Organic Wheat

Why focus on wheat?  If we are to truly develop a regional food system, we need to enhance regional production of grains for human consumption.   Wheat, a major component of most consumers' diets, seems a good place to start.  Growing wheat also makes sense ecologically: as a densely planted small grain that provides good soil cover and leaves large amounts of residue after harvest, wheat provides much needed soil-building benefits to crop rotations currently dominated by corn and soybeans. 

NOFA-NY has been involved in spearheading the organic wheat market in NYS since 2007.   In 2007 we partnered with the Northeast Organic Wheat (NOW) project working to re-integrate wheat into farmers' rotations and thus make "locally grown" bread and other wheat products available throughout Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, and New York.   NOW was funded by a grant from NE SARE.  For more information on the project as a whole and on other states' activities, visit the project website.

With the NOW project from 2007-2009, NOFA-NY coordinated project activities, including:
• On-farm trialing of promising modern wheat cultivars, heritage varieties, and such "ancient" wheat varieties such as emmer
• Field days/workshops, including bread-tastings and variety evaluations
• Bulking seed of exceptional varieties
• Developing farmer-baker partnerships and other marketing strategies
• Identifying needed infrastructure (e.g., seed-cleaning equipment and milling options) and strategies to develop it

To continue NOFA-NY's work in growing the organic wheat production and marketing opportunities, we are currently working with a project entitled Farm to Bakery: Building Value Chains for Regionally-Grown and Milled Grains.  This effort will demonstrate the potential to meet NYC bakers’ demand for NYS-grown grains.  The project is a collaborative effort of growers, millers and bakers to determine what is needed to scale-up our regional grain sector in order to provide local grains to a percentage of the more than 200 wholesale bakeries operating in NYC as well as upstate bakers selling direct to consumers in NYC via Greenmarket’s network of over 50 farmers’ markets.

The Farm to Bakery project aims to fill gaps in current NE grain market development efforts by:

  • fostering collaborative business relationships between producers and prospective baker customers through matchmaking and institutionalizing a referral/matchmaking model
  • providing detailed usability feedback on hard and soft wheat from bread bakers to determine which varieties, milling properties and packaging best meet market needs
  • identifying distribution gaps and opportunities, including piloting a distribution mechanism at NYC’s Wholesale Greenmarket in Hunts Point, Bronx.

NOFA-NY is working with seasoned certified organic wheat farmer Thor Oechsner, Oechsner Farm, to provide technical assistance to growers on wheat, rye, and spelt production, processing, and distribution. 

Technical Assistance:  Contact Thor directly for your organic wheat questions!  thorfarm(at)hotmail.com   or give him a call:   607-564-7701

 

RESOURCES:

Wheat Quality Testing:

National Quality Inspections
600 6th st SW
Great Falls, MT, 59404
406-761-6820
Recommended Tests:  moisture, protein, falling number and vomitoxin
Estimated Cost:  Full test w/ vomitoxin, around $40-50 but check with them for current pricing.

Educational Resources:

Northeast Organic Wheat Booklet  (an introduction to growing wheat in the Northeast)
Organic Grain Marketing Webinar by Sarah Johnston (scroll down to Recorded Grain Marketing Webinars)
http://www.wheatflourbook.org

"Five Essentials to Producing High-quality, Food-grade Wheat in the Northeast" by Elizabeth Dyck, OGRIN, and Thor Oechsner, Oechsner Farms, March 2011 http://www.ogrin.org/essentials_growing_wheat.html

Wheat Flour Book  http://www.wheatflourbook.org