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Sorghum Organizations

Two national organizations sit behind the US sorghum crop and they do different jobs. One is a member-funded advocacy body for growers; the other is a producer-levy-funded research and promotion program. Knowing which is which saves you a wasted email.

National Sorghum Producers — Producer membership and advocacy organization. Go here for people — grower connections and the route to state-level associations. Contact

United Sorghum Checkoff Program — Producer-funded research, promotion and education; established 2008. Go here for data — crop quality research and food and industrial end-use work. Contact · (806) 687-8727 · Lubbock, TX

Tier: Directory · Verified 4 August 2026

Why a brewer would care​

Sorghum is a commodity crop grown mostly for feed, and increasingly for food and industrial use. Brewing is a rounding error in that world — which is exactly the opportunity. The infrastructure built for a large agricultural sector is available to you, and almost nobody in brewing is using it.

The value is upstream of the brewhouse: finding growers, understanding what varieties actually get planted in a region, and reaching crop quality research that would otherwise cost you a research programme.

Our experience​

Tier: Directory. We have not worked with either organization in a capacity that would let us assess them. This page describes what they are, from their own material, so you can decide whether to make the call.

National Sorghum Producers — go here for people​

A producer-led membership organization. In their own words, "the commodity organization dedicated to improving the sorghum industry through advocacy and leadership." Members are growers and grain elevators, and members pay dues. The work is legislative representation, policy, and industry leadership.

What a brewer or maltster goes to them for: people. If you are trying to find someone who actually plants sorghum near you, a growers' organization is a far more direct route than a search engine. They publish no public directory of individual growers, but they list affiliate organizations and industry partners — and the affiliate route is usually the one that works, because state associations know their members personally.

Ask them who to call in your state. That is the question this organization answers better than anyone.

United Sorghum Checkoff Program — go here for data​

Established in 2008 and structurally different: a checkoff is funded by a levy on the crop rather than by voluntary dues, and it exists to serve the whole industry. In their own words, "a producer-funded organization dedicated to improving the sorghum industry through research, promotion and education."

Their promotion work spans livestock feed, pet food, foodservice, aquaculture and renewable energy, and they fund research on agronomy, pest management and economics.

What a brewer or maltster goes to them for: published research and crop quality data. Checkoff programs fund and publish end-use quality work that would be prohibitively expensive to commission privately, and food and industrial end-uses are squarely within their remit.

These two are commonly confused. One is membership and advocacy; the other is levy-funded research and promotion. Different funding, different mandate, different answers.

How to approach them / what to ask​

Be specific about scale, and do not apologize for it. You are a very small buyer by their standards. Saying so changes who they route you to, and a specialty end-use is genuinely interesting to organizations whose crop mostly goes to feed.

Ask for the state-level route. State sorghum associations are usually the practical path to actual growers. Ask the national body who to call.

Ask what quality data already exists before commissioning your own varietal testing. See Cultivars for Malting and Sorghum Agronomy and Supply for the kind of data that matters for malting rather than for feed — the two are not the same, and the feed literature will not answer your questions.

Ask about food-grade and identity-preserved supply. Feed-grade handling and food-grade handling are different chains. You need the second. See Identity Preservation.

Verified as of 4 August 2026 — read both organizations' public sites and quoted their self-descriptions; confirmed NSP publishes no public grower directory. We have not contacted either organization.

Gluten Free Brewer has no commercial relationship with the organizations on this page and receives nothing for listing them. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed here.