Getting Tough to Find Ground for
Growing Carrots
Carrot Country
Winter 2007
Major decisions on what crops can be grown affordably are in the making for
many Columbia Basin growers, including Klaustermeyer Farms.
Jim Klaustermeyer Sr., and his son, Jim Klaustermeyer Jr., who grow primarily
carrots for the processing market, are having difficulty find enough affordable
rental ground to make plans for the 2008 season.
This year, the Klaustermeyers had approximately 1,600 acres of carrots scattered
over a 30 to 40-mile area around Basin City, Wash. Their carrots, mainly for
the freezer market, range from Little Amsterdam minicores to the much bigger
dicer carrots.
Competition for ground to grow corn for ethanol is pushing farm land rental
prices out of sight, Jim Sr. said.
“We’re getting close to the point where we are going to have to re-evaluate
what we’re doing,” the grower said. “As carrot growers, we’re
competing with everybody else for ground, and, right now, commodity prices are
hot, particularly for alfalfa hay, wheat and corn.”
When corn “got hot” in the Columbia Basin this year, alfalfa acreage
went down and, because of that, hay prices have been at record highs, he explained.
Wheat, too, is enjoying “the best prices we’ve seen in a long time.”
What that adds up to is growers now have more crop options. The competition
for land is ramping up and those growing crops with thin margins, such as carrots,
are finding they may have some serious decisions to make.
“Carrots are a long-term crop. By that, I mean they are harvested late
in the fall, making it difficult for other growers leasing the ground the following
year to plant alfalfa hay once the carrots are out,” Jim Sr. said. “The
time frame is just too short. There isn’t enough time for the hay to germinate
and get off to a healthy start before the temperatures turn cold.
“We only grow these carrots in the same spot once every four years,”
he continued. “To avoid getting into disease problems, it’s necessary
to flush things out. On an operation such as ours, that means we need
a land base of 7,000 to 8,000 acres for that to happen. And since we do not
own that much land, we are forced to lease ground.”
Right now, the needed ground “does not appear to be coming out of the woodwork,”
Jim Sr. said.
© 2007 Columbia Publishing