About Us

USW works to help wheat buyers, millers, bakers, wheat food processors, and government officials understand the quality, value, and reliability of all six classes of U.S. wheat.

Find out more about how USW works with customers.

Wheat farmers in post-World War II America were producing more wheat than ever before. But, with a poorly standardized marketing system, farmers needed a new way to improve marketing opportunities for their wheat. To do so, state wheat leadership created two regional organizations to coordinate export market development – Great Plains Wheat Market Development Association and Western Wheat Associates.

The Great Plains Wheat Market Development Association, chartered in 1958, was tasked with promoting wheat exports from the Plains states.

Western Wheat Associates was formed in April 1959 to expand international markets for wheat from the Pacific Northwest.

Realizing that the world wheat market was transforming into a global marketplace combined with the growing overlapping demand for U.S. wheat classes, the two organizations merged in 1980 to form one overseas grain promotion organization for wheat – U.S. Wheat Associates.

USW remains fixed on the mission of the farmers who created these legacy organizations to develop and grow export markets.

USW is supported by a highly successful partnership between our state wheat commission members and cost-share funding from the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).

• State Support. Wheat producers contribute a portion of their wheat sales (either by bushel or by production value) to their state wheat commission, known as a checkoff program. Currently 17 states contribute checkoff dollars to USW. This qualifies USW to apply for matching funds from FAS. Many state wheat commissions also contribute special project funds.

• USDA Programs. Most annual matching funds come to USW from FAS through the Market Access Program (MAP) and the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program. FAS requires USW to prepare an annual Unified Export Strategy to earn program funding. While FAS funding varies, its average match has been about $2.00 for every $1 in state funding.

USW does not receive direct funding from any commercial source.

For more information, visit the Policy section of this website.