NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
July 15, 1999
North Dakota is one of three states supporting a study to determine if there's a U.S. market for value-added alfalfa products.
If so, it could mean a new industry for North Dakota and higher prices and reduced risk for the state's commercial alfalfa producers, says Rudy Radke, a North Dakota State University Extension specialist focusing on agricultural diversification and high-value crops.
The industry under study processes alfalfa by breaking it into dozens of parts, including various forms of protein, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, fiber and other products. Products are then reconstituted according to customer specifications.
"The advantage to the customer is a very specific, consistent product," Radke says. "For example, a dairy farmer could specify the exact nutritional content that he wants in a bale of hay and every bale would be exactly the same."
In addition to custom-designed livestock feed, some of the alfalfa components have potential for food and industrial products, Radke notes.
Alfalfa shipped to the plant would be green chopped in the field, limiting weather risk for producers. "Now, if you cut alfalfa and the swaths get rained on, you lose leaves and you lose nutrients. Green chopping helps you retain quality throughout the process," Radke says.
Alfalfa producers in North Dakota, Michigan and Minnesota commissioned Senechal, Jorgenson, Hale and Co., Inc., a Danvers, Mass., consulting firm to conduct a marketing study for products that would be produced from such a process in the United States. Most of North Dakota's share of the $75,000 study will be paid by the North Dakota Agricultural Products Utilization Commission.
"We're looking for something to supplement the normal crops," says Dennis Brown, a Milton alfalfa producer and president of the Northland Alfalfa Growers Association. "Things have to change for farmers. This won't solve all of our problems, but it might address a little piece of it."
Radke, Brown, Brent Sorenson of the University of Minnesota's Agricultural Utilization Research Institute, Jim LeCureux of Michigan State University Extension specialist and alfalfa producers from Minnesota and Michigan will leave for France on July 20 for a four-day visit to a cooperative that is already using the process being studied here. They will accompany a representative from Senechal, Jorgenson, Hale.
"This trip will help us define some of the issues that we're looking at in the marketing study," Radke says. "We're looking at how the dollars flow through the marketing system so we can determine how producers and others may benefit if we try this here."
"Until I see how the plant operates and observe the farmer side of it, it's difficult to know how this could work here," Brown says. "I want to bring back that information, so our producers can have a better idea of what we're talking about."
The French cooperative uses a wet fractionation process for alfalfa that was developed 25 years ago in California. Prototype equipment was developed in the United States but never commercialized. The French cooperative, called France Luzerne, has 4,500 members who produce four to five cuttings of alfalfa a year on 110,000 acres. All of that production is processed in the cooperative's wet fractionation plant.
Radke says North Dakota, Minnesota and Michigan are among the nation's leading commercial alfalfa producers. "There are other states, like Wisconsin, that produce more alfalfa, but their production is primarily used on the farm where it is raised," he says.
"Because the alfalfa must be produced close to the processing plants and we believe demand for the resulting products will be good, we're optimistic that a series of these processing facilities could be developed across the Upper Midwest," Radke says. "Those expectations could be confirmed or they could change drastically pending the results of the study."
The marketing study is expected to be complete this fall. If results are promising, a feasibility study will be conducted and a business plan developed, Radke says.
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Sources: Rudy Radke (701) 845-8528
Dennis Brown (701) 496-3565
Editor: Tom Jirik (701) 231-9629