American wheat groups are looking to speak with one voice on the major issues facing their troubled industry.
At a day-long meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, on Sept. 7 – dubbed the Wheat Summit – some 60 individuals representing just about every link in the wheat industry production and marketing chain got together to talk about their industry’s problems and how to fix them.
The issues on the table ranged from declining wheat acreage, low prices and domestic farm programs that favour other crops over wheat, to a lack of research funding, declining domestic consumption and sluggish exports.
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Looming over everything was the issue of genetically modified wheat, which has created rifts among producers, researchers, input suppliers and marketers.
Some say the wheat industry has suffered from its reluctance to embrace GM technology, while others say the industry has to pay attention to its foreign customers, most of whom want nothing to do with GM wheat.
While the groups hadn’t formulated a specific plan of action by the end of the day, they did issue a statement identifying the issues that need to be worked on and agreed to set up a steering committee to figure out what to do next.
Daren Coppock, chief executive officer of the National Association of Wheat Growers, which played a major role in organizing the meeting, said he was pleased with the way things went.
“In retrospect, we had a lot of people in that room who had never even met before, so to agree on a policy statement after seven hours is pretty good,” he said, especially considering the wide range of groups present, including producers, input suppliers, exporters, grain handlers, processors, food companies and retailers.
“It’s the first time we’re ever had everybody like that together in one room at the same time that I can recall.”
The meeting was organized in response to a discussion paper released in June by a coalition of wheat groups suggesting the U.S. wheat industry was in a state of crisis.
It noted that wheat’s share of field crop receipts has declined from around 20 percent in the 1980s to a little more than 10 percent now.
Wheat yields have failed to keep pace with other crops such as corn and soybeans, and acreage has been declining sharply, a trend likely to be exacerbated by growing demand for biodiesel and ethanol.
The Sept. 7 meeting identified four priority areas in which the industry has to work together to find common ground: research and technology policy, including GM wheat issues; domestic farm policy; declining wheat acreage and export markets.
Coppock acknowledged that it won’t be possible to achieve unanimous agreement on every issue, including GM wheat, but getting everyone to at least agree to work together is a step in the right direction.
“We’re just trying to communicate and collaborate a lot more than we’ve done before and a lot of momentum was created towards that,” he said.
There’s no doubt that the wheat industry will have more success lobbying with Congress if it speaks with a united voice, he added.
“We’re much more likely to get the things done that we want if we can show consensus.”
