He had overheard Desmond discussing seeds with his neighbor. “People have hung on to seeds even when they aren’t actively planting and tending them,” says Desmond. “They hold memories and are cherished as story and timekeeping objects.”

Agriculture has been a way of life and a source of meaning and pride for Black and Indigenous people for centuries, shaping rituals, beliefs, and traditions. Slavery and colonialism exploited their agricultural knowledge and shattered their lives. The heirloom gardens project, a collaboration between Princeton University, Spelman College’s Food Studies program, and Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance, aims to memorialize their long-held expertise and culturally meaningful foods.

For two years, students and faculty are collecting the oral histories of community members in the southeastern United States and Appalachia who are preserving their agricultural, culinary, and medicinal traditions. Oral history is a natural vehicle for these stories. For centuries, most Black Americans were denied learning to read or write, and passed information through the spoken word instead.

The HGP is not a traditional research project, says Hanna Garth, an assistant professor of anthropology at Princeton and a principal investigator with the group. It publishes the memories as raw transcripts rather than presenting them through an academic lens. “It’s how [the subjects] see their own lives,” she explains, “rather than someone from the outside reflecting on how we might see their lives.”

The transcripts are housed in an easily accessible public archive. Researchers hope the knowledge they contain will be used in various ways—for example, to create a community garden with culturally significant plants, to further explore people’s experiences, or to dig deeper into issues related to land access, gardening, farming, and food access and sovereignty.

The HGP grew out of the pandemic’s early days, when Ujamaa, a collective of heirloom seed growers, held a Zoom series with grandmothers discussing their culinary memories—including what their own grandmothers ate and grew in their gardens.

Garth and Desmond, a research scholar at Princeton and an Ujamaa board member, and HGP’s other principal investigator, then won a two-year grant from Princeton to develop the project. Once 150 interviews have been completed, Ujamaa members will be trained to continue the work and to expand its geographic reach.

Ujamaa is also tracking down the seeds mentioned in the interviews so it can provide them to farmers for growing more seeds. Seed farming offers farmers an additional revenue stream with a lighter lift than market farming, with less field time, lower seed costs, if any, and a ready market as demand for seeds outstrips supply.

If a farmer can become established as a grower of certain types of seeds, larger seed companies are more likely to contract with them to provide those seeds to a wider market. Ujamaa’s mission is to cultivate and create agency for BIPOC farmers and give their communities easy access to the foods important to them.

Civil Eats recently spoke to two of HGP’s key figures, Ujamaa  co-founder Bonnetta Adeeb and Desmond, about how HGP democratizes seed collection and knowledge-sharing while supporting diversity in the seed industry. We’ve included audio samples of oral histories from the project.

How do you decide what is a culturally meaningful food?

Adeeb: During COVID, when we lost so many seniors, we were hustling to interview elders about what was culturally meaningful. They would talk about what was in their grandmothers’, their ancestors’ gardens, what was important. What did they eat? What was medicinal? What exactly was being grown there? For about nine months, we [asked these questions] across the diaspora. We gathered this data. It was grandma approved, so our authority comes from the elders. This work is central to who we are and to having the authority to answer the question, What is culturally meaningful.

What does it mean when culturally important plants are lost?

Adeeb: African American history is being outlawed in Florida’s public schools. That knowledge is power. It’s super important [to others] to take that power, that knowledge, away, because without it, you don’t realize the strength on whose shoulders you stand.

Recently in Baltimore, there was a USDA person telling Black farmers that cowpeas were not safe for human consumption. We’re talking about black-eyed peas, one of the most important foods. It’s incumbent on us to reclaim that.

Civilization is built on the back of successful agriculture. We’re reclaiming that tradition, honoring our ancestors. Agriculture is culture. And how could you not feel better about yourself when you realize the genius of your ancestors? It was their I     ndigenous knowledge that created the benefits we have. As we celebrate them, we celebrate ourselves. It builds pride, strength, and courage, and enables us to fight another day because we ate a good meal.

Ujamaa, a Swahili word which means cooperative economics, wants to increase diversity in the seed industry and bridge the gap between prospective growers and seed companies. How will the oral history project support that? 

Adeeb: There was a loss of farmland, farm traditions, knowledge, and skills being passed from one generation to the other due to migration. A lot of our work is restoring the basic knowledge and traditions. We’d like to take that further and look at the Indigenous seed-keeping skills and technologies that develop the ‘crops’ we have today. That’s an important part of our work.

