MANHATTAN — Grain growers in far western Kansas who plan to campaign for a seat on one of the state’s five grain commodity commissions — corn, grain sorghum, soybeans, wheat or sunflowers — should be gathering petition signatures now to meet the Nov. 30 filing deadline.

The 2015 election will cover districts one, two and three; the western third of Kansas.
District one includes Cheyenne, Decatur, Graham, Norton, Rawlins, Sheridan, Sherman and Thomas counties.

District two includes Gove, Greeley, Lane, Logan, Ness, Scott, Trego, Wallace and Wichita counties.

District three includes Clark, Finney, Ford, Grant, Gray, Hamilton, Haskell, Hodgeman, Kearny, Meade, Morton, Seward, Stanton and Stevens counties.

To be eligible to run for any of the five commodity commissions the candidate must have been actively engaged in growing corn, grain sorghum, soybeans, wheat or sunflowers within the preceding three years.

Candidates must gather 20 signatures from eligible voters to be included on the 2015 ballot. No more than five signatures from any one county can be used to qualify a candidate. Eligible voters must be Kansas residents who will reach age 18 before the election and who have grown corn, grain sorghum, soybeans, sunflowers or wheat for the last three years.

Candidate registration packets are available from the Kansas Department of Agriculture or the grain commodity commissions.

More information is available from the Kansas Corn Commission at (785) 448-2626 or www.kscorn.com/kansas- corn-commission; the Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission at (785) 341-6433 or www.ksgrainsorghum.org; the Kansas Soybean Commission at (785) 271-1040 or KansasSoybeans.org; the Kansas Sunflower Commission at (785)-565-3908 or www.kssunflower.com; the Kansas Wheat Commission at (785) 539-0255 or www.kswheat.com; or, the Kansas Department of Agriculture at (785) 564-6700 or agriculture.ks.gov/ksda-services/kansas-commodity-commissions.