Scooping a handful of wheat from his 7,000-pound truckload, Luke Mahoney pops a piece into his mouth as he describes the grain that he has worked hard to produce at Brookford Farm in Rollinsford.

This year, Mahoney harvested two varieties from his 40 acres of grain—a soft white winter wheat and a hard red summer wheat. He said it took 17 days to harvest the 40 acres because of the maintenance and knowledge it takes to run the harvesting equipment—specifically the combine harvester.

“If one part goes wrong, the rest does too,” Mahoney said.

After a virtual standstill in grain production in New Hampshire, Mahoney is one of several regional farmers who have recently started growing their own grain to feed livestock. Dorn Cox at Tuckaway Farm in Lee is another. He said local farmers have begun to experiment with grain because of increased cultural awareness about the vulnerability of our food system, and the importance of integrating grain into a closed-loop agricultural system, wherein farms produce their own feed.

Also, Cox said, farmers’ knowledge about crop rotation and soil health has increased over the last 10 years, and there is a rise in desire for high-quality local grain. “The flavor and the quality can’t be matched,” Cox said.

Cox began working with grain crops about five years ago when he started growing sunflowers for biofuel. He was interested in growing other oil seed crops using crop rotation, which means growing a different crop in a particular area each season instead of growing the same crop in one spot year after year. The method helps control pest populations and prevent the depletion of soil nutrients. Since grain is known to work well for crop rotation, Cox chose to add it to his farm.

According to Cox, the last time grains were grown in significant quantities in New Hampshire was around the time of the Civil War. But many farmers eventually moved out west, and once the railroads were born, grain was imported from other states. It was simply a matter of economics, said Cox, as importing grain was easier and faster.
The practice of developing and testing varieties of grain that fit the local landscape has been lacking until now, said Cox.

“It’s really a matter of choosing the appropriate varieties and building the appropriate infrastructure,” Cox said.

Richard Uncles, director of regulatory services at the N.H. Department of Agriculture, said there are very few grain growers in the state, but the rebirth of research and experimenting with grain is a move in the right direction.

“We’ve kind of lost some of the knowledge about growing grain in New Hampshire,” Uncles said. “We need to re-learn some of the management skills, such as what test pressures exist, what insects and funguses you’ll have to deal with and what varieties will do best.” Learning about the equipment needed for harvesting grain is also important, he added.

N.H. Agriculture Commissioner Lorraine Stuart Merrill said a number of farmers on the Seacoast are cooperating and sharing equipment in an attempt to overcome the high cost of the specialized equipment needed to plant and harvest gain crops. “It is going to be interesting to see how these experiments turn out,” Merrill said.

One local effort to share resources is The Great Bay Grain Co-op, which was started by Cox and now includes about 15 other farmers in the area. The co-op is a loose and informal group with the purpose of sharing knowledge and equipment with no financial obligations.

“The more people we have communicating with one another, the faster we can learn,” Cox said.

Mahoney, a member of the co-op, has worked with grain on various farms in the 12 years he’s been farming and decided to do it on his own 350-acre farm two years ago.

He started growing grain partly because chef Evan Mallet of The Black Trumpet restaurant in Portsmouth inquired with him about locally grown wheat that he could use at the restaurant. Sensing increased interest in locally produced grain, he decided to help fill the demand.

“It makes sense when you have the land base and the animals that need it,” Mahoney said.

He added that grain is a nice alternative crop because it isn’t too demanding and he can utilize the leftover straw for bedding for the livestock, which reduces his expenses. This year, Brookford Farm harvested 300 bales of straw from its grain land, Mahoney said, which would have cost about $21,000 to buy.

Although the grain is currently only being used to feed livestock, Mahoney would eventually like to sell the wheat for human consumption at about $2 to $3 per pound, if he finds there is a market for it.

Another member of The Great Bay Grain Co-op, John Hutton of Coppal House Farm in Lee said that by growing grain and diversifying crops, he doesn’t have to buy as many materials from outside to keep his soil productive. By relying only on himself for grain supply, he also has the flexibility to plan and budget at harvest time.

Hutton said he had considered selling the large corn maze on his property but instead decided to start harvesting grain. Most of the grain he harvests is corn, but he has also added oats and rye.

Hutton said another advantage of growing grain is that the farm has fewer byproducts and there is nothing to throw away (such as the packaging that feed would come in if he bought it from elsewhere). Essentially, the farm is running a closed loop, Hutton said, where one thing feeds the next. 

Also, growing more grain could increase the amount of food we produce in New Hampshire, such as breads, pastas, cereals and more. “It’s a missing piece of our local food security,” Cox said.

But not all farmers have the land or resources to grow their own grain. Jeff and Liz Conrad of Riverslea Farm in Epping don’t currently grow their own grain because their divided pastures aren’t suitable for the crops and they don’t have time to grow it. But they do support the idea of growing grain. Liz Conrad said doing so would help maintain a local food economy.

“It would be a step toward reducing risk,” she said.

While there are many aspects to growing grain on a farm, Cox stressed that focusing on the biological systems of the land is the big picture to consider. Cox and Mahoney have been focusing on biological agriculture, where reduced tillage systems are used (not constantly plowing the land) in order to protect the soil. 

“What we’re trying to do is liven the soil again,” Mahoney said. New Hampshire is known to have poor soils, he said, because the land is beaten constantly and not given anything in return.

Cox said growing grain and improving soil health would have an array of related benefits. “It’s all about healthy soils, which leads to healthier food and abundant energy. It’s all part of the same system,” he said.