The industry is consolidating. We need to develop seed companies like ours that focus on the foods that are important to [our] communities. Who better than the farmers themselves to grow what’s culturally meaningful for them?

A lot of Black and Indigenous farmers are working full-time jobs and farming on weekends and at night. Growing heirloom varieties—seeds that reproduce like their grandparents, otherwise, we’re not eating the food of our ancestors—will create revenue and give our growers a way to hold on to their farms and increase their control.

Desmond: People have known that knowledge is valuable for a very long time, but it has been systematically diminished. Some of the most exciting stuff happening in the urban local regional food system is led by people of color. Ancestral knowledge is with the people who stayed in the rural areas who are aging out.

We want [other growers] to know how Miss Birdie May from Farmville, North Carolina, developed this really awesome system when her collards go to seed. That’s how the oral history project is growing BIPOC growers, acting as a bridge across this huge geographical divide that is the product of the Great Migration and aggravated by that history.

It sounds like the stories themselves are like seeds, germinating new information and understanding.

Adeeb: We’ve found seeds bred by incarcerated people. How could you not want to follow that story? Boleiti collard is one. I recently heard about the boleiti being important to the Lumbee [Tribe of North Carolina], who have made these delicious collard greens sandwiches out of it. That got me really excited. Even the industrial prison complex recognizes skills within the community. They knew these foods were important.

Desmond: Some might think, “Oh, this was bred in a jail. How horrible.” Then you meet the teacher of the horticulture class, and he had incredible pride. The way he tells it, folks are excited to work and be on the farm and out of their cells. They’re expressing a real creativity in plant selection are proud of the variety that they’ve developed over time. They sent collard greens to the governor’s mansion, [which] were served at a meal. …the seeds offer opportunities to find these stories, get really deep into the details, and humanize everybody involved.

Voices From the Gardens

Excerpts and audio snippets from the Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project. Text transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity.

Eulalia Williams, Farmville, North Carolina
Founder of the Farmville Community Garden. Raised in Farmville and Compton, California.

I would follow Granddaddy out to the garden that was plowed by the mule. We plant corn, plant fish heads under the corn. My mother would go out with the saltshaker in the morning and we’d pick tomatoes and eat those. We would harvest things in the morning, prepare them, and they’d be on the table for 3 o’clock. It was comforting to me. I wanted it and fresh vegetables again. That’s what got me into community gardening. It wasn’t community gardening—it was backyard gardening. Everyone had one.

But when I came back [to Farmville] in 2014, there were none. It’s like, “Wait a minute. We used to grow our own food here. We didn’t have to go to the grocery store.”

I hope the [community] garden encourages people to realize that you are what you eat. They have control over that. They don’t have to just settle for what can be found in the grocery store. Take that control and use it to grow up bigger, stronger, and help other people. We can do a revolution here. We can make a difference.

Vivian Fields, Farmville, North Carolina
Lifetime resident and longtime gardener.

It wasn’t integrated at the time, so we grew up hard in Farmville. We couldn’t hardly come across Main Street without being with the white. We fought all the time.

We always had to come to the north side to get groceries and everything. We didn’t have much money, so we all were raised on garden food and stuff. Whatever we didn’t have, we had to go to the white man and ask for it. If he didn’t OK it, we didn’t get it. I thought that was very wrong because we all were supposed to be equal.

On my side, we had chicken, hogs, turkey, and the hogs had barbecued pork and all of that. Collards and cabbages, potatoes, white potatoes, squash, and black-eyed peas was coming from the garden, so we had plenty of that.

That’s the only thing we ate was garden food. We very seldom [went] to the store and bought anything unless it was milk and bread.

Jennifer Kanyamibwa, Atlanta, Georgia
Co-founder of Plant Lady Juice Co. Born in Rwanda.

I think whether directly or indirectly, especially if you’re a Black farmer, you’re coming from a tradition where this is something that has been passed on. Growing things is the most human thing you can do. If you go throughout Africa, you see how people use herbs and food as medicine and as celebration. It is something that’s so intrinsically African and Black and Indigenous about growing your own vegetables and plants.

A lot of the farmers we work with are very, very committed to growing things that are natural to the surrounding environment and have a lineage and a thread to things you can trace back to Africa.

