The Kansas Department of Agriculture will be accepting applications until Saturday, Nov. 30, for candidates in central Kansas pursuing a seat on one of the state’s five grain commodity commissions including corn, grain sorghum, soybeans, wheat and sunflowers.

To be eligible, candidates must have been actively engaged in growing corn, grain sorghum, soybeans, wheat or sunflowers within the preceding five years and must gather 20 signatures from eligible voters to be included on the 2014 ballot. No more than five signatures from any one county can be used to qualify a candidate. Eligible voters must be Kansas residents of legal voting age at the time of the election and actively engaged in growing corn, grain sorghum, soybeans, wheat or sunflowers within the past three years.

The 2014 election will cover central Kansas, districts four, five and six. Counties in district four include: Clay, Cloud, Jewell, Mitchell, Osborne, Ottawa, Phillips, Republic, Rooks, Smith, and Washington counties. Counties located in district five include: Barton, Dickinson, Ellis, Ellsworth, Lincoln, McPherson, Marion, Rice, Rush, Russell and Saline counties. District six counties include: Barber, Comanche, Edwards, Harper, Harvey, Kingman, Kiowa, Pawnee, Pratt, Reno, Sedgwick, Stafford and Sumner counties.

For questions regarding the application or eligibility requirements candidates should contact the Kansas Department of Agriculture or the respective grain commodity commission.

For more information about the Kansas Grain Commodity Commissions, please visit their websites: Kansas Corn Commission: http://www.kscorn.com/kansas-corn-commission; Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission: http://www.ksgrainsorghum.org; Kansas Soybean Commission:  http://kansassoybeans.org; Kansas Sunflower Commission: http://www.kssunflower.com and Kansas Wheat Commission: http://www.kswheat.com.