The Rural Voice, 1993-04, Page 34Spelt spells success
A crop few in Canada have heard of is a big winner for
OntarBio, the organic farmers' co-operative in Durham
By Keith Roulston
Spelt? How is that spelled? And
what is it anyway? That was the
reaction around our office the first
time the name of the grain spelt
showed up in a story. For most
conventional farmers the reaction is
probably the same.
But for ecological farmers (also
known as organic farmers), spelt is a
cash crop with a bright future. "As
far as we can sec this is a market that
is really untapped," says Ted Zettel,
the Chepstow -area dairy farmer who
is president of OntarBio in Durham,
Ontario's only organic grain co-op.
"If we could develop a market where
even a portion of one per cent of
wheat users would shift to spelt we
could triple or quadruple spelt sales."
Spelt, he explains, is a wheat -like
grain that can be substituted for
nearly anything wheat
can be used for.
Europeans, and those
with a European
background, traditionally
feel spelt has a higher
nutritional value than
wheat and some people
who have allergies to
wheat can use spelt with
no problems. "It makes
nice bread," Zettel says.
OntarBio is actually
looking for more growers
at a time when there
seem to be too many
people chasing too few
customers for most
grains. The market for
spelt is small enough that
too much production
could swamp it in short
30 THE RURAL VOICE
order but since it takes three years for
a farm to go through the process of
becoming a certified organic farm,
Zettel expects no quick influx of
producers. "I feel confident we can
develop an outlet faster than we can
develop production," he says.
But the market is the end of the
process for ecological farmers, not
the reason they get into crops, Zettel
says. Those who believe in ecological
farming start first with the idea of
growing crops in a rotation that will
be good for their farms' biological
systems, then try to develop a market
for the crops they grow. Many
organic farmers feed their grains
through livestock, but developing a
Organic farmers bought mill to keep
an alternative marketing tool.
lucrative cashcrop for those who have
excess grain, or those who want to be
just a cashcropper is a priority of
OntarBio.
The co-op started in 1989 when a
privately -owned mill which had been
handling organic grains was about to
close. A number of organic growers
felt it was important to keep the mill
operating to provide a market for
their grains. They could sell to
brokers, but the mill would give them
an alternative. Forty growers and
supporters, most concentrated in
Grey, Bruce, Wellington and Huron
counties invested in setting up the co-
op. Today membership is up to 75
with members as far away as
southwestern Ontario, and even
Quebec. As a co-op, he says, organic
growers can have an influence in the
market and not be at the
mercy of brokers.
Sixty per cent of
the co-op's sales are in
spelt with the other 40
per cent from wheat,
oats, soybeans, corn,
some feed grains and
some other beans. The
challenge for the co-op,
Zettel says, is to
develop markets for the
other crops that farmers
grow in their rotation.
Rye, for instance, is an
iniportant crop in the
organic rotation but has
very little demand
among North Amer-
icans for such things as
rye bread. The co-op is
trying to develop a