Seeking candidates for three SDSRPC board seats
March 27, 2024
The chairman of the South Dakota Soybean Research and Promotion Council (SDSRPC), South Dakota Soybean’s checkoff arm, is urging soybean farmers to apply to serve on the organization’s board of directors. It is the SDSRPC board members who decide on checkoff investment in promotion, education, and research projects, such as those done by South Dakota State University, according to SDSRPC Chairman David Struck.
“We help fund a lot of different things over the year,” Struck said, during a radio interview with the South Dakota Soybean Network. “You’re on the inside track of what goes on in the soybean world. It’s a very interesting thing to be a part of.”
The council is farmer-led and charged with leveraging checkoff dollars on behalf of South Dakota soybean farmers. There are three board seats up for election this year. Among them is District Five, stretching from Huron to Hot Springs and comprised of Beadle, Bennett, Buffalo, Custer, Fall River, Gregory, Haakon, Hand, Hughes, Hyde, Jackson, Jerauld, Jones, Lyman, Mellette, Oglala Lakota, Pennington, Todd, and Tripp counties. District Six is Codington, Deuel, Grant, Hamlin, and Kingsbury counties; and District Nine, spanning from Redfield to Belle Fourche, is Butte, Dewey, Faulk, Lawrence, Meade, Potter, Spink, Stanley, Sully, Walworth, and Ziebach Counties.
“We don’t have anything to do with the political side, we do not make decisions on policy. We will educate on policy but we do not get involved in the decision-making of policy; that’s for the association side to do,” said Struck, who farms at Wolsey, South Dakota. “We’re (SDSRPC) in the promotion business, drumming up new uses, drumming up new markets. That’s our main focus on the council.”
The soybean checkoff is collected for each bushel of soybeans at the point of sale. Half of what is collected goes to the United Soybean Board funding projects that have a national and global scope. The other half is spent at the discretion of SDSRPC board members on promotion, education, and research, the latter of which is particularly important to Struck.
“We’ve got our hands on a lot of different research trying to promote new uses for soybean products,” he said.
The checkoff board of directors includes farmer/leaders from nine South Dakota districts. Eligible candidates are South Dakota residents, participating growers in the soybean checkoff, and residents of the districts they wish to represent.
Anyone interested in serving on the SDSRPC board of directors, contact Becky Cypher at (605) 330-9942 for a petition. Completed petitions are due at the SDSRPC office by 4:30 p.m., April 15th. If more than one eligible candidate completes a petition in a district, elections will be held from May 15 through June 13, 2024.
“There’s just a lot that goes on that I don’t think a lot of people realize,” Struck concluded about the SDSRPC board, “and when you’re a part of it it’s a great honor to serve on the board and be involved in all these things.”
