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Introduction
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Alternative grains and oilseeds
- like buckwheat - add diversity to cropping systems and open
profitable niche markets while contributing to environmentally
sound operations.
- Photo by Rob Myers |
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Karl Kupers, an eastern Washington grain grower, was a typical dryland wheat
farmer who idled his land in fallow to conserve moisture. After years of watching
his soil blow away and his market price slip, he made drastic changes to his
5,600-acre operation. In place of fallow, he planted more profitable hard red
and hard white wheats along with seed crops like condiment mustard, sunflower,
grass and safflower. All of those were drilled using a no-till system Kupers
calls direct-seeding.
“I look at this more diverse system as a tremendous opportunity to decrease
chemical use and make more net profit per acre,” said Kupers, who received
a grant from USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)
program to offset the risk. Now, he puts his exuberant personality to work as
an aggressive marketer of alternative crops – clearing more profits each
year while achieving his goal to save soil.
“Economically, I think we’re just about at that point where we
can show that we can be sustainable for the short term and the future,”
he said. “We put no dust in the atmosphere, there’s no particulate
matter, if water does run off our soils, it is clean water.”
Although growing alternative crops to diversify a traditional farm rotation
increase profits while lessening adverse environmental impacts, the majority
of U.S. cropland is still planted in just three crops: soybeans, corn and wheat.
That lack of crop diversity can cause problems for farmers, from low profits
to soil erosion. Adding new crops that fit climate, geography and management
preferences can improve not only your bottom line, but also your whole farming
outlook.
“Continued low commodity prices have gradually driven more and more
people to look for other options,” said Rob Myers, executive
director of the Thomas
Jefferson Agricultural Institute in Columbia, Mo. For some farmers,
planting alternative crops has made an “immediate and significant”
improvement in income, he said.
Kupers is not the only farmer who diversified his monoculture cropping system
to enjoy renewed profits. Members of the Northwest Kansas Farm Management Association,
for example, enjoyed average net farm incomes of $50,485 in 1998 – three
times that of other Kansas growers – after diversifying their operations.
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