MANKATO — A growing and lucrative market for high-quality soybeans, non-GMO crops and other specialty food-quality crops are attracting more interest from farmers looking to add diversity to their operations.
Keith Schroder, a farmer from Nerstrand, said raising the more specialized crops is more time consuming “but the premium makes up for that,” referring to the higher prices farmers get compared to crops raised mostly for livestock feed.
Schroder, Jon Thoreson, of Lafayette, and Mark Querna, of New Richland, spoke on a panel Wednesday at the MN Ag Expo at the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center.
The annual event, which also runs Thursday, is hosted by the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association and the Minnesota Corn Growers Association and features learning, networking, speakers and exhibits.
The food-grade crops are grown under the Identity Preserved program, which certifies to processors and end-use buyers that all the different varieties of crops are recorded and traceable from the planting seed the farmer gets, through the harvest process, storage and delivery to processors.
Querna manages test plots in Minnesota and other states for FIRST (Farmers Independent Research of Seed Technologies). He grows plots to test a variety of food-grade and non-GMO soybeans. An agronomist who graduated from the University of Minnesota, he said such test plots used to be done mainly only by universities.
He and the other farmers said growing the food-grade crops is more labor intensive as many of the popular herbicides such as Roundup or Dicamba can’t be used. While some pre-emergent herbicides are used, farmers also need to do some cultivating.
Because of things like Roundup, few farmers have to cultivate between rows to remove weeds anymore. But Querna said the cultivators of today have changed dramatically, with some 40 feet wide, controlled by lasers and able to travel 5 mph.
“The technology has really advanced,” Querna said.
“You don’t have to be afraid of weeds; you just have to do it smart.”
Schroder said buyers seek a variety of different soybeans with specific traits that their end buyers want, such as higher protein or certain colors.
He grows for makers of tofu and soymilk, who are picky about the color of the soybeans.
Schroder said Identity Preserved crops require farmers to segregate each type of soybean from the time the bag of seed for planting is opened through the harvest and storage. The planter and storage grain bins also have to be cleaned to ensure nothing is commingled with the soybeans.
Thoreson said the soybeans are generally not as weather tolerant as traditional feed-grade soybeans.
“The dry weather last summer hit yields some.”
But the farmers said that while yields are generally lower and labor higher, the specialty beans bring a premium price that makes up for it and usually brings a net return that’s higher than traditional soybeans.