Flower Power On the Plains

The hottest new cash crop

For years the autumn landscape in the fertile Red River valley of North Dakota and Minnesota was unchanging: acres of wheat extended to a flat skyline broken only by the lonely silhouettes of grain elevators. Now the amber waves are interrupted by broad patches of dark brown, and the horizon is punctuated by tall processing towers. These are signs of the region's hot new cash crop, which is also becoming an important export: the sunflower.

The enormous Helianthus plant is familiar as the source of those light gray seeds that birds like to peck at and kids love to munch. But what is exciting farmers is a somewhat shorter (5 to 6 ft.) variety that yields a dark brown seed containing a high-protein food oil. This fall growers in North Dakota and adjacent states will harvest more than 5 million acres of what they call "flower," double last year's planting and 100 times as large as that of a decade ago. Some 75% of the crop, which will fatten farm incomes by $800 million this year, is sold in Europe and such distant markets as Egypt and Australia.

Growing consumer consciousness about health has helped the market. Flower oil costs 10% to 15% more than oil made from corn or soybeans, but its cholesterol content is lower; it has 70% polyunsaturated fats, vs. about 55% for corn oil. Hunt-Wesson in September began national distribution of a flower oil named Sunlite. Procter & Gamble is selling a blend of flower and soybean oil called Puritan, and Lever Brothers is marketing Promise, a part-flower margarine.

Oddly, what first spurred U.S. interest in Helianthus was the emergence in the 1960s of latex-base paints. This undermined the market for paints based on linseed oil, which is made from flax. Companies that processed flaxseed had to find another oil to keep their machinery busy. Cargill Inc., the huge Minneapolis grain dealer, in 1966 dispatched a researcher to get some sunflower seeds from the Soviet Union, which is the leading producer. At the same time, Cargill and rival Honeymead Products set out to persuade farmers to try the new