Folami Harris, Covington, Georgia
Woman farmer who grows vegetables and fruits that complement African cuisines. Raised in Kingston, Jamaica.

How do I grow things that bring us back to our roots? Because it’s more than just the taste. It’s also the memories and the possibilities for intercultural connections.

Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve been a kidnapper of seeds. There were always seeds in my luggage that I hoped Immigration would never uncover. I was always intrigued by how we took food from one place to another and how we use them differently. We never ate sweet potato leaves, but in Africa, they were interested in the sweet potato leaves. Food, its history, and the diverse ways in which we use it are very intriguing to me.

It’s my hope that as we are able to boost production, we are able to create a more vibrant impact on what everybody eats, because it will be of interest to everyone, but first and foremost to us, and maybe it will revive interest in African diaspora cuisines. When we started, there was no “High on the Hog,” no “Searching for Soul Food.” When I watch that stuff, I’m so happy.

Emmanuel Fields, Frankfort, Kentucky
His grandmother’s sharecropping experience made him turn away from a connection to agriculture and community. Creating a Master’s thesis documentary about the Kentucky’s Black farmers transformed him into a seeker of stories and steward of the land.

Once I started the documentary, everything changed for me. It was not just to show and shed light on stories of inequalities, but to show essentially an amazing triumph. I learned [that] our history here, especially with growing things, is not completely wrapped up in slavery, in negative mindsets, or ways that are meant to attack and push you down.

Instead, those same things are used for triumph . . . and to show you exactly how strong you are and what you’re capable of doing.It rewrote a lot of things that I had solidified in my own head about my own history, my people’s histories. A new narrative has changed a lot of the way I see and move through the world.

These are things I can attribute to being completely centered around food and farming. If I can have a positive impact on one person who could be struggling like I was at one point with a lot of deep generational racial trauma and things that are passed down, I feel I would have helped.

Tiffany Bellfield El-Amin, Madison County, Kentucky
A third-generation farmer who stewards her grandparents’ land at Ballew Estates, where she was raised.

Grandma would have napkins—pawpaw tubes just full of seeds—from where we had brought stuff off our farm to eat, slices of tomatoes or cucumber. They would save the seeds in a napkin, come home, dry them out. That’s what you’re supposed to do after you eat the fruit: Take the seed and do it again. There would be a countertop full of seeds, cantaloupe, melons, watermelon. They were efficient people. I was born in ‘84, but I grew up with this lifestyle of, “You want watermelon, you better grow it.”

I feel like [my grandma] was like a botanist. She would make these tomatoes. They were juicy. Sometimes they’d get so big they’re mushy, but they were good. She would save those seeds and keep growing those.

This is the first time in a while where I’ve sat and thought, “You really ain’t got no seeds of your grandma’s.” They had all dried out. I have to cultivate something that produces seeds, so my grandchildren, godchildren, and kids can keep that going, because it’s so important.

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]]> https://civileats.com/2024/06/04/oral-history-project-preserves-black-and-indigenous-food-traditions/feed/ 2 https://civileats.com/2022/05/03/farmers-trial-climate-friendly-chickpeas-in-upstate-new-york/ https://civileats.com/2022/05/03/farmers-trial-climate-friendly-chickpeas-in-upstate-new-york/#comments Tue, 03 May 2022 08:00:14 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=46664 “The doggone things were still green,” he chuckles. Weed control also became a big problem. But the plants had flourished into maturity with pods and seeds, so Taber saw that the legumes could grow on his land. This was a big step in a region where the crop has never been grown commercially. Taber was […]

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“The first year we didn’t know any better,” recalls farmer Carl Taber of his initial attempt to grow a small plot of chickpeas at Taber Hill Farm, his family’s 550-acre farm in Mecklenburg, New York, in the picturesque Finger Lakes region. But he planted them too late, so the plants didn’t canopy, and the result was beans that were too difficult to harvest.

“The doggone things were still green,” he chuckles. Weed control also became a big problem. But the plants had flourished into maturity with pods and seeds, so Taber saw that the legumes could grow on his land.

This was a big step in a region where the crop has never been grown commercially. Taber was inspired to experiment with the crop after joining an industrious experiment begun in 2020 and spearheaded by the Schuyler County Partnership for Economic Development (SCOPED). The goal is to determine whether chickpeas can be produced in this area of upstate New York. If the project is successful, the area could provide a much-needed source for the legumes as farmers in the United States are not currently growing enough to meet the increasing demand.

