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AdvertisementWheat Summit brings segments together for frank talkFrank, open and honest discussions are key to compromise agreements and revolutionary ideas. It's the philosophy behind the Wheat Summit, which is sponsored by the National Association of Wheat Growers and the North American Millers' Association. This forum, in its third year, brings all segments of the wheat industry--from growers and wheat breeders, to millers and bakers--into the same room to find solutions to the future of wheat production and the industry as a whole. All segments in one room The key topic of this year's Wheat Summit in Kansas City, Mo., was how to best bring biotech wheat from private and public research labs into fields and bakery cases in the next 10 to 15 years. Summit attendees also examined the wheat industries in Australia and Canada, which face similar competitiveness issues. "Even though we've had recent announcements from companies about recent investments in biotech wheat, we are decades away from seeing commercial production anywhere in the world," explained Daren Coppock, chief executive officer of NAWG. "We need to decide now how we'll deal with key issues." Those issues ran the gamut, from contemplating tolerance levels of the presence of biotech wheat in conventional wheat shipments, to ironing out technology transfers between private and public breeding programs. National Wheat Improvement Committee Chairman Dr. Jim Peterson, a wheat breeder from the University of Oregon, explained with the new investments announced every day in biotech wheat research, universities must look at their own roles in the future of wheat breeding. Universities bring several strengths to the table, he explained, including understanding managing germplasms and licensing, and enforcing intellectual property rights and liability issues. "We needed to all get on the same page to address these issues now as a wheat community, to set the stage for commercialization," Peterson said. He added universities also want to improve their partnerships with industry researchers to work on value capture for new and improved wheat varieties--conventional and biotech. "Value capture is a return on the royalties paid on seed, and how we can deploy traits through identity preservation chains to provide a return on investments," Peterson said. International involvement "I would echo comments that this was a very useful time together," said Betsy Faga, president of the North American Millers' Association. "This meeting, we intentionally wanted to bring in stakeholders from other countries. And I feel good about the progress made." Representatives from the Grain Growers of Canada and Agrifood Awareness Australia were on hand for the summit. Just this year, wheat interests in Canada, Australia and the United States signed a trilateral agreement regarding simultaneous introduction of any biotech wheat variety into the marketplace. Ensuring that the wheat industry across the globe understands the various issues surrounding biotech wheat is critical, Coppock said. Market acceptance, for example, will be key to bringing any commercial biotech wheat to market, he said. "We've seen hesitancy thus far in how to make sure the markets are ready for biotech wheat," he said. Everyone, from domestic millers to overseas buyers, is for the concept of choice in the market between conventional and biotech wheat varieties, Coppock added. Developing levels of tolerance for a presence of biotech wheat in a shipment of conventional wheat, for example, will require quite a bit of communication with overseas wheat markets and non-GM customers in the next few years, he said. Plans of action Coppock said the work ironing out these issues and more will continue in preparation for first commercialization of a biotech wheat variety. Commercial introduction of a biotech wheat variety is hoped to improve wheat's overall share in domestic farm production. NAWG members have set a goal of increasing wheat yields by 20 percent by 2018, with the hope that biotech wheat will play a part. A NAWG informal poll of growers, millers and bakers showed productivity traits and stress or dough tolerance were at the top of the list, Coppock said. Richard Phillips, executive director of Grain Growers of Canada, explained his country's producers would like to see a biotech wheat that addresses fusarium levels, to ensure a safer product for consumers. Faga said as far as her millers are concerned, they would like a variety with improved milling quality, but they understand that production traits will be first on the research priority list. "I know we have to start somewhere and the easier researched things have to be first on the list," Faga said. "We understand that we have to get a start and as we go down the road we will get traits more useful to millers. Every step will benefit us all in the long run." NAWG and the North American Millers' Association held the first Wheat Summit in September 2006 to allow representatives of growers, trait providers, agribusinesses, millers, bakers, grocery stores and others throughout the wheat chain the opportunity to talk about the many challenges facing domestic wheat production. Those attendees then formed workgroups to focus on technology and research; domestic competitiveness; domestic farm policy; and export markets. Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com.
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