Growing A Strategy To Advance Sorghum

By: Kylene Scott

Kansas is the nation’s top sorghum producing state. And sorghum farmers in Kansas and across the Sorghum Belt are starting to get a leg up.

The farmer leaders of the Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission, Kansas State University and the United Sorghum Checkoff Program worked together to form the Collaborative Sorghum Investment Program, or CSIP. It’s a platform for public and private collaboration tackling sorghum challenges and opportunities.

Housed at the Kansas State University Center for Sorghum Improvement, top-tier researchers will focus on enhancing sorghum for the domestic sorghum farmers and they’re aiming to bridge basic science with commercialization in the sorghum industry. Their main vision for CSIP will enhance sorghum yield, demand and value.

A farmer’s need

For Stockton, Kansas, farmer, Stephen Bigge, sorghum is what his entire crop system rotates around.

“I plant wheat so that I can have the wheat stubble to plant sorghum into the following year,” Bigge said. “When push comes to shove, other than cattle, sorghum is my profit driver. It’s what helps pay the bills.”