."
They will have to wait one year to vote again. Meantime, the idea is to make sure that growers can vote on a rate with which they agree.
"It is the growers' checkoff," he says. "We moved pretty quickly last time. We've got the awareness now. I think it's just developing a proposal that a large group of growers can support."
Thus far, it appears that a strong majority of the growers surveyed would support at least a 25 cent-per-acre increase.
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"Sixty percent of the growers would support a checkoff of 50 cents per acre. That equates to about a penny a bushel. And 85 percent would support a rate of 25 cents or more," Torgerson says.
For now, they will continue to gather grower input. By summer, they expect to be able to formalize a plan, if supported by the growers, to set up a new vote in the winter.
