Enhancing New England Farmers' Capacity to Produce High Quality Food Grade Grains.

Growth in the organic dairy sector in New England has focused attention on producing organic grains for livestock feed. In addition, demand for local organic food has inspired new interest in growing food grade grains New England.  Our region’s farmers have long produced forages for livestock operation but lack knowledge and research information regarding production of grains.  The overall goal of our efforts is to increase farmers’ capacity to produce high quality food grade grains for local markets as well as becoming more self reliant on locally produced grain to meet organic dairy needs.  This multi-state collaboration includes actively partnering with organic farmers, millers, processors, and bakers to develop strategies for grain production that meet multiple criteria including productivity, profitability, milling and baking quality.  This task is being achieved through extensive on-farm trials to identify cultivars best suited to the regions, develop region specific cultural practices, and evaluate organic fertility and weed control strategies. Lastly we are working to enhance and develop farmer to farmer networks as well as farmer to end-users relationships.