By E.M. Morrison

Dale and Betty Noordmans and their four children have gone back to the future.

The family operates a 550-acre organic, diversified farm near Hancock, Minn. that would be perfectly familiar to Dale’s grandparents, who homesteaded nearby more than 70 years ago. Like farmers of generations past, the Noordmans family controls weeds through cultivation, fertilizes with manure and grows a bit of almost everything.

The Noordmanses produce nearly two dozen specialty foods, from organic grain to free-range poultry and beef to whole wheat pancake mix. They are among a growing number of Minnesota farmers producing specialty foods for niche markets.

Keeping it small

Commodity producers these days compete in a worldwide market where only the most efficient survive, says Kevin Edberg, Minnesota Department of Agriculture marketing director.

At the same time, he says, consumer demand for variety and choice is creating opportunities in smaller food markets. “To see this trend in action,” he says, “just look at the juice section of your supermarket.”

Many Minnesota farmers are taking advantage of new opportunities by producing high-value consumer products rather than commodities. Take Leslie and Roger Sweningson of Cambridge. They dropped their marginal dairy operation and switched to raising gourmet popcorn.

The couple runs a 200-acre farm in Isanti County, raising hay and boarding horses. Until 1998, the Sweningsons also milked 100 cows and raised corn for silage. But they were finding it hard to compete in the dairy industry, says Leslie, 38. “We were working so hard and not getting paid for our efforts. It was time for a change.”

The Sweningsons’ neighbor, Thomas “Woody” Barnard, a plant breeder known in Isanti County as “The Popcorn Man,” had developed a new variety of hulless popcorn. “He asked us if we would grow the first commercial planting,” Leslie says.

In 1998, they planted popcorn on 42 acres of irrigated sandy soil enriched with 15 years of cow manure. Their yield: 112,000 pounds of maroon-and-gold hulless popcorn. Retail value: $100,000.

Woody Barnard, 86, had planned to sell the popcorn himself. When he had health problems, the Sweningsons and another couple, Gail and Mike Welsh, took up the marketing slack.

With help from AURI, they set up a packaging operation in the Sweningsons’ former milk room, producing one, two and five-pound bags. From May to November, they spend every weekend at the Minneapolis Farmers Market, “where we’ve developed quite a following,” Leslie says. “We give out about 2,000 samples a day. People like it because you don’t get those big hulls stuck in your teeth.”

The popcorn, called Harvest Delight, retails for $1.25 a pound, about twice the price of bulk popcorn, but on the lower end of the gourmet popcorn scale, says Leslie. “Popcorn is a crop you can make a good profit on.”

Organic contracts

As organic farmers, the Noordmanses are positioned in one of the fastest growing sectors of the U.S. food industry. They grow a variety of certified organic grains, including rye, corn, soybeans, barley, wheat and hulless oats, as well as organic kidney beans and high oleic sunflowers.

Most of these are grown on contract, Dale says. Lining up buyers takes “hours and hours of meetings and sending out samples.” In October, for instance, the couple entertained a group of Japanese brokers contracting for organic soybeans. “They wanted to see our actual fields,” Betty says.

The Noordmans family began the transition to organic ten years ago out of strong convictions about land stewardship, says Dale, 50, a farmer since 1970.

“But we were also looking for better profits,” adds Betty, 46, a former toy salesperson and nurse.

Last year, for example, organic natto soybeans sold for $18 a bushel. Likewise, organic corn usually commands at least $1 over the commodity price, Dale says. Although yields from organic production are often lower than conventional production, so are input costs, he says. “It’s what you take to the bank that counts.”

Three years ago, the Noordmans family diversified again, forming Life Design Organics to sell processed foods directly to consumers. Among their products: free-range poultry, grass-fed beef, flour and a line of pancake and bread machine mixes, developed with AURI’s help.

The Noordmanses market primarily through Whole Foods Cooperative, a central Minnesota co-op that distributes farm produce to consumers through a network of churches. “We offer taste, quality and good nutrition,” Betty says.

His crop’s for farmers

Organic farmers themselves are the target market for one of Tom and DeEtta Bilek’s crops. The Wadena County farmers grow hairy vetch, a legume that fixes nitrogen. “Organic growers interseed hairy vetch on the last cultivation of corn or sunflowers,” Tom says. Vetch provides weed control and nitrogen for the following year.

“There’s a good market for vetch,” says Tom, who planted 60 acres this year, seeding it with rye, and grossing about $350 an acre. Next year, a group of eight Wadena-area growers, all members of the Central Minnesota Buckwheat Growers Cooperative, will produce 400 acres of vetch seed.

The Bileks grow other niche crops, too, including organic flax, organic soybeans, buckwheat and hulless oats, a high protein feed grain for cattle and horses. They see an opportunity to supply dairy feed for organic milk, another promising specialty food.

Tom Bilek, 59, says niche crops are what keep their 300-acre farm afloat. “I can’t compete with my neighbor who has 4,000 acres. On a smaller farm, diversification and specialty crops are important."