Nickels for Know-How

Nickels for Know-How was the title of a program created following World War II to support scientific research to improve crop production and farming methods. Established by legislative action in 1951, it permitted farmers to cooperate in encouraging agricultural research and the dissemination of research findings. For this purpose farmers and other growers of agricultural commodities voted an assessment on themselves not to exceed five cents per ton on commercial feed and fertilizer.

In North Carolina the Farm Bureau Federation, the State Grange, and the North Carolina Agricultural Foundation held the referendum that approved the Nickels for Know-How program in the state. Collected levies are paid to the state commissioner of agriculture, who remits them to the Agricultural Foundation to be disbursed for the foundation's purposes. In 1991 the law was amended to create the Tobacco Research Commission and to provide for a levy of 10 cents per 100 pounds of tobacco marketed to support tobacco research. By the early 2000s, the program yielded $650,000 annually for its work.