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Farmers looking beyond traditional row crops

Some farmers fear current farm policy is limiting efforts to diversify operations. Jerry Skees, is a farmer and retired ag economist in central Kentucky.  “We’ve created public policy with unintended consequences that stand in the way,” he says.   

He is currently participating in an on-farm kernza trial on his central Kentucky farm. But, he says the increased risk with newer crops can prevent producers from looking beyond traditional row crops.  “Because if you’ve got heavy subsidies for the traditional crops and you introduce that hurdle that in order to get crop insurance with subsidies, you have to have a history,” he says. “Those two things, they collide ultimately. So, it’s challenging.” 

Adam Barnes is a fourth-generation farmer who raises Barazona cattle, hogs, along with heirloom and ancient grains. He tells Brownfield they diversified their operation to break the current cycle. “We wanted to sort of get off, I call it the wheel,” he says.  “The wheel is: you need more equipment, now you need more land to justify the equipment, and you just keep wallowing the wheel, I call it.” 

Barnes says the local food movement is helping producers mitigate some of that risk. “That’s really going to give a little more independence to our farmers,” he says. “And that’s the way we saw it. It was just a little more independence, a little more control. Instead of us being the price taker, we get to set our price a little bit.”