The idea arose when SCOPED’s Executive Director Judy Cherry met with executives from Ithaca Hummus and Antithesis Foods, a Cornell University startup based in nearby Ithaca that produces garbanzo snack foods, and discovered the companies were spending a great deal of money and energy transporting chickpeas from Arizona and Washington because they were not available in-state.

Seizing the potential for the region’s farmers to diversify, develop a new market, and promote farms’ long-term growth, Cherry contacted the New York Department of Agriculture and Cornell Cooperative Extension to identify any previous chickpea growing efforts in the state. There was no historical data, and no one could definitively say that it had been tried.

Jason Goodman, CEO of Antithesis Foods (left), with Carl Taber.

Taber and Cherry recall that prevailing opinions and assumptions in the area’s agricultural industry about the prospect of growing the crop in upstate New York were all negative. People cited the wet, cold, and humid climate, the region’s shorter growing season, and a lack of proper soil. No one knew for sure if existing varieties or further breeding might overcome potential disease issues, said Brett James Chedzoy, senior research educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schuyler County.

And yet, a successful experiment that saw farmer growing several varietals in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, just a couple-hundred miles south but still decidedly in the Northeast, provided a glimmer of hope and possibility. Cherry and SCOPED decided to give it a try.

After the first year, the project is showing some signs of success: Antithesis Foods representatives hand-harvested and tested a few of the beans Taber picked after his first planting and found them suitable for use in its products. And, if the project pans out, it could result in a new crop for diversified farmers in the region.

A Legume with a History

Chickpeas are one of the earliest cultivated legumes, dating back to 8500 B.C. in the Fertile Crescent. They are considered the third most important pulses in the world (after beans and peas) because of their high protein content and because they can be grown as part of a diverse and regenerative approach to farming. They require little water, have a low carbon footprint, and can be used as a cover crop to break up cycles of weeds and disease.

Underscoring their value is the fact that chickpea seeds are the only non-grain seeds included in the top nine seeds stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the doomsday backup seed storage facility in Norway.

There are two main types of chickpeas: kabuli, the beige-colored knobs that are prominent in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking, and desi, which are smaller and usually black, though they can be yellow, green, or light brown, and are an integral part of Indian cuisine.

While Canada is a major chickpea producer, in the U.S., chickpeas are typically mostly grown in Washington’s Palouse region and the Northern Plains, as well as in Arizona and California, climates markedly different from that of the Finger Lakes, which is cold and temperate and receives a lot of rain.

A Climate-Friendly Crop with a Ready-Made Market

When Cherry approached Taber, who is also the chair of Schuyler County’s Industrial Development Agency, about trying out the crop, he was intrigued. The avuncular farmer is the fourth generation to farm his land, which has been in his family since his great-grandparents moved there before the turn of the 20th century.

A combine harvesting at Taber Hill Farm.

The family has grown hay, oats, and various seed crops and tended a herd of Holsteins whose milk they sold along with cheese that Taber’s sister produced. In 2015, however, the family sold the cows, after finding they couldn’t earn enough to make it worth keeping them.

Taber, who currently grows triticale, corn silage, and soft winter wheat, hopes to be able to grow chickpeas economically, getting the yields and process needed to provide a return. He considers the opportunity “serendipity, really,” he says. “I’m trying to navigate this post-dairy thing. If I ever get it figured out, I’ll feel lucky.”

He’s not alone. Taber notes that since 2010, 1,712 dairy farms have closed in the state. Those farmers who had supplied their herds or others with feed needed other crops to grow.

Benefits of growing chickpeas extend beyond enabling farmers to diversify what they grow. Like all legumes, they can draw nitrogen from the air and fix it in the soil, lowering costs (synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is expensive to produce and purchase) and potentially promoting carbon sequestration. “With carbon credits starting to be a pretty popular subject, I think there’s a whole lot we could be doing here,” says Taber, who is passionate about sustainability.

Chickpea plants also possess a deep taproot that can naturally break the deeper compaction in the soil, relieving the farmer from having to do it mechanically. “There’s a lot going on in the soil—bacteria, funguses, insects, and everything—and if we can keep rotations and healthy roots in that soil to hold it in place to keep those microbiota and everything happy, it’s better than trying to grow extra ears of corn or something in rotation,” adds Taber.

