THE NICHES OF RAFTER 5 Ranchers Tom and Clarion Breuer profit from niche markets for wheat and cattle. By Melissa Hemken
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ucked among the breaks that ring North Dakota’s Lake Sakakawea reservoir, spreads a ranch. Its ranchers, Tom and Clarion Breuer, describe themselves as “nothing special,” but they, as do many ranchers and farmers, diligently care for America’s working lands. The Breuers, of Garrison, North Dakota, learned their land’s nature — its capacity and connections to grow grain and cattle. Tom and Clarion farmed their arable fields with organic durum wheat for Annie’s Homegrown pasta, among other clients. In the rough grasslands, the Breuers raise beef cattle for general and direct-to-consumer markets. “My parents and grandparents moved off the river bottom in 1955,” recalls Tom Breuer, “to about 10 miles east of here on the highest ridge in the country without a tree in sight. Then, back in 1976, I informed my dad, ‘I’m setting up camp down there in the hills.’ I just never could get used to living out there with wind, so I came back down here [by the lake].” Tom’s and his wife Clarion’s Rafter 5 Ranch includes the rough breaks along Lake Sakakawea — the second largest man-made reservoir in the U.S. by area and the third largest by volume — and cultivated fields up on the flats. 78 Volume 83 Farm&Ranch
Rafter 5 Ranch near Garrison, ND with Lake Sakakawea in the distance.
Growing Organic Selling grain on the commodity market delivered slim financial returns, so the Breuers decided to grow organic durum wheat because it commanded premium prices on the emerging organic market. In 1992, the Breuers certified their crop fields as U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic. The certification requires tracking each bin of durum to its field of origin, in addition to organic farming practices. Organic durum demands a surcharge, which offsets the annual, tedious paperwork to maintain USDA organic certification. “Organics will always command a better price than conventional grain,” Tom says, “because there is a certain group of people in the United States that think eating organic will keep you alive longer. It takes three years to
transition crop ground into the program. My annual application, just the application, consisted of 80-something pages. I would have rather had teeth pulled than work on it, I really would have. “It’s an audit that’s more intense than an [Internal Revenue Service] audit. We’ve been through three IRS audits in our 42 years together, and I had an Organic Crop Improvement Association inspection every year. But, organic farming was very good to us for many years.” At the start, it was difficult to sell the organic durum because of shady grain buyers. Tom chased payment from the middlemen who accepted delivery of his grain, once all the way to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. In the airport the buyer finally gave Tom an envelope of checks, which Tom fanned to confirm the monetary amounts. He
