Niche crops making their mark in southern Alberta
Southern Alberta is ripe for exploring the kind of crop farmers want to feed the world with.
With an average of over four months of frost-free days, plentiful heat units during the growing season and aided water supplies through irrigation districts, growers have their options on what to grow.
Speciality crops were on full display at the Irrigated Crop Production Update in Lethbridge as a panel of producers in Deiryk Schussler (Schussler Brothers), Emily Ford (Quattro Farms/Ventures), Alison Davie (North Paddock Farms), and Todd Bergen-Henengouwen (Diamond Butte Potatoes) were on hand to talk of triumphs and tribulations of growing crops like mustard, mint, garlic and potatoes. Jollin Charest, director of natural resource innovation for Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, served as moderator.
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Why it Matters: Speciality crops can supply a steady economic floor for producers, along with the opportunity to break into untapped markets and crop exploration for farmers to practice their craft.
Quattro Farms produces essential oil crops, like mint, and also grows sugar beets, dill and catnip for domestic and international markets that are a little more off the beaten path from their rotation of potatoes, cereals, pulses and seed canola.
“A lot of our potatoes are already contracted with local processors. But as far as a lot of the essential oil crops, I would say in the beginning, it wasn’t easy because it’s so different. Our market is very well established in the Pacific Northwest. You have to kind of find and build your own place to become part of that market. Challenging at times when you’re the new kid on the block,” said Ford, a senior agronomist with Quattro Farms/Ventures.
Schussler has been growing mustard on dryland for a number of years before irrigation came online. Having processors nearby interested in niche crops provides floor stability, with G.S. Dunn mustard facility setting roots in Bow Island, Alta., back in 2019.
“They moved into town with the old Spitz facility, and that really brought a lot more mustard production into the area. With the irrigation coming online as well, they like a lot of contract takers. They like the stability of it,” said Schussler.
Diversity can bring stability to a producers’ bottom line with the volatility of both national and international markets for various crops. But it too can bring challenges. There is not a lot of motivation for major chemical companies to get the smaller speciality crops on their label, limiting options for pest or disease control. Ford highlighted mint being a five-year perennial crop, where market demand and several anchors must be considered in the rotation map.
“It’s a bit of a puzzle, always trying to figure out where your crop rotations fall. You know you need to have this piece of land next year for this crop, and two years down the road you need it for that one. You’re kind of always rejigging your lineup so that it suits three or four years down the road,” added Bergen-Henengouwen, who also grows things like sugar beets and canola.
“The agronomics feed into that as well. Because otherwise you’re going to be dealing with the volunteers the next year after.”
Mustard was the most drought-tolerant of the specialty crops discussed at the conference.
“Big thing that we’ve learned growing it so far is definitely stay ahead of it. When mustard is podding and filling, that’s the worst time you want to irrigate it. We use a beehive system on a lot of our pivots. It’s been working really well for us,” said Schussler.
“It does a good job tracking water and shutting it off when needed. Boots on the ground is best line of defence, if you can walk through the mustard. It does get seven feet tall, so that’s also a challenge. This year in harvest, we were lucky, and it stood well.”
Agriculture is a community. Unfortunately that community is really small when it comes to your more niche crops. With huge processors nearby for things like potatoes and sugar beets, there are neighbours to lean on for advice or growing and marketing wisdom or when things start showing up in crops that look concerning. But, given only a couple thousand-plus acres of garlic are grown in Canada, growers like Davie made their way to Ontario for guidance.
“With some of these other crops, you may be the only grower that you know that has it, so you don’t have that network of support or expertise to lean on. So that makes it a little more challenging from an agronomic standpoint,” said Ford of the unique mint growing process Quattro does in the Bow Island/Burdett region.
The use of artificial intelligence, high-tech irrigation systems and drones can help steady the playing field of specialty crops, and social media, if used correctly, can spread awareness that niche crops are being grown in the area along with a greater appreciation of what agriculture does for more urban areas.
Davie is a huge advocate for telling the farmer’s story on social media, with the biggest risk being customers simply do not understand where their food comes from.
“I do truly believe that’s where misinformation comes from with not enough communication with the general public. They simply don’t understand all the positive things going on in agriculture. They go to the grocery store, and they see what the influencer says on online, whether it’s true or not. And so anything that we can do as agriculture as a whole to try and combat some of that, that negative information, negative press, and share our positive story. If we can do that, then I think it would be huge.”
Source: producer.com