| PERSPECTIVE |
[October 3, 2003] -
Nebraska is called the "Beef State" and the "Cornhusker State" for good reason. Nebraska farmers grow 8 million acres of corn a year and raise 6 million cattle. But some are also turning to less familiar crops and livestock. And while it’s unlikely anyone will call Nebraska the "Prawn State" or "Chicory State," these and other alternative crops are slowly growing in interest. The reasons are many, like a desire to have more control over their products and simply a search for more income. "Statewide’s" Mike Tobias profiles several ag producers to find out how and why they’re seeking alternatives.
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Transcript of Ag Alternatives
[Mike Tobias/Reporting] An alternative crops field day near Sidney drew a big crowd in August. Farmers like Alton Lerwick, who's thinking about adding chickpeas to his operation.
[Alton Lerwick/Lyman, NE Farmer] We've got to find some way, we're always looking for some way to maybe get a little better return.
[Tobias] Chickpeas and sunflowers won't surpass corn and soybeans in Nebraska. But interest in alternative crops and livestock is growing.
[David Baltensperger/UNL Alternative Crop Specialist] We're looking to get more out of the existing land, rather than a farmer having to get larger by buying more land they can farm the land they have more intensively.
[Stan Garbacz/NE Dept. of Agriculture] If we looked at the last 15 years, 15-20 years, there's been an increase in probably maybe 10 percent at least in the farmers in the state that are looking at something other than the traditional crops we've always grown here in Nebraska.
[David Grams/Plains Produce] These are tomatoes on the vine, or cluster tomatoes. We'll harvest the whole cluster at once.
[Tobias] David Grams grows tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. His greenhouse, Plains Produce, produces up to 150 thousand pounds of tomatoes a week during peak summer months. Pretty amazing considering just a couple years ago Grams was a typical grain farmer who knew little about producing produce.
[Grams] Keeping an open mind and looking at other things is kind of how it led to this. When you research this business you find out that all over the world, it's a big business. It's a big industry, it's just not developed here in the U.S.
[Tobias] Grams built this 10-acre state-of-the-art greenhouse with $5 million in start-up investment. It's patterned after facilities in Europe, where tomato greenhouses are more common. The plants start in blocks of machined volcanic rock. They grow up strings toward the sunlight, some getting 30 feet long.
[Grams] All the fertilizer and nutrients come through these drippers and the irrigation system is controlled by our grower. He manipulates the computer to irrigate how many times a day, how long we need to irrigate each time of day. Now the shade curtains come across, it's about 80 percent across the greenhouse to help keep some of the heat out. It is basically trying to control Mother Nature. And try to maximize the use of the sunlight. It's all about the light, and we can bring more product out of the greenhouse with the more light we put in it.
[Tobias] Grams even tries to control the weather. This hail cannon sends shock waves into the clouds to keep ice from forming during severe weather. He got it after a June 2002 hailstorm broke glass panes and let in a virus that set production back for a year. Now production is back to normal. And Minden tomatoes can be found in 21 states, marketed through a grower cooperative called Farmers Premium Produce that includes other Nebraska greenhouses. Grams hopes to double the size of his greenhouse to help Farmers Produce expand.
[Grams] There's a lot of markets out there that they can't approach until they have a certain amount of volume. And there's a lot of markets here in the Midwest that we think has potential, and we can't really tap into those markets until we have enough volume and product to approach those. Because you want to be a reliable supplier. Cause once you have that market you sure don't want to lose it, or they'll look someplace else.
[Tobias] Grams says he sometimes misses traditional production agriculture. But he likes the fact that growing tomatoes gives him more control over his future. In the greenhouse he's several steps closer to the consumer than he was in his cornfields.
[Tobias] The Borrenpohl family got into goat farming for one very non-farm reason.
[Jim Borrenpohl/Nebraska Goats] This is the natural way to get rid of your weeds, thistles, cedar trees, everything. They'll just clean it up. Lots of times they'll leave the grass alone where you can run cattle behind them.
[Tobias] It's also a business venture. Last summer they went to Texas and bought their first six goats. Now they have more than two dozen. They're hoping to take advantage of a growing market for goat meat, driven by Nebraska's growing ethnic diversity.
[Tobias] Who eats goat meat?
[Theresa Borrenpohl/Nebraska Goats] Mexicans, Arabs, Muslims, African-American. It's really hard to get goat meat past the white woman's nose. But goat meat is 20 percent leaner than chicken, and it's really good if you have high cholesterol or heart problems.
[Tobias] So far it hasn't taken a lot of time and money. They spent about $600 to get started, and Jim and Theresa still have full-time non-farm jobs.
