Flax Working Group

2005 - 2007

Purpose

This group operated as part of the Value Chain Partnerships program from 2005-2007. When a Cherokee company called Biowa Nutraceuticals built a processing facility for organic flax in 2004, the group was formed to help Iowa farmers develop a profitable enterprise for flax. The group was co-facilitated by ISU Value Added Agriculture and Practical Farmers of Iowa.

The goals of the Flax Working Group:

• to help facilitate the growth and development of supply chains for organic and conventional flax
• to benefit Iowa farmers and rural communities and encourage loyal, transparent and cooperative relationships between all parties

Accomplishments:

• contributed to agronomic research for flax, both on-farm and on the research station
• helped coordinate flax harvesting and cleaning research
• conducted grower surveys and interviews to gain producer input into production and harvesting guidelines
• conducted outreach and education with summer field events and articles in the popular press
• developed a production and marketing financial budget for use by growers
• levergaed an additional $58,089 from the ISU Agronomy Department, ISU Agronomy Endowment Fund and Spectrum/Hain Celestial.

Working group resources

• "Flax Production Guidelines for Iowa" [PDF]

Lessons learned

The Flax Working Group was discontinued in 2007. One lesson learned from the group was that a focus on one crop is too narrow to maintain a vibrant working group. Continued funding was not available for such a narrow focus. In addition, the market outlet focused on only one buyer. Other buyers were sought and recruited into the Flax Working Group. Two feed buyers in the Midwest do purchase small amounts of organic flax for their businesses. These feed companies can source cleaned flax from North Dakota at reasonable prices, and are not likely to buy from Midwestern growers.

A crop-based working group with a broader emphasis would likely have more longevity and potential for greater impact over time. A focus on specialty grains or specialty oilseed crops or organic crops would have wider appeal, attract a larger membership, and likely would result in more impact for these industries.

Both agronomic research and farmers’ experiences pointed out big challenges for flax production, and particularly for organic flax production in the Midwest. Flax is an extremely non-competitive crop and is challenged to compete with weeds in organic systems in the Midwest. In the typical growing areas, North Dakota and Canada, flax is a full-season crop with different competing, cooler-season weed species. Flax grown in the north often is harvested after a frost, which renders weeds less of a problem in the harvesting process. In Iowa, a lot of foreign plant material that collected in the combine with the flax often resulted in lower product quality. In addition, flax grown farther south has lower amounts of the desirable fatty acids that make flax an attractive dietary supplement.

Most farmers who experimented with flax did not find it as profitable as their other small grain alternatives. The number of farmers growing flax declined in 2006 and 2007, and today there are only a handful of Iowa farmers growing and selling organic flax.