April/May 1997
NAWG Organizes Wheat
Industry Research Initiative
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Prairie Grains is the
official publication of
the Minnesota
Association of
Wheat Growers,
North Dakota Grain
Growers Association,
South Dakota Wheat,
Inc., and the
Minnesota Barley
Growers Association.
Attention and resources under the initiative will focus on three major diseases that affect all segments of the wheat industry: Karnal bunt, TCK smut and fusarium head blight (scab).
The objectives of the WIRI are to provide a sound economic and scientific basis for the reduction or removal of various market barriers, develop research priorities that benefit the entire wheat industry, and create a dialogue throughout the wheat industry chain that results in improved communication from the producer to the end user (and vice versa).
Other segments of the industry, including exporters, input suppliers, millers, bakers, government and academia are being encouraged to participate in the project.
A first step to the initiative will be to quantify the economic impact these diseases have on all segments of the industry, including effects on international trade. The initiative will develop an economic profile of costs and losses to each sector of the wheat industry and its association with production declines, as well as quality deterioration and losses due to market impediments caused by the three diseases.
Groundbreaking economic analysis
The economic analysis will be the first comprehensive, national, industry-wide estimates of the impact of these diseases. The information from different segments and regions will be gathered and analyzed by Lynn Daft of the economic consulting firm of Promar International, Alexandria, VA.
After the analysis is complete, an economic profile of the impact of Karnal bunt, TCK and scab will be compiled into a "white paper" that will be presented at a WIRI Symposium that will be held on June 30 and July 1, 1997 in Portland, Oregon.
At the symposium, representatives from all segments of the industry will create industry-wide research priorities for wheat, and discuss how the diseases have affected partners up and down the wheat chain. By having bakers communicate their quality and cost concerns in the forum with plant breeders, common goals for producing the highest quality product with the maximum value can be established.
By the end of the symposium, recommendations will be developed on how to best focus shrinking public and private research dollars to solve industry-wide disease issues. An industry-wide research symposium may become an annual event, similar to the annual Beltwide Cotton Conference that brings together segments of the cotton industry into a central meeting to discuss and prioritize issues.
Richard Owen, head of the NAWG Foundation and Jim Miller, NAWG's vice president of government affairs, are coordinating the research initiative project.