The chickpea project also appealed to him because a market had already been identified. As the popularity of plant-based products continues to rise, “it’s an unusual situation to be in as a farmer, because we have a demand. We have a market if we can produce a crop to meet it,” Taber says. “So often as farmers, we’re producing a crop and then trying to look for or develop a market to expand. It’s there if we can do it right.”

USDA data shows retail sales of pulse products have risen from less than $10 million in the late 1990s to an estimated range of $700-800 million in more recent years.

Jon Beckman, SCOPED’s board chairman, sees additional market opportunities in area businesses including local restaurants, the popular supermarket chain Wegmans, and stores and restaurants in New York City, noting demand for locally produced food. For a company to say, “we’re using New York-grown chickpeas, it goes a long way,” he says, adding that Taber and the other farmers he hopes will join the project might not be able to supply all of the companies’ needs, but could certainly supplement them.

To scale up the trials in 2023, SCOPED is applying for a $50,000 grant from the New York Farm Viability Institute. Ithaca Hummus, Schuyler County legislator Mark Rondinaro, SCOPED, and private donations have covered the $3,000 in costs to date.

Another New York Chickpea Effort

Peter Martens, owner of Seneca Grain & Bean in nearby Penn Yan, coincidentally also trialed an acre of chickpeas last year. The company, founded in 2019, sells area-grown grains and pulses directly to consumers and to bulk food stores, restaurants, and bakeries that mill onsite. The company also plans to sell its grains and legumes to retail consumers and partner with a local mill to produce local flours.

“I find unusual crops interesting,” says Martens, explaining why he grows lentils and multiple types of beans including light and dark red kidney beans, brown winter lentils, purple summer peas (for livestock feed), and Austrian yellow and green winter peas. For someone whose family’s farming history dates back to 1715 in northwest Germany and 1957 in Penn Yan, the challenge and potential reward are both appealing.

A row of chickpeas two weeks after planting by Peter Martens.

However, Martens is under no illusions about the prospects of experimenting. “An unusual crop has to do much more than break even; it has to make more than a common crop to make up for the added effort—and then make a margin above that,” he says.

To grow chickpeas on any scale and for the longer term, they need to be able to return a similar income as organic kidney beans, says Martens. At $1.40 per pound, that means obtaining a yield of at least 1,000 pounds per acre and, after cleaning and packaging in 25-pound bags, selling for $2.50–$3.00 a pound. He thinks the crop will be most lucrative for processors who want to add a local label and sell directly to people who live in their community.

With his experience and proper seed-handling equipment, which he already had for his other crops, Martens is well-positioned to run this test. He planted his first attempt later than ideal, in mid-June of 2021. The one-acre plot produced quite a few blossoms and pods, although very few peas made it to maturity. It was enough to know they can grow in New York, he says, but not enough to know what the challenges might be.

Based on his limited experience, Martens thinks chickpea production will be similar to that of field peas. He’ll play with them until he knows what kind of yield and challenges to expect, when to best plant, if they do well with a companion crop or are better planted alone, and where the legumes may be advantageous in his crop rotation. He’ll share his knowledge and discoveries with Taber and SCOPED.

“Until I have proven to myself that I can’t grow [chickpeas] here, I won’t accept that it can’t be done,” Martens asserts, adding that the lentils he successfully grows are not a traditional New York State crop either.

‘Gonna Keep Trying’

Last April, with some lessons learned, Taber continued his efforts, planting five acres of kabuli varieties developed in Saskatchewan, Canada. He was hopeful, attributing the first crop’s lack of success to its delayed planting because of the pandemic and North Dakota-based Meridian Seed’s insistence that he be able to inoculate the seeds as a requirement of purchase. (The company didn’t want responsibility for bringing to the area the asochtya blight, to which chickpeas are susceptible.)

Unfortunately, unusually wet weather prevented a timely harvest and the peas showed evidence of mildew, rendering them unusable. It was “kind of a disaster,” says Taber. He had also tried to grow a small quantity of desi seed obtained from his doctor, whose family grows it in India, but that attempt failed, too. He plans to try again if he can access the seed.

Despite the obstacles he’s encountered, Taber is still optimistic. This year, he’ll plant more seeds earlier in the year using narrower rows.

