BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — As of April 17, Illinois wheat producers have a voluntary state check-off program. Wheat growers voted 207 to 69 to implement the program, a first for the state of Illinois, with a 1.5 cent per bushel at-market assessment rate, effective January 1, 2026. 

John Howell, president of the Illinois Wheat Growers Association (IWGA), said a number of factors combined to make the timing right to bring a checkoff referendum to the state’s growers. 

“If you look at wheat acres here in the state of Illinois, 20 years ago we were at one million acres. Through the late-to-mid 2000s and 2010s wheat incurred various challenges, whether it was disease hitting the crops or weather events that degraded the quality of the wheat crop, so there was a major exodus of wheat production in the state of Illinois, with acreage cut nearly in half,” said Howell, who farms alongside his father, Christopher, in the southwestern Illinois counties of Monroe and Randolph. 

“There were roughly a half-million wheat acres in Illinois around 10 years ago. Since then there has been tremendous genetic research and advancements, there’s been huge advancements in crop protection and management practices, along with a lot of avenues for improvements in markets, price points, economics and the ability to double-crop soybeans with changes to federal crop insurance rules,” continued Howell, who has served on the ILWA board of directors since 2020, with one year as vice-president and two as president.   

“I think from a timing standpoint the outlook on raising wheat and double-crop soybeans together as a viable rotation has never been brighter. We’ve seen enormous gains as far as productivity is concerned, and with a support system that sort of levels the playing field with corn and soybeans, the checkoff program was something we thought was imperative.”

ILWA formed a committee around two years ago to explore the feasibility of establishing a wheat checkoff program. Working hand in hand with wheat industry leaders, the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) and other state ag commodity groups including Illinois Corn and Illinois Soy, the committee began building momentum towards a checkoff referendum. 

“Prior to the checkoff program, the ILWA was the best way for like-minded individuals to share information on wheat production and also learn better management practices to help drive forward the initiatives of the wheat industry in Illinois. This is what the ILWA has tried to do over its history, and I think you’ll see some really nice partnerships formed with the millers in this state, and the universities that research wheat production,” Howell said. 

In the coming weeks, the Illinois Wheat Checkoff Committee, in conjunction with the IDOA, will be implementing procedures for the fall 2025 election of members to the Illinois Wheat Development Board.

“This has taken a lot of work from individuals who wanted to see wheat prosper in the state of Illinois at levels it hasn’t reached before,” said Howell. “To get that accomplished we had to get petition signatures from 500 wheat producers in the state to bring it to a vote. It passed by a large margin, so now the committee will get to work on identifying the nine individuals who will serve on that checkoff board. Those nine individuals will then build the framework of what the checkoff program will look like. We want to be focused on research, we want to be focused on improvements and production, end-use markets and driving the viability of wheat further forward.”

Not much initial checkoff money will likely be spent on political lobbying efforts, according to the ILWA president. “We want to stay skinny as far as overhead. We want this to be a grassroots thing that goes back to the actual growers who are investing in it,” Howell said. 

The new Illinois wheat checkoff program is voluntary, meaning that producers will have an option to opt out of paying into the program. Producers will have 60 days to request their assessment back and be issued a refund by the IDOA. Winter wheat growers harvested 700,000 acres across Illinois in 2024, a 10 percent decrease from 2023, with an average yield of 86 bushels per acre. 

“Agriculture is our state’s number-one industry, and we are proud to be the number-eleven producer of wheat in the nation, producing 60.2 million bushels in 2024,” said IDOA Director Jerry Costello II, in a news release. “The wheat check-off will foster continued growth, positioning Illinois as a global leader in wheat production.”