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No Grain, No Gain
As wheat prices soar, will Vermonters start growing it again?
"It’s hard to believe historians describe Vermont in the years before westward expansion as “New England’s bread basket.” In those days before supermarkets and Wonder Bread, our state boasted commercial wheat growers, and many Green Mountain landowners maintained small plots for home use. (It wasn’t as common as tending a patch of tomatoes or keeping the root cellar stocked, but it wasn’t unusual.) When their grain was ready, families brought it to the nearest mill to be ground into flour. But Vermont’s wild, wet weather is hard on wheat, which is vulnerable to a variety of funguses. As the drier midwestern territory was settled and the Great Plains were converted from buffalo pastures into “amber waves of grain,” North Country farmers turned to dairy and other forms of agriculture.
All that could change. With wheat prices fluctuating wildly on the commodities market — they doubled earlier this year, then crashed last week — and the localvore movement issuing a clarion call for breads made from local grains, Vermont’s wheat fields are making a comeback. “There is definitely a . . . much greater demand than there was five years ago,” posits grain expert Heather Darby, a farmer and assistant professor at the University of Vermont Extension. “There are more farmers interested in growing grains. Some are starting to grow them, and others are in the information-seeking stage...”
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