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  • From: KAKerby AT aol.com
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] as if farming weren't hard enough
  • Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 20:30:38 EST

I did a bit more reading last night (the kind of reading where you look at the clock and think "geez, I should go to bed, but this is SO interesting......"), and learned that each major wheat category has at least some varieties which are resistant to the new UG99 rust.  One big question is why those are resistant, and the other big question is whether they can provide the same kinds of field production as the non-resistant varieties.  >From the reading it seemed that the researchers looking into this are not so concerned about finding resistance but rather in getting farmers to move away from the prone varieties toward these new varieties, given that they may not yield as well.  That's speaking globally, not necessarily locally or nationally.  I can send along a link to the study where they looked at hundreds of varieties for rust resistance if anyone is interested.

The comments below are most interesting to me, moreso than the issues with rust.  It seems that grains are the last holy grail for localized production and small scale, value-added production.  Veggies, tree fruit, bramble fruit and even meats and dairy products are now being produced successfully at the cottage level, but precious little seems to be happening with small grains in this regard.  Maybe that's because the infrastructure is so expensive, or perhaps the tools aren't there anymore to work with small grains on a cottage basis.  Maybe some of both.  But small scale grain harvesting seems a relatively straightforward set of problems that relatively few folks are working on.  I was really jazzed to read that you're exploring that very topic and finding some ways to tap those markets.  I keep telling my engineer husband that if he can help me design some improved harvesting and processing tools (shocking, threshing, hulling, etc), there might be a market not only for those products but also for that equipment.
 
I'll review the videos you provided and look into the Meadows product line.  Maybe someday I'll be swapping notes with you about value-added pricing.  :)
Kathryn Kerby
Frog Chorus Farm
Snohomish, WA
 
In a message dated 3/7/2010 11:35:08 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, rstewart AT zoomtown.com writes:
Bill Thanks for the link to the cleaner.

We farm about 300 acres and 2009 was the first year we did a chemical free and gmo free field corn plot specifically for food.  We've been grinding and sifting by hand.

This year is more of the same.  Two acre producing about 35 to 60 bushels (2000 to 4000 pounds of corn) is plenty enough to meet our current demand.  We are making a fine corn meal and a coarse corn meal and the remaining meal after sifting gets sold as chicken scratch.  We are currently selling around 3.50, 2.50, and .50 a pound respectively.

This year as we expand our potatoes and rotate we are planting soup beans.  We harvest these with an old F2 gleaner.  This fall is our first wheat crop.  Soft Red winter.  A local baker is asking me if I can do Turkey Wheat which is having a come back in North Carolina from what I hear.  Its on the Ark of Tatse Slow Food list now.

If you already grow corn and beans and can build a market, processing is the way to go.   Corn, even with a non-GMO premium is selling for right around 4.50/bu.  Processing it and selling it the way I do grosses about 150.00/bu.  Locally if you have 100% organic there are buyers for about 8.40/bu.  I have yet to find a reliable seed source for certified organic corn that is reliably sweet enough for corn bread type meal.  Not that it matters.  No spray and no-GMO and locally produced is just as good as anything certified organic at this point of the game.

Right now my biggest problems are drying and storing anything more than a tone of grain to be used for food.  Investing in an infrastructure to handle that is rough.  For corn decent cleaner, mill, and sifter and the handling infrastructure for it will run you at least 6 to 9 thousand.  When you start doing wheat then you need a huller.  If you want to guarantee you have gluten free you should also have a second mill and sifter.  Plus all the extra screens and storage.

I'd like to run two of these systems seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs_Tdi9rCB8&feature=player_embedded

I've found the sifter, which was the most difficult item to find here: http://www.meadowsmills.com/eccentri.htm

Meadows makes a wide range of stone mills,  hammer mills, and bur mills as well as other processing equipment.

I've also found probably the singel best source for rebuilt seed cleaners and hullers out in Illinois. http://www.commoditytraders.biz/index.html

Its a tough nut to crack.  You certainly can't grow them ALL.  I could grow at least 8 grains that I could sell wholesale and mill with both a wholesale and retail demand for just about all of them.  The big thing is trying to get a nice hard red that can be grown in Southwestern Ohio.  That's tough...

Anyone growing grains though and lives close enough to me that I can pick up I may be interested in the future and more than happy to pay a premium.  There is a huge future in specialty grains and their processing.

••••

As to the problems with grains and things like rust...this becomes more and more of a problem the less diverse the number of grains we are growing.

Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106
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