Lending a Hand
Some Kentucky Electric Co-ops help Customers Launch Tobacco Alternative  
03/06/2001

By Kevin Osborne
East Kentucky Power

When neighbors saw Randy Seymour along roadsides pulling seed heads off grass a few years ago, they worried about him. Did he have mad cow disease or had he just gone looney?

Little did the bystanders know, Randy and his son, John, were harvesting what was left of the native prairie grass that once stretched wide across the Barrens in western and central Kentucky. They pulled the seed and planted it. The next season, they planted more, until slowly, patiently, they had enough seed for commercial production.

"Farmers used to come by and say, 'I've been trying to kill that stuff my whole life,'" John Seymour said.

"People thought we were a little touched," said Randy Seymour, 58, a member of Farmers Rural Electric Cooperative, a self-trained botanist, author, and farmer. "The ones who have taken the time to look at what we are doing are excited now."

In fact, several neighbors have joined the Seymours' new cooperative, raising native grasses for seed production with the help of Kentucky's Touchstone Energy^® Cooperatives. At their Riders Mill Farm near Bonnieville, the Seymours have discovered that native grass seed provides comparable income to burley tobacco, the state's beleaguered No. 1 cash crop. 

Through their Kentucky Native Seed Cooperative, the Seymours and a group of other farmers are successfully raising big bluestem, little bluestem, Indian grass, switchgrass, and gamagrass. They have found eager markets for the seed from organizations ranging from the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife to generation and transmission cooperative East Kentucky Power, and they believe the market potential is huge among the agricultural community.

"We want meadows under our right-of-ways," said Jeff Hohman, manager of Natural Resources and Environmental Communications at EKP. "If we can get these native grasses established under our lines, we can go from a 3-year mowing cycle to a 10-year cycle, which saves money."

"Right now, the demand for these warm-season grass seeds far outstrips supply," said Randy. "We think this has tremendous potential for tobacco and cattle farmers because it doesn't require a big investment. Our co-op will do the harvesting, drying, cleaning, and marketing."

The Seymours' ancestors have owned acreage in the Barrens since the 1800s. It wasn't until 1979 that Randy started purchasing land for what would become Riders Mill Farm. 

They grew interested in raising native Kentucky grasses after John, 27, declared his chosen profession: farming.

"There are so few young people who start out farming," Randy said. "It's almost impossible with the demise of tobacco. We were actively seeking a crop that would allow him to continue and provide a living."

Their knowledge of native grasses started with Julian Campbell, a well-known botanist with the Kentucky chapter of the Nature Conservancy. While serving on the board of the Kentucky chapter, Randy met Julian. Together, they shared a passion about the scientific study of plants.

"Julian taught me field botany," Randy said. "He put me under his wing and taught me. I wrote Wildflowers of Mammoth Cave, and I wanted to do a book on grasses, sedges, and rushes.'

Through Julian, the Seymours discovered that at one time, a 200-mile swath of prairie once covered the region. The research revealed one especially interesting fact: native grasses had many advantages over fescue, orchard grass, and other species that cover most of Kentucky farmland today.

The native Kentucky grasses last at least a quarter century without reseeding, and could last indefinitely when managed well. The native grasses resist insects, diseases, and drought better. Native grasses are better suited to Kentucky's rainfall and soils, while holding the promise of higher nutrition and fewer medical problems for livestock. Best of all, wildlife thrive in grassland prairies.

The more the Seymours looked into it, the more they thought they had found a way for John to farm full time and make a living. 

Problem was, they needed a lot of specialized equipment for planting, harvesting, cleaning, and drying their seed. That's how they came up with the idea of the Kentucky Native Seed Co-op.

"Only by combining a significant amount of acreage can you justify it," Randy said. "Very few farmers could get into this business by themselves. If you spread the cost over several thousand acres, it's not that big a cost. On 100 acres, it's overwhelming."

Kentucky's Touchstone Energy^® Cooperatives saw an opportunity to help their friends, neighbors, and customers to help themselves. With financial assistance from the electric co-ops, the Seymours purchased a warm-season grass drill. 
The Seymours also worked with Steve Ratliff, a Bonnieville mechanical genius, to design and build a harvester. They purchased enough new and used equipment to cobble together a system to clean and dry their seed.

The result is that 11 farmers have joined their new cooperative, five more will join in the spring, and an increasing number are expressing interest. This year, the Kentucky Native Seed Co-op will show its first profit.

"The demand right now is primarily from conservation organizations," Randy said. "We have landowners who want to do prairie restorations because these grasses are wonderful wildlife habitat plants."

Just recently, the Seymours restored 15 acres at Mammoth Cave National Park to tall grass prairie. The land had previously been used for everything from a golf course to a government camp. For that project, they also planted 21 wildflower species.
Eventually, the Seymours hope farmers become their prime customers. 

They believe that once cattle farmers learn about the benefits of planting their grass seeds, they will beat a path to their door. The prairie grasses are classified as warm season, meaning these species grow in warmer months when fescue and orchard grass go dormant.

The Seymours' experience shows that a farmer can support up to 30 percent more cattle on the same amount of land by moving a herd to graze prairie grasses during months when fescue stops growing.

"Thirty percent can mean a tremendous amount to a small farmer in Kentucky," Randy said. "Cows have higher pregnancy rates when foraging upon warm-season grasses."

On a bright fall day, Randy took East Kentucky Power CEO Roy Palk on a tour of his seed business. With displays of arrowheads - all found on the farm - hanging on the walls, they sipped coffee in Randy's living room, talking about the benefits of belonging to a cooperative.

"Individuals cannot do something like this on their own," Randy said. "It made sense to develop an organization that could carry the overhead for a large amount of production."

"That was the whole concept behind how East Kentucky Power got started," Roy Palk said. "People knew they could accomplish much more by working together."

Later, Randy took him to a field of mature Indian grass to demonstrate the harvester. Randy hopped aboard his tractor, raised the machine's hydraulic lift, and disappeared into the waving grass.

Grass seeds flew into the harvester's bin without cutting the base of the plants. As the machine moved over the field, dozens of rabbits scurried away from the machine.

"It's a wildlife heaven," Randy said as he worked the field. "For my children and my grandchildren to see a tall grass prairie, that thrills you to death."

Someday, Randy dreams that his grandchildren will see native wildflowers and legumes thriving again on the Barrens. He and John already have plans to raise those plants for commercial seed production.

If you look carefully when you drive around Bonnieville, you can still spot John and Randy parked along the side of the road.

Patiently, they pull seeds by hand from the few native flowers and legumes that remain from the old prairie. They collect seeds from blazing stars, purple coneflowers, and other wildflowers, filled with visions of what once was and what could yet live again.

"We're still out collecting at roadsides," Randy said. "People are still worried about us."

Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives, Inc. 4515 Bishop Lane * Louisville, KY  40218 502-451-2430 * FAX: 502-459-3209 Terms of Use