SCOPED board members weeding the chickpea plot at Taber Hill Farms in 2020.

Planting well and planting timely have been the biggest challenges, Taber says. “That’s probably true with all crops,” he continues, “but we often don’t think about the planting as much as some of the other steps along the way.”

This spring, he’ll grow less and spend more time fine-tuning. Because of disease susceptibility, a little more work—like scouting, monitoring, or even tillage-like cultivation—may be required with chickpeas than the other crops he has grown.

While crop diversity is a bulwark for farms and the food system against climate change, Martens, Taber, and SCOPED are driven by innovative thinking, business planning, and to ensure farm survival and prosperity.

Planting new things is exciting to Taber—and it was an especially welcome diversion back in 2020. Particularly interested in the prospect, his spry 89-year-old mother, Jean, climbed right up onto the red grain drill to assist in the first planting.

Taber admits that farmers like himself can be guilty of tunnel vision, prioritizing maintaining their farms, finding efficiencies, and trying to make the most of their investment over long-term planning. “If I hadn’t been hit with this opportunity to plant chickpeas,” he acknowledges, “I probably wouldn’t have thought of it on my own.”

Taber estimates it will take a couple more years to determine the project’s success, but he doesn’t mind going against conventional wisdom. “When everybody says it can’t be done, have they really even thought about it?” he says. “I’m gonna keep trying until I succeed.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2022/05/03/farmers-trial-climate-friendly-chickpeas-in-upstate-new-york/feed/ 1 https://civileats.com/2021/10/25/don-lewis-is-reviving-the-grain-economy-in-new-yorks-hudson-valley/ https://civileats.com/2021/10/25/don-lewis-is-reviving-the-grain-economy-in-new-yorks-hudson-valley/#comments Mon, 25 Oct 2021 08:00:09 +0000 http://civileats.com/?p=43983 Lewis’ parents were chicken farmers outside of Middletown, New York in the 1950s, raising thousands of birds for meat and eggs. Lewis recalls his mother’s warnings. “‘Don’t be a farmer,’” she’d tell him. “‘Try to help the farmer. Buy their crop so that they can sell it. Then you do whatever with that.’” Lewis took […]

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On a blazing August afternoon, baker-turned-miller and grain expert Don Lewis stands outside a drying tunnel at Hudson Valley Seed Company’s farm in Kerhonkson, New York. Observing the shafts of golden brown heirloom and ancient cereal grains inside the tunnel—the survivors of his two dozen test plots—he shares what led to his life’s work.

Lewis’ parents were chicken farmers outside of Middletown, New York in the 1950s, raising thousands of birds for meat and eggs. Lewis recalls his mother’s warnings. “‘Don’t be a farmer,’” she’d tell him. “‘Try to help the farmer. Buy their crop so that they can sell it. Then you do whatever with that.’”

Lewis took her dictum to heart, and for more than 20 years, he’s been on a mission to develop a robust market for regional grains in the Hudson Valley. He now runs Wild Hive Community Grain Project in Clinton Corners, New York, a milling operation that uses traditional stone grinding equipment to process small batches of organic and heritage spelt, rye, and other whole grains produced on local farms. He sells the resulting grains at area restaurants, bakeries, and specialty stores across the Hudson Valley and, since the pandemic, to retail customers through his website.

Lewis’ journey began in 1982, when he began raising bees as a commercial beekeeper, helping to pollinate orchards in the Hudson Valley. In addition to selling his honey at farmers’ markets in New York City, he used it to produce baked goods in a commercial kitchen. Then, in 2008, he opened Wild Hive Bakery and Café.

Around the same time, he was introduced to locally grown, freshly milled flour and was immediately enraptured by its range of distinctive flavors and superior nutrition compared to conventional flour. Worried his children and the ensuing generations wouldn’t have access to the fresh food he had growing up, Lewis began milling and baking for the bakery and café using locally grown flour. Seeing its potential, he closed the bakery and café in 2012 to mill full-time.

But Lewis is not simply a miller. He also has a progressive vision to broaden and diversify the food system by introducing unique grain varieties and adapting them to present-day climate conditions. Since 2016, he has partnered with the Hudson Valley Seed Company, the Hudson Valley Farm Hub, and Cornell’s Small Grains Genetic Research Program, testing near-forgotten ancient and heirloom grains. He’s looking for older genetics from all over the world that possess what he calls “very good qualities for growing in the Northeast, and for post-harvest production, milling, cooking, and eating.”

