A four-year effort to create a single voice for the U.S. wheat industry should be resolved in the next few weeks.
But it remains uncertain if the proposal to merge three U.S. wheat organizations will get the go-ahead.
The fate of the merger will likely be determined Oct. 3, when the board of directors of the National Association of Wheat Growers votes on the latest proposal from U.S. Wheat Associates. NAWG president Sherman Reese has serious doubts as to whether it will be approved.
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“Based on previous votes, we believe it will not pass the NAWG board in its present form,” he said.
If the proposal is defeated, said Reese, it might be time to recognize that a mutually agreeable consolidation plan is not achievable.
“One way or another, we need to put this issue to bed in October,” he said.
Delicate merger
The big issue is how to weight votes between the check-off funded state wheat commissions that make up USW and the voluntary-membership state grower groups that make up NAWG. The latest proposal from USW would see more voting power placed in the hands of the commissions because that’s where most of the money will be coming from.
NAWG says the proposal would concentrate money and power in the hands of the commissions and marginalize the grower associations.
In a letter to USW this summer, Reese suggested five alternative methods of weighting votes.
“If USW cannot accept any of these alternatives, then we will propose that the present consolidation effort be terminated,” he said.
The merger proposal involves three organizations:
- NAWG is the Washington-based national federation of state-based grower associations.
- U.S. Wheat Associates is a trade development group.
- The Wheat Export Trade Education Committee is funded by U.S. Wheat and focuses on lobbying Congress and other policy-makers.
The idea behind the merger has been to create a more influential lobby group for U.S. wheat growers.
