Developed from intermediate wheatgrass, the grain Kernza grows well in the same areas where Montana farmers grow wheat and barley. Its sweet, nutty taste can complement a variety of products, from beer to pasta to bread. Courtesy of Montana State University.
Growing the Market for Kernza in Bozeman
Whether you’ve lived in our mountain hiatus for years or are just passing through, chances are you’ve encountered at least one environmentally conscious free spirit with an affinity for craft beer.
If you are close to one of these people, or are one yourself, you’ll want to keep reading. So too will those interested in the future of agriculture.
Meet Kernza, a relatively new, trademarked high-protein grain crop that scientists developed from intermediate wheatgrass. Unlike annual crops such as wheat and barley that must be planted every year, Kernza regrows each year after being harvested, reducing the need for yearly replanting.
Because Kernza stays in the soil year-round, its deep root system builds biodiversity and sequesters carbon while minimizing soil erosion associated with annual harvesting and tilling. The crop is grown at a small scale in the American West, Great Plains, and Midwest.
For Bozemanites, the name Kernza might already ring a bell if you frequent MAP Brewing, which serves a Kernza beer in partnership with Patagonia Provisions. But if you’re a newbie, fear not—in conjunction with Earth Day, Bozeman will host two events to raise awareness of the promising perennial.
On April 17 at 6 p.m., MAP Brewing will screen a short documentary about Kernza in beer production, titled Beer Saves the World. MAP will serve its Kernza beer on tap: the Kernza Lager, a nutty, earthy beer brewed by Patagonia Provisions. A non-alcoholic version will also be available.
The following night, on April 18 at 7 p.m., the Ellen Theatre will show the 90-minute documentary Prairie Prophecy, which outlines the story of Kernza and perennial grains in agriculture. Tickets are available at theellentheatre.com.
Both films were produced by Michael Johnson and Kelly Salaway and were first shown last year in Salina, Kansas. The town is the home to The Land Institute, a research and crop breeding organization that has spent decades advancing intermediate wheatgrass into the perennial grain now known as Kernza.
A panel of experts will lead a discussion and answer audience questions after both films.
The feature documentary is about the work and ideas of Wes Jackson, who co-founded The Land Institute and has dedicated his career to researching the viability of perennial grains. Johnson describes Jackson, who earned a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1992, as a man with the demeanor of Mr. Rogers mixed with the paradigm-shifting ideas of Charles Darwin.
“We wanted to make a film about the problem of agriculture—not the problems in agriculture,” Johnson says. “That’s a significant distinction [Jackson] makes—that most people are tinkering around with problems in agriculture within a system that’s already broken. And he says basically we need to rethink the whole thing.”
The filmmakers also wanted to avoid making a “doom-and-gloom film” and instead energize viewers by spotlighting people who are working on a solution, Johnson says.
Those who have worked closely with Jackson view Kernza as a potential silver bullet for regenerative agriculture.
The regenerative agriculture movement has several key premises: improve soil health, reduce soil erosion and runoff, minimize tilling, and keep the ground covered year-round. That’s hard to do with annual plants and cover crop mixtures, says Brandon Schlautman, co-founder of Sustain-A-Grain. The aggregator formed in 2018 to purchase Kernza from farmers to sell to their network of buyers.
“Regenerative agriculture right now relies on an undefined, continuous use of different cover crops, cash crops, soil amendments, and management strategies,” Schlautman says. “But Kernza eliminates the need for a complicated set of things. It’s a single product, a single crop, that accomplishes the majority of those goals.”
The goal of Sustain-A-Grain is to expand the markets for Kernza so that farmers can keep growing it. There are many unique products that can be created with the specialty crop, including breads, pastries, cookies, pastas, and beers, but work needs to be done to build consumer demand.
James Bowden, a soil ecologist and farmer who also works with Sustain-A-Grain, says it doesn’t make sense for farmers to grow something they don’t know they can sell. He hopes Sustain-A-Grain builds more awareness about Kernza and increases its market share because farmers want to grow it.
Bowden, who grows Kernza close to Salina, says because the perennial grain reseeds itself every year, farmers only have to buy seed and prep the field once. That can save producers thousands of dollars while also guaranteeing there will always be a crop coming up.
He also uses Kernza as a forage crop for his cattle. It grows in the spring and can be harvested in July or August for food. Then it will start to regrow, and cattle can graze on the regrowth until it becomes too snowy.
“That’s a big motivator for me [in planting Kernza]. I have cattle, so I can reap both benefits from it, both the harvest and the forage,” Bowden says. “The cattle are the money makers right now, so making sure that I can provide them the best nutrition I can is super important for the operation.”
That’s how several Montana growers are utilizing the crop as well. In 2023, Montana producers planted the most Kernza acres of any state, at around 175 acres, according to data from The Land Institute. However, its harvested yields were lower than other regions due to it primarily being hayed and grazed for cattle.
The way to get Kernza into the marketplace on a sustainable basis—meaning there is enough volume being purchased that farmers keep growing it—is if companies start incorporating small percentages of Kernza into high-volume products, Bowden says.
For example, if a large manufacturer incorporated Kernza into just 1 percent of their ingredient mix, it would make a significant impact while also helping corporations meet their sustainability or climate goals. One company that has done so is General Mills, which started using Kernza in their Cascadian Farms cereals.
Growing consumer demand also involves hosting events like the April screenings planned for Bozeman, publishing educational materials, talking to media, attending industry expos, and ensuring Kernza products are easy to find and purchase online, Schlautman says. Additionally, Sustain-A-Grain is developing marketing resources for those interested in incorporating the grain into their products. They recently launched a tool that models carbon footprint reductions when a company replaces a portion of conventional grains with Kernza.
“Through that program, if food and beverage companies sign up, they’ll be able to submit their recipes to us so that we can tell them the carbon impacts of replacing 20 percent of the wheat in their muffin recipe with Kernza, for example,” Schlautman says. “There’s a desire for farmers to grow it, and we hope that companies can recognize the opportunities Kernza allows them to improve their sustainability goals and carbon footprint.”
Another selling point will be reducing the grain’s cost. One way to achieve this is to identify efficient growing practices for farmers so they can reap the best yields.
That’s the impetus of research at Montana State University. Since around 2019, MSU has been growing experimental plots of Kernza at the university’s agricultural research farms. Because Kernza is a newer crop, the goal of the research is to make recommendations for growers, says Eeusha Nafi, an agronomy professor at MSU’s southern agricultural research center in Huntley.
One of Nafi’s experiments identified the ideal seeding dates for Kernza in Montana and tested how it grew when planted in the spring versus fall. The results varied based on farmers’ access to irrigation: If a grower has irrigation capacity they should plant Kernza in fall before Labor Day; if they are growing it on dryland acreage it’s best to plant in spring.
Additional research has asked questions related to seeding depth, harvesting equipment, and the highest-yield varieties for Montana. Most of the breeding to refine Kernza is done at the University of Minnesota and The Land Institute.
In January, Nafi traveled across Montana to present his Kernza research to interested farmers. He says there are about 23 individual growers in Montana that he is aware of, but those numbers could increase as people seek a multi-use grain crop that can also be grazed by cattle.
“When commodity grain prices are very bad, that is when farmers begin to look for another alternative. That’s why Eeusha’s presentations are very useful,” says Jessica Torrion, department head of MSU’s agricultural research centers, who oversees Nafi’s work. “It plants the seed in people’s minds that there is another option, and producers can ask questions about what this crop is for and how we can best make use of it.”
People who are interested in learning more about Kernza can visit kernza.org, landinstitute.org, or sustainagrain.com and be sure to attend the April events planned for Bozeman.
