the newly formed Perennial Promise Growers Cooperative has an eye towards marketing perennial crops. Kernza, a perennial grain to start, that also provide ecosystem services. The Perennial Promise Growers Co-op became an official cooperative on July 28th when they met at a field day event in Goodhue.
The group has 15 current members, but the organization's president, Carmen Fernholz, expects that number to swell over the next year. During their July 28 gathering, Fernholz's of Madison and the organization's Vice President Ben Penner of St. Peter, signed the group's articles of incorporation after 18 months of organizing and planning.
"We have just launched our growers cooperative and we are in the process of building out and scaling out an organization that will market and sell Kernza® and other climate positive and Forever Green Initiative crops," said Penner.
This new co-op will provide two types of farmer support, agronomically and with product marketing. Agronomic support is coming from a relationship with the Forever Green Initiative, a University of Minnesota and USDA Agricultural Research Service that's working to address environmental challenges to soil, water and climate. Colin Cureton, director of adoption and scaling for the Forever Green Initiative, said it also aims to provide new economic and social opportunities to growers.
"So what we're doing is developing continuous living cover crops and cropping systems that will keep a living root in the soil year around and the soil covered year around and really address those environmental challenges while also bringing new crops to landscape and new agricultural products into the marketplace," he said. "Our agronomists are committed to working closely with the Perennial Promise Growers Cooperative as that co-op thinks about how they are going support growers to succeed in producing these crops, we have our breeders and our agronomists in close communication with them because really, it's a two-way street, you know. Growers know things that we don't know, and our breeders and scientists have spent a lot of time developing these crops.
In 2019, the University of Minnesota released the world's first Kernza variety called MN-Clearwater. Kernza® is a perennial grain, not a type of wheat. The name Kernza® is actually a trademarked name for the intermediate wheatgrass grain owned by the Land Institute based in Salina, Kansas. Fernholz, who actually retired in 2020 after 47 years of farming, 45 organically, planted his first Kernza® crop in 2011.
"For me, the number one mission has always been to compensate the farmer adequately for the ecosystem services that Kernza®, and eventually in the future, these other Forever Green Initiative crops that will be developed because I don't think a lot of people appreciate what it takes to really provide those ecosystem services, that soil health, that clean water," he said.
Penner explains that ecosystem services are the benefits that the crops bring to the landscape. And one of those benefits is Kernza's® eight-foot deep, (sometimes more) root system, much deeper than most annual crops. "It's basically the idea that the crop itself, in and of itself as a growing entity, is a service to the planet, not to mention the carbon sequestration that it has potential to happen within the soil and within the roots," he said.
Kernza® is a relatively new crop and about one-third of the world's Kernza® is grown in Minnesota. Because it's so new, another focus of the co-op will be to help farmers market their product. Fernholz said that right now, farmers have to focus on answering the agronomic questions.
"How to plant it, how to grow it, how to harvest it, how to store it. And they don't have the time to seek the markets, which in fact are just being developed," Fernholz said. "And we will have individuals, probably to begin with just one or two individuals, building interest in and then ultimately selling the crop to these buyers."
The Perennial Promise Growers Cooperative took a big step in signing their articles of incorporation. They're official. The next step is to assess Minnesota's Kernza® production rate and quality. "So that we can talk to buyers with that one unified voice," Penner said. "Getting a strong handle on what the supply is, we can communicate very clearly with customers, what they have available and what quality it is, what different differentiation is from one lot to another, is going to be critically important."
"What I want this co-op to be able to do is provide a venue, provide an opportunity for farmers to really know that they will be able to hand off that farm to their children and their grandchildren without having to expand the acreage or the coverage," Fernholz said. "And I know it's a totally different paradigm, but if we're going to really enhance our food system and enhance our environment and our social structures, I don't think we have a choice. I think we have to go in that direction."