Can rye growers get consumers and retailers excited about rye?

Given all of the benefits to growing rye, why aren’t more farmers doing it?

Says Jones, “We as Americans tend to like cheap burgers, cheap beer and cheap french fries,” foods that are made possible by cheap, subsidized corn and soy. “Why, as a farmer, if that is your business, would you plant something that you’re not being asked for?”

There is a lot going for rye, but to reach its real superstar potential as a grain good for the farmer, eater and planet, farmers need to be paid fairly for specialty crops that have lower yields. Buyers accustomed to working in a commoditized trade system need a mindset shift. And the demand needs to exist at a consumer level. On each of these fronts, two groups, the Rye Resurgence Project and Rye Revival, are working to create a market for American-grown rye.

A hyper-focus with a big goal

“There’s only two organizations that I’m aware of that are singularly or very hyper-focused on rye,” says Wisconsin farmer Sandy Syburg. “That’s Rye Resurgence and Rye Revival.” (FoodPrint previously covered Rye Revival’s work in the Midwest and Northeast.) Rye Revival’s core team, Syburg and fellow Wisconsin farmer Gary Zimmer, provides free consultation to farmers to prepare them to grow rye, stepping in to help farmers with gaps in knowledge and confidence.

In the upper Midwest and Northeast, rye is the only thing that can be grown after a full-season crop like corn, explains Syburg. Meanwhile, in the San Luis Valley, North America’s largest high-altitude desert, irrigated agriculture — potatoes, alfalfa and barley — comprises most of the economy. A mere seven to 10 inches of rain fall each year. Surrounded by the San Juan Mountains to the west and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east, water that lands in the mountain ranges percolates into the Valley, ending in two groundwater aquifers, the Rio Grande headwaters and other streams and rivers.

Thirsty crops (as well as industrial, municipal and environmental uses) deplete groundwater supplies. To help alleviate water concerns — and to save valuable topsoil — Sarah Jones and Heather Dutton, manager of the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District, started the Rye Resurgence Project in 2024. The project directly ties water conservation to developing a market for San Luis Valley rye, addressing multiple issues head-on.

“In the grand scheme of things, I think rye can be a really valuable crop for the Valley,” says Rye Resurgence member Tyler Mitchell, who, with his brother, farms about 2,500 acres — mostly potatoes — near Monte Vista. While rye isn’t the most water-efficient crop, explains Mitchell, growing rye does limit water use. “Barley, pound for pound, produces more off a gallon of water, but it also takes 20 inches of water, 200 acre-feet, to produce that crop,” he says. “So if you can get down to 60, 70 acre-feet, you’re reducing water use.”

Jones, who co-owns Jones Farms Organics in Hooper with her husband, Michael Jones, and her in-laws, knew that a market for rye already existed. While their main crop is small specialty potatoes, the Jones family diversified into the heirloom grain space around 2018, seeking crops more friendly to the soil, water use and budget; they connected with restaurateurs, millers and bakers in the process. “I started picking up the phone, asking what grains people wanted, who’s buying, what can grow down here,” says Sarah Jones. They knew rye grew well; Michael Jones’ father, Rob, grew it as a cover crop in the 1980s. Connections made through heirloom grains opened up a whole new set of customers previously unknown to the Joneses. “As a small family farm, I’m one person working with two distillers in the state of Colorado and some millers and bakers, and I’m able to sell 100 percent of our rye,” she says. “If I could copy and paste our model and our efforts, the possibilities are endless.”

Building relationships insulates everyone

According to the USDA Small Grains 2024 Summary, rye production in the U.S. increased 42 percent from 2023 (the highest it’s been since 1987), producing 14.7 million bushels. That resurgence might be thanks to a growing interest in soil health and cover cropping: Of the 2.21 million acres planted, only 402,000 acres were actually harvested, indicating the rest was used as a cover crop. And while the U.S. imported about 13 million bushels in 2023 (mostly from Canada), that number dropped to about 10 million bushels for 2024.

The agricultural system values high-yield crops at the expense of flavor and nutrition. Buyers tend to seek commodity ingredients at the lowest price. “Large buyers need and are accustomed to a highly commoditized, Easy Button trade system,” says Syburg. “They need to feed the machine they created.”

“A lot of the crops we grow are heirloom specialty crops that don’t yield well,” says Sarah Jones. “Throw in organic, throw in regenerative organic, and we have a lot of strikes against us.” For Jones, that’s where the craft maltsters, distillers and bakers — who care about nutrition, environmental health and flavor nuances among rye varieties — come in.

Syburg hopes that in addition to the craft food and beverage world, the larger ingredient market can be tapped into. “I’ve had some conversations with big chains but haven’t gotten that far,” he says. “The system isn’t set up for that.” But find the right forward-thinking ingredient manufacturer or restaurant chain, and get them to add a little rye to their products? That’s a marketing opportunity for customers seeking out nutritionally dense and environmentally friendly products. “If we could use those brands to leverage a change in the agriculture landscape, that really is an impactful opportunity that exists for Rye Resurgence and Rye Revival,” says Syburg.

Although the shadow of a commodity market lingers, rye is not traded as a commodity. It was taken off the Chicago Board of Trade — now Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group — in the 1970s. When buyers look for corn, soy or wheat prices, they go to the CME. “When they do that for rye, they can’t,” says Syburg. “They have to wind the clock back decades and engage in conversations with farmers, bring a conversation about what it takes to grow, clean, store and transport.” The negotiation becomes more transparent and open. “It’s refreshingly different with rye because we’re talking directly to small and large buyers all around the country,” he says.

Farmers throughout Colorado have reached out to Sarah Jones about joining the Rye Resurgence Project. While she encourages them to grow rye in their regions, her focus remains in the Valley, where infrastructure for cleaning, storing, milling, malting, brewing and distilling already exists. “That’s powerful, to be this small of a community but to check so many of those boxes,” says Jones. “This can be a one-stop shop. If you want it tomorrow, in any of those forms, across the country, we can get it to you.”

Shifting pricing and consumers

The majority of Mitchell’s rye is for cover crop and grazing, but when he does sell, it goes to a few malting companies. “The price has gone down in the last year or two, so it’s back to not really profitable at the current price right now,” he says.

With many variables, pricing on rye is, well, variable. “Pricing across the board from conventional to the ROC (Regenerative Organic Certified) is $0.25 a pound off the combine to $1 a pound, depending on the growing [conditions], the size of the farm,” says Sarah Jones. It also depends on the customer: Are they buying a tote or a grain truck? Do they need it cleaned? What testing needs to be done? Will it be for a cover crop, for whiskey, for a mill?

“We have silos as far as the eye can see, so storing is no big deal; cleaning, even, is no big deal,” says Jones. Most farms in the Valley have their own grain truck to transport grains. “It’s literally just the demand,” she says. “We just need the customers.”

According to the Rye Resurgence Project’s 2024 report, 443,250 pounds of Valley-grown rye sold, with 24 businesses committing to support the project. Small businesses can have notable influence, too. Joy Hill, a pizzeria in Denver, adds 10 percent Ryman Rye, a variety grown by Jones Farms Organics, to their pizza dough and 5 percent to their focaccia. “They’re using over 50 pounds a week, which equals over an acre of rye planted,” says Sarah Jones. “One small pizza restaurant can have that direct impact on the San Luis Valley, four hours away.”