[Theresa Borrenpohl] It's as much work as you want to put into it. We check them every night, we feed them grain every night, not a whole lot. You become a vet real fast. Because you cannot afford the vet bills.
[Tobias] The Borrenpohl's haven't made money, yet. They'd like to grow the operation to a point where they're sending 20 goats to slaughter a month. They're also working with a start-up cooperative to expand their marketing options.
[Theresa Borrenpohl] We're hoping to get a slaughter plant or something for a three-state area in Omaha, Nebraska.
[Jim Borrenpohl] They'll come right now and pick it up and take it back east, if you could have enough of them. But they want to bring a semi back. So if they get enough people, just the small farmer, and if they had a local place to take the goats, there'd be no problem getting rid of the goats to Texas, Pennsylvania or back east someplace.
[Tobias] In the meantime the Borrenpohl's will no problem keeping their land clear.
[Dave Hergert/U.S. Chicory] The root itself is very similar to a sugarbeet root.
[Tobias] This isn't a sugarbeet, though. It's chicory. And it doesn't taste very good.
[Tobias] What's it taste like?
[Hergert] It tastes like it's going to be with me for a while.
[Tobias] But chicory isn't meant to be eaten this way.
[Hergert] We just take the root and we slice it and dry it, and then it's incorporated into numerous foods, or in this case it goes into pet foods.
[Hergert] This is actually the primary cleaning operation of the factory.
[Tobias] Three years ago Hergert started the nation's only chicory processing plant. University of Nebraska research and a contract to supply Nestle with chicory got things going. Hergert, a farmer who also runs a feed business, saw it as an opportunity for a part of the state where farmers were already good at growing sugar beets. But at first Hergert had a hard time getting farmers interested; he grew half of the first crop himself.
[Hergert] They were I'd say very apprehensive about getting involved in somewhat of a new or unknown venture, and I had to personally guarantee a certain payment to each of those growers in order to get them to produce chicory for me.
[Tobias] On this day workers were getting a conveyor belt ready for the fall chicory harvest. This year six area growers planted 800 acres of the crop.
[Hergert] Everything worked out well, and people are enthused about an alternative crop. It certainly diversifies the agricultural producers in this area. And I think they've got a good return on their investment. We're looking forward to increasing the acres again next year.
[Tobias] Hergert says U.S. Chicory itself is breaking even - but needs to expand to get a better return on his investment.
[Tobias] It's fall harvest for the prawn crop at this UNL ag research facility. Here harvest means getting more than your feet wet. Researchers believe there's potential for farmers willing to dive into this seafood market.
[Jim Rosowski/UNL Biologist] What else are we going to produce in Nebraska that will produce the interest of shrimp or prawns that can be grown with feed ingredients that are grown here in the state, that can utilize empty poultry and hog facilities.
[Tobias] That's why UNL researchers have gotten involved in prawns, building an indoor facility for research.
[Rosowski] We proved that the water's good, that the animals themselves are easily taken care of. You just need to have oxygen, and they need to be fed two or three times a day because they can be cannibalistic. But otherwise we haven't seen any impediments.
[Tobias] They also believe there's a market, because right now most prawns are imported.
[Rosowski] The indoor production allows us to capture a market that no one in North America in capturing right now, and that's the fresh and the live market. Otherwise during the year all the product is frozen that you get in from Bangladesh or Vietnam or India. Whereas we'll have fresh prawns available continuously, in the winter months we hope these will bring a high value and allow indoor facilities to be profitable.
[Tobias] UNL is expanding its test facility, and continues research on ways prawn production can be profitable for farmers willing to test these waters.
[Tobias] Four different products with at least one thing in common - getting bigger is better, and necessary to make money. That's why most alternative agriculture ventures are additions to existing operations.
[Garbacz] Initially it's always as an add-on because it's hard to completely shift off of your mainstay, what your bread and butter has been. But we have found some of the folks, such as the produce growers, that have completely shifted after a couple years. Once they're up and running, they've invested the capitol into a greenhouse to raise produce, its become successful in their marketing group, then they back away completely out of their corn production, or rent out there land or whatever the case may be.
[Tobias] Garbacz points to produce as a hot alternative crop for the coming years. Baltensperger is excited about the potential for birdseed in the panhandle.
[Baltensperger] We package a huge amount of the nation's birdseed out of western Nebraska. A large portion of our cropland goes into birdseed. A lot of these sunflowers will go into birdseed.
[Tobias] Don't expect to see miles of sunflowers or chicory taking over Nebraska's landscape. Or thousands of goats grazing pastures. But do expect to see more farmers looking at some of these unusual alternatives as a way to make a little more money - and maybe stay in business. Reporting for Statewide, I'm Mike Tobias.