RR Wheat: NAWG Doesn't Speak for Me
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
David Dechant -- CropChoice guest commmentary --

"Wheat Groups Ask USDA to shun biotech critics" says the headline
of an Apr. 25 Reuters article. It tells how the US Wheat Associates
and the Wheat Export Trade Education Committee "joined with NAWG
(National Association of Wheat Growers) to assert that the biotech
opponents did not represent the interests of the wheat industry."

Well, who are the biotech opponents? I know of no one who opposes the
science of biotechnology and these wheat groups should not label
people opposed to transgenic wheat with such a broad term. On the
other hand, I do know many folks who have serious concerns with whatís
going on in one field of biotechnology, that being, the creation of
transgenic crops and animals, as well as with how the companies doing
so are promoting and commercializing them. This includes a good many
consumers. Do they not eat wheat, too? Are consumers not a vital part
of any industry?

And, what makes NAWG, WETEC, and US Wheat Associates think they and
they alone represent the interests of the most basic part of the US
wheat industry, the American wheat farmer himself? I find that fellow
farmers who are anxious for RR wheat's introduction are few and far in
between.

Just because wheat farmers are forced to pay an assessment, a.k.a.
checkoff, upon selling their wheat, part of which goes to help fund
these groups, doesn't mean they speak for the vast majority of
farmers.

In fact, last spring, farmers overwhelmingly rejected an initiative in
Colorado to increase the wheat checkoff from one cent to two cents per
bushel by 62 percent against to 38 per cent in favor. Being that only
twenty percent of wheat farmers even bothered to return their ballots
in the first place, only about one out of every dozen wheat farmers,
therefore, took any action to increase the checkoff. Farmers certainly
feel they aren't getting any bang for their money, or else they would
have approved the increase, especially being that the increased
portion would have been refundable even if it did pass!

NAWGís state affiliates are voluntary membership organizations and are
supposed to be separate from state checkoff boards. In practice, they
are not so separate and, in many cases, share staff and offices. So
when Colorado Association of Wheat Growers Executive Director Darrell
Hanavan testified against GMO labeling at the Colorado statehouse a
few years ago, I couldn't tell whether he was speaking for the growers
association or the checkoff board, that being the Colorado Wheat
Administrative Committee, as he is Executive Director of it, too.

Consequently, being that the original portion of the Colorado wheat
checkoff is mandatory, I felt like my own money was being used against
me and still do. Though I can choose not to be a member of groups
heavily dependent upon agribusiness donations and favors for their
existence, like CAWG or NAWG, I cannot choose whether I want to be
assessed or to which group Iíd like to send my money if I want to be
assessed. But if I had a choice, no groups that take corporate
donations or try to force RR wheat upon an unwilling market would get
any of my money. And, that includes the US Wheat Associates and WETEC
when they join in with agribusiness friendly NAWG in writing to the
USDA "to assert that the biotech opponents did not represent the
interests of the wheat industry."

They speak for Monsanto and the few wheat farmers looking forward to
RR wheat, but not for me or numerous other like-minded farmers. Nor do
they speak for consumers, without whom there would be no wheat market.
With this in mind, a more fitting title for the Reuters article would
be, "Monsanto Influences Wheat Groups in Asking USDA to Ignore
Consumers."

David Dechant grows wheat, corn and alfalfa in Colorado.