Lewis views resurrecting and adapting these older grains as a natural outgrowth of his goal to develop a network of local grain production. Without fostering biodiversity, the current system of growing grains, he asserts, “is not really good for our agricultural system nor our health.”

Reviving the Hudson Valley Grain Economy

The Hudson Valley was once considered the breadbasket of Colonial America, but as the country expanded westward, so did its amber waves of grain. The area’s grain economy collapsed as a result of deficient farming practices and the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which revolutionized transportation, dramatically decreasing costs. Agricultural practices, including milling, became centralized and industrialized, eventually leading to monoculture in farming.

Lewis hopes that by providing residents access to a diversity of fresh food, he can help empower the region to flourish economically, socially, and culturally and is encouraged that the model he built connecting grower, miller, baker, and distributor has influenced others across the country to develop their own. While large companies and big mills dominate the grain industry, a patchwork of efforts similar to his have sprung up, including some in Maine and South Carolina.

Educating consumers and farmers to create demand is a big—and often challenging—part of Lewis’s job. He spent years distributing local bread samples, as he believed people could only understand it by eating it. Once he selects a grain, he persuades farmers to risk growing something new, hoping they will be enthusiastic about the results. After a successful grow-out, he also convinces bakers to use his flour, which is expensive.

Lately, Lewis has seen regionally grown heritage grains gain traction with consumers, who are increasingly interested in healthy eating and the origins of their food. Business has tripled in the past five years, though this summer’s slow time was especially slow and an early-pandemic sales jump of 25 percent to retail customers has not been sustained.

Still, he believes in his mission, and despite the recent slump, this past spring he added two mills to double Wild Hive’s capacity and to improve the quality of the flour.

Experimental Work

It takes an average of four years to successfully plant, acclimate, grow out, and bring a new grain variety to market. Since 2016, when Lewis began working with Hudson Valley Seed Company to grow seed test plots, he and the company’s head farmer Steven Crist have tested approximately 30 varieties.

During the growing season, Lewis visits the plots four or five times to see how the wheat is standing, take progress notes, and consult with Crist, who’s responsible for sowing, monitoring, and harvesting it. Lewis also keeps test and grow out plots at a few nearby farms and Hudson Valley Farm Hub.

Lewis tends towards European, Eastern European, and Mediterranean varieties because the genetics are unchanged, unlike North American wheat, which has been commercially bred for mechanization and increased yield. He doesn’t want to set aside the plants’ natural qualities. “I want to be able to eat and enjoy them and their uniqueness,” he says.

Lewis says only about six varieties, including a French Rouge De Bordeaux wheat, have successfully launched. He planned to release a German einkorn variety and Estonian high-protein rye this year, but rain destroyed the crops’ quality, underscoring further obstacles to his work.

“Early-stage experimental work on new varieties and species—I’m not sure anybody else is doing that, certainly in our region,” says Stuart Farr of Hudson Valley Hops & Grains, who has grown grains for Lewis for six years. “It’s by no means a widespread activity.”

Farr and Lewis will soon embark on interplanting winter wheat and overwintering peas, an ambitious test that has the potential to enable farmers to more widely adopt growing these older wheats that are tall and frequently lodge or fall over. (When a grain lodges, or bends at the stem, the flow of nutrients to the plant is restricted, making it more susceptible to pests, disease, and declining yield.)

In interplanting, a growing method not commonly used in the grain industry, farmers plant two varieties together. Farr has used interplanting before, but not for growing grain. He was intrigued by the idea, in which the peas act as a trellis for the wheat. The peas, which can be used for animal or human consumption, fix nitrogen in the soil that the wheat then uses to grow.

“That’s pretty Kumbaya,” says Lewis. Even if the grains of a test plot lodge, he looks past that deficiency to determine if the variety can still provide value. “I evaluate the seed for what it is, the amount it produced, its health, how disease-resistant it is. If it has good scores [on flavor, the size of the cane, and the strength, even though it got knocked over], to me, there’s hope.”

