Grain drain High cost of imported crops renewing interest in Maine-grown products

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While looking several years ago for a profitable venture for a small farm, Cooperative Extension agent Matthew Williams of Linneus only had to look to his specialty: grains.

He already was growing organic barley for a mill in Vermont when he took his own interest in grains to the next step and established Aurora Mills three years ago. The miller, who works cooperatively with several other grain farmers in Aroostook County, processes about 110 acres of wheat and oats annually, both in Portland. He grinds mustard seeds into powder for Raye’s Mustards of Eastport and recently has been approached by a Maine brewery to grind roasted grains for beer.

“There are tons of people in the state of Maine who are doing food processing and would love to have on their label that the grains originated in Maine,” Williams said recently.

At one time, grains were part of every Maine farm’s sustainable growing strategy. By 1825, more than 15,000 small mills were located in northern New England. But when the Erie Canal opened in the early 1800s, cheap grain began being imported, decimating the market for locally grown grains. By 1829, Maine had created a subsidy for wheat growers to offset the import impact.

Today most grains used in Maine for feed and flour are imported ? at a greater cost to the farmer, consumer and producer.

The market and the need for Maine-grown grains, particularly organic grains for human consumption and livestock feed, is fueling a renewed interest in grains in Maine and is offering farmers an alternative, lucrative crop.

“Grain production moved to the West many years ago to vast acreages,” Lauchlin Titus, a certified agronomist from Winslow, said recently. “Low prices, expensive equipment and the large infrastructure required were all factors. But the high cost of transportation, and organic grains, along with interest in oilseed biodiesel fuels have made local grain production start to look more attractive.”

Here’s what the West has: vast acreage of relatively inexpensive land, fields with no rocks, a large infrastructure of transportation, storage and processing facilities, and subsidized irrigation in some areas.

Here’s what Maine has: close proximity to a vast market.

“This has recently become an important factor for several reasons ? an increased interest in locally grown foods, increased transportation costs, an increased awareness of homeland security as it is related to our food supply, and the increased production of organic milk in Maine,” Titus said. “These are key factors for a renewed interest in producing grains in Maine.”

Diversification in the field

When the average Mainer thinks of a field full of crops, potatoes and corn are the two that immediately come to mind. But a diversified grain industry is burgeoning in Maine, a specialization that includes not just corn, soybeans, oats, barley, wheat and triticale ? a wheat and rye hybrid ? but the less known cereal grains of quinoa, which is a kind of pigweed, and spelt, which is a kind of wheat.

Because of a shorter growing season, Maine cannot raise as wide a range of grains as farmers even as close as New York or Pennsylvania. However, Maine is able to achieve yields per acre that are comparable to or better than the national average. Williams said that because of the cool climate, his customers are raving about the quality of wheat grown in Aroostook County. “We are producing a superior quality of grain up here,” Williams said. “It is richer and sweeter.”

Until now, Titus said, the reasons that more grains were not grown in Maine were economic, not agronomic. Grains are commodity crops with relatively low prices. The unprecedented growth of the organic market, however, has turned those prices upside down. Organic grain, particularly organic livestock feed, costs twice as much as conventional feed.

“We’re at the end of the line,” Rick Kersbergen, a Cooperative Extension agent out of Waldo County, said. “The cost of the organic grain imported is high and the quality is low.”

Kersbergen, through the universities of Maine and New Hampshire, recently applied for a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to research organic grain production in the two neighboring states. “Conventional grain costs are so low that we are promoting growing organic, which commands double the price.”

The market for organic

Maine leads the nation in the percentage of dairy farmers that have converted to organic.

Ralph Caldwell of Turner, one of Maine’s largest organic and natural beef producers, recently filled a tractor-trailer in New York with organic soy grain ? at a cost of $16,000. Because of the high prices, Caldwell and other organic producers are forced to charge more for their meat. A standard steak that costs about $7 would cost about $12 if produced organically.

Locally grown and processed grain could reduce that cost considerably. “If we can teach Maine farmers to grow their own organic grain, they would have control,” said Kersbergen.

Williams said that by creating the infrastructure necessary to process grains, Maine “would bring back that wonderful diversified foundation in agriculture.”

Williams said his customers all want the same thing: organic grain that is grown in the state of Maine. “But, they have no idea of the concept that is involved in the value-added steps,” he said. Each type of grain requires specialized equipment, which Williams is salvaging from defunct small grain mills out West.

“What we are concentrating on now is rebuilding the infrastructure,” Williams said.

“It’s a hard row to hoe,” Williams admitted. “It is very capital intensive and you have to get all those little markets set up.”

Ventures on the horizon

Peter Sexton, a Cooperative Extension crop specialist in Presque Isle, is working with several businesses on a feasibility study to look at the potential for biodiesel production from canola in northern Maine.

“We’ve grown from planting a few acres in 1999,” Sexton said, “to planting 5,000 acres this year.” Once the oil-rich canola seeds are crushed and mixed with alcohols, the fuel can be used to power any diesel truck or farm machinery. “We can get 80 gallons of fuel to the acre,” Sexton said.

In Midcoast Maine, the Unity Barn Raisers are working with local farmers to grow soybeans which could be processed into biodiesel fuel for their farm machinery.

“Biodiesel products are in great demand in the Midwest,” said Sexton. “People here with environmental concerns also favor it as a renewable fuel.” Sexton has proposed a second study to look at the marketing, cost distribution and future of canola-based fuel. “Our preliminary calculations show this is profitable,” he said.

Another project is being investigated in Atkinson and China that would involve growing large tracts of organic grain and then processing it in a historic mill, both for feed and flour.

Stephen Coombs said milling is months away, however, the need is immediate. “Maine’s climate is ideal for small grains, especially organic grains. We are hoping to provide farmers with an alternative crop, one that not only provides them a wider market and enriches their soil, but also boosts their profit bottom line.”

Nat Peirce, co-owner of GrandyOats in Brownfield, knows the value of the made in Maine label firsthand. GrandyOats produces a line of granolas and when they created Mainely Maple, made with pure maple syrup, sales jumped, especially outside Maine.

“We are working slowly with Peter Sexton to source oats in Maine,” said Peirce. “We are already getting requests for granolas and products featuring Maine blueberries, syrup and grains.”