ROCHESTER, Minn. — Diversifying the region’s cropping systems beyond raw, export-driven commodities like corn and soybeans will require a team effort, said the farmer-presenters at the “Beyond Exports: Rebuilding Local Markets” meeting held at the Rochester International Event Center Jan. 27. More than 125 farmers from Minnesota and Iowa gathered for the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) event, which was a follow-up to the organization’s “Bringing Small Grains Back to Minnesota” meeting in Albert Lea, Minn., a year ago. Besides keynote presentations given by two farmer-leaders in diversified agriculture, the meeting featured breakout sessions on economics and marketing led by six other regional farmers who are at various stages of diversifying.
During the morning session keynote, Martin Larsen, who farms near Byron, Minn., described how grain processors, food companies, and nonprofit organizations, as well as local, state and federal government bodies, can help farmers shift out of just raising corn and soybeans for the elevator.
“Those are the pillars that hold this effort up to diversify our cropping system,” he said, adding that eaters also play a key role. “Consumers have a lot of power, because when you choose where you put your money, it gets us into something different.”
In this case, “something different” is the reintegration of small grains like oats into the corn-soybean rotation. Larsen said oats, which have all but disappeared from crop rotations in recent decades, make sense as a way to diversify for a lot of reasons, including that farmers already have a familiarity with raising and harvesting them. A small grain like oats can also build soil health and reduce reliance on expensive commercial inputs like nitrogen fertilizer. Cutting the use of nitrogen fertilizer is a particularly important issue in southeastern Minnesota, where groundwater suffers from widespread nitrate contamination.
“If we are to address this nitrate issue in groundwater, we need to raise something other than corn and soybeans,” said Larsen. “We have this water quality story we can bring with us when we access markets.”
The afternoon keynote speaker, north-central Iowa farmer Landon Plagge, said that oats also make sense economically because of the growing demand for healthy products sourced from the grain. Unfortunately, over 90% of this country’s oats are imported from Canada. Plagge said that’s a big reason he and his wife, Anne, have been leading an effort to build an oat processing facility in Albert Lea. Scheduled to go online in August, Green Acres Milling is being built with the help of 135 farmer-investors, who represent tens of thousands of acres of oat production in the region. Plagge said processing what is produced here locally can not only return more profits to farmers but keep wealth from being exported out of the area in the form of raw commodities.
“It’s a big impact if we can keep our dollars local and keep them cycling in our local businesses,” he said. “That’s going to add value to each acre and make our rural communities successful.”
During one of the breakout sessions, John Strohfus, a Hastings, Minn., farmer and owner of Field Theory Foods, said small grains can be a gateway into producing for the food-grade market. Once he started producing hemp as a food ingredient, he learned that companies were looking for other products such as buckwheat and sunflowers. For Strohfus, producing for the food-grade market requires diverse rotations, which is a mainstay of farming practices that build soil health and are regenerative.
“A lot of farmers are doing regenerative ag and aren’t getting credit for it,” he said. “We need to grow less commodity stuff and more high value stuff.”
The “Beyond Exports” speakers emphasized that farmer-to-farmer networking is critical to successfully diversifying cropping systems agronomically, economically and environmentally. For example, Larsen is part of the “Oat Mafia,” a group of over 100 area farmers who are working together to share information on production techniques and marketing opportunities. Tom Finnegan, an Austin-area farmer who raises a diversity of crops, along with direct-to-consumer beef, said he belongs to one of the Soil Health Hubs LSP has organized in the region in recent years. Through his local Hub, Finnegan has had a chance to tour other farmers’ operations and share ideas around innovative and profitable ways to build soil health. One thing he’s learned is that having diverse enterprises on the farm serves as a kind of insurance policy that reduces risk.
“The nice thing about diversity is one enterprise might falter but then another one will be stronger,” he said.
James Hepp, who utilizes no-till and cover cropping on his farm in Iowa’s Calhoun County, agreed that networking with other farmers is key to figuring out how to step off the monocultural treadmill. But he also said worrying too much about what neighbors think can play a role in stymying innovation.
“Peer pressure is the number one thing for farmers,” he said. “My advice is to avoid the coffee shops.”
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The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering an ethic of stewardship for farmland, promoting sustainable agriculture and developing healthy communities in the food and farming system. LSP has offices in the Minnesota communities of Montevideo, Lewiston and South Minneapolis. More information is available at landstewardshipproject.org.