Lewis also frequently trades knowledge with Professor Mark Sorells, who leads Cornell’s Small Grains Genetic Research Program, which devises innovative approaches to develop superior crop varieties. Lewis has helped select genetics for test plots and run milling tests for the Cornell program. In turn, Sorells has facilitated larger grow outs and analyzed grain for Wild Hive.

A Finely Honed Palate

A vital food system starts with seed, its most important component, says Lewis. He sources from farmers, seed banks, and a small network of seed savers around the country that entrusts their seeds and careful notes to him. They don’t have the bandwidth to further test, plant, grow, process, mill, and bring varieties to market, a seed savers’ dream, but Lewis does. Once, Lewis even brought home from a conference in Italy a teaspoon of seeds tucked into the coin pocket of dirty jeans rolled up in his suitcase.

Lewis’ unique skill set is baking, milling, and serving as a storehouse of knowledge acquired from working with breeders and growers, abilities not many other stone millers possess. Thanks to his finely honed palate, he can sample a kernel of wheat while it’s growing to determine how it may mill and taste. He can then create specific flour blends with structure, flavor, and texture to achieve the nuance desired by the bakers. For example, he might select a hard red wheat that many would pass by because they find it too bitter despite its other worthwhile qualities.

That’s key for Farr, who says Lewis’ big value is in “finding use for the grains” at a regionally significant scale that can work for farmers. “If there’s nobody other than a few home enthusiasts who are going to use it, that’s not going to do anything,” he says.

Despite the obstacles, Lewis believes trying to propagate rare varieties that have been nearly lost is a smart idea. “Coming to fruition like this reaffirms all I go through,” he says, pointing to the dried sheafs of grain at the Hudson Valley Seed farm. “I nickel and dime everything with duct tape and baling twine,” he says of his painstaking, self-funded, grassroots efforts. “It doesn’t pay me; it’s a labor of love.”

Adapting to a Changing Climate

Lewis disagrees with the view many hold that growing a monoculture is the only way to feed the world. “I look at it at the opposite,” he says. “Every region, every climate has its issues. You need to be able to adapt to that and not expect out-of-the-box genetics, where you just open that bag of seed and plant it, because a large corporation says it can grow anywhere.”

Preparing for the climate crisis is a critical piece of Lewis’ endeavors. The grains have to grow and produce yields despite unpredictable changes to temperature, precipitation, and humidity.

To assimilate a grain, farmers grow and harvest Lewis’s selected seed, often by hand. Lewis then evaluates the results, and they continue that process on a bigger plot consecutively for a few seasons. If and when the grains score high enough, they’re considered assimilated and can be brought to market. “Whether they survive and how they adapt is important,” Lewis says. “It’s a new focus on seed qualities, the ability to adapt, or to withstand all the extremes—wet, especially.”

Though the Northeast has a diverse climate, with cold winters and hot, humid summers, rain this year wrought the worst effects he’s seen on grain crops yet.

“This is an issue, and the survivors are here,” Lewis says, gesticulating excitedly towards a bunch of a rare hull-less emmer rye mix he plans to grow out this fall—and to market beginning in 2022. “They are adapting,” he continues. “[The grain] has to be able to make a left or a right turn and survive with the proper care.”

Lewis and Crist examine the grains, including a Middle Eastern Hourani Durum, and confer about future tests as they load bunches into Lewis’ van to be cleaned and threshed at the Farm Hub. “Don is the grain wisdom here,” says Crist, though they’re both fulsome in their praise of the other and their like-minded partnership to safeguard and perpetuate these varieties.

“The wisdom is that these [grains] have good, unique qualities that need to be preserved,” Crist adds, bemoaning Big Ag. “[Big aggregate business] turns bread into something different than this ancient grain that has merit that can’t be stated in a sentence. It’s a story, a history, [a] culture, [a] quality.”

Modest about fostering the region’s grain-growing renaissance, Lewis is heartened by increased participation across the country. He likens it to a bicycle that starts to move. “And other people see it and say ‘I can do that. Oh, I’m gonna do that.’ Then they do it.”

Lewis wanted to create a legacy, an improved food system for the future and for his children’s generations. “I feel as though I’ve accomplished that,” he says, “having helped to develop awareness [among] consumers, growers, and in the industry.

“The real value is in the end result,” he says. “And in being able to have a team that enthusiastically participates. That’s the future.”

The post Don Lewis Is Reviving the Grain Economy in New York’s Hudson Valley appeared first on Civil Eats.

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