Kub's Den

Jerusalem Artichoke Acres Expected to Increase in 2019

Elaine Kub
By  Elaine Kub , Contributing Analyst
The proportion of total U.S. field crop acreage that has gone to other crops besides corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton or sorghum has remained at about 6% over the past six years. Chart data from USDA NASS. (DTN chart)

Low prices for major U.S. crops -- corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton -- make profitable farming a challenge. Geopolitical instability makes the global economy suffer and input costs are unpredictable. The agriculture community craves a savior, the "next big thing," that can stabilize revenue and save the family farm.

That was the situation in 1981, when a man began selling Jerusalem artichoke seeds to farmers with a messianic promise that the plant -- a robust perennial that only needs one year's seed purchase to produce either high-protein forage or a sugar-rich tuber year after year -- was destined to become the major source of alcohol in the United States, and that alcohol was destined to become the major source of fuel throughout the land.

What, you've never heard of a Jerusalem artichoke? It's true that 38 years after American Energy Farming Systems (AEFS) began hawking the seed to farmers across the upper Midwest, and 36 years after the Minnesota attorney general began investigations into the soon-to-be-bankrupt company, today we don't really see large plantations of Jerusalem artichokes thriving as part of our farm economy. I only happen to know what they are because, a few years ago in a fit of fascination with native North American vegetables, I planted a patch of Jerusalem artichokes in the corner of my garden. Called "sunchoke" at your local fancy grocery store, you might be able to buy these knobby white roots and try roasting them or slicing them into a soup. They don't taste bad -- kind of like a nutty potato. And I can see how any farmer (eager to find alternative cash crops) would see the plant's tall, vigorous greenery (it's related to the sunflower species) and think: "Wow, that's a lot of forage." The Jerusalem artichoke really is a robust plant. The small patch in my garden has voluntarily and lustily expanded year after year and would no doubt take over the entire home quarter if given the chance.

Unfortunately, the crop is also a pain in the neck to harvest (by hand), and there was never any proven investment-supported market to process the crop. The AEFS swindlers took money from 2,500 customers willing to buy and plant the seed, hoping Jerusalem artichokes would be more profitable than corn or soybeans or wheat, but they never followed through with the rest of the industry. As Joseph Amato wrote in his book on the Jerusalem artichoke circus, "There was simply no way an outcast plant could be transformed into a major crop for the production of fuel in a three-year period. Common sense and agricultural knowledge dictate that to turn any plant into a major crop requires years, even decades, of laboratory, genetic, agronomic and market work. Among many other required conditions, there must be real promise within the crop; a potential niche in the market, means of industrial processing, a large buyer, faithful and risk-taking farmer-suppliers, tenacious and entrepreneurial developers, and luck itself, which might give the crop an initial start as one product but eventually reveal a different use altogether. All this is shown by the soybean's four-decade development from a small and growing feed crop to a major oil crop." (Amato, Joseph A. The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus: The Buying and Selling of the Rural American Dream. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota Press, 1993.)

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OK, so maybe don't make my mistake and plant a patch of weed-like Jerusalem artichokes in your finest field. But the lure of finding some new and more profitable alternative beyond the typical corn-and-soybean rotation is surely as tantalizing in 2019 as it was in 1981. Today what alternatives do we have?

Two ideas come to the top of my mind: First of all, there seems to be a lot of excitement about now-federally-legal industrial hemp (the fiber-producing variety of the species with some CBD content, not the marijuana-producing variety with high THC). However, those farmers who've been state-licensed to participate in pilot programs are still working out the kinks of how to harvest, dry and store the product, not to mention the ongoing need for industrial processors to buy the raw material and turn it into a usable product and, ultimately, market it to end users. On the one hand, there's risk in being the first to move before the hemp market is fully developed. On the other hand, there will be a risk of being late to the game, after the supply chain has already been flooded.

Oats are the other attractive alternative crop popping up in recent discussions. Did you know Iowa used to be the nation's leading producer of oats, with over 6 million acres planted to that crop back in 1950? The agronomy checks out -- Corn Belt farmers can grow oats, but Corn Belt oat-growers these days are in need of a market. I keep hearing that oat "milk" is becoming the next big hipster craze (pouring it into their lattes instead of soy milk or almond milk or whatever), so perhaps we should expect robust demand for all the oats U.S. farmers can provide. However, I also hear, anecdotally, that oat seed is exceedingly scarce and difficult to procure in 2019. So, there's another major challenge for anyone looking to diversify into new alternatives. Farmers must not only lock down a reliable buyer and a place to deliver a specialty crop once it's grown, they've got to get their hands on the means of production in the first place.

I'm not trying to be discouraging about alternative crops, not even with the scary story about the Jerusalem artichoke scheme. I'm actually a big believer in the powerful effects of diversification and its ability to optimize an operation's overall revenue stream, making it more resilient year after year. I could, if you ask me to, mathematically prove to you that a portfolio of many crops produces a better risk-adjusted return than a portfolio of just two crops. For the farmers who have the necessary geography (the necessary soil and precipitation or lack of excess humidity), access to seed and a reliable market, and the investment in additional machinery with the willingness to put in the hard work of harvesting at unusual times of the year or adding steps to the harvesting process, the benefits of diversifying into specialty crops can be profound. However, for those on the outside looking in and being critical about our "monoculture" crops (that have proven to be highly productive over decades), the reality of the situation shows that diversification isn't necessarily easy or even achievable for everyone.

The recent relatively low prices for corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton have been a worry for farmers for several years now. We might have expected to see increases in the overall acreage planted to "specialty" crops (loosely defined as any field crop other than corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton or sorghum), but that hasn't happened. Instead, the proportion of total field crop acreage going to specialty crops has remained between 5.7% and 6.5% throughout the past six years. In 2018, approximately 20 million U.S. acres went into (in order): rice, oats, barley, edible beans, rye, canola, peanuts, sunflowers, sugarbeets, lentils, millet, flaxseed, safflower or mustard -- typically in the regions where these crops are familiar to growers and deliverable to a local elevator or processing facility.

Innovative farmers still eager to diversify their crop mix should continue to look beyond that non-exhaustive list of standard specialty crops. What about farmers-market vegetables? What about long-term timber or nut crops? What about herbs or flowers? Of course, such niche products will require not just farming the crop, but probably starting a licensed distribution business and self-marketing the product too. Talk about diversifying an operation's income stream!

As for the title of this piece, "Jerusalem Artichoke Acres Expected to Increase in 2019," I really have no evidence whether that will be true or not. It's not one of the field crops that planted acreage is annually tracked by USDA. But I think I may add another patch of Jerusalem artichokes in my garden. They are, after all, wonderfully hardy and tenacious. Some ideas just never die.

Elaine Kub is the author of "Mastering the Grain Markets: How Profits Are Really Made" and can be reached at elaine@masteringthegrainmarkets.com or on Twitter @elainekub.

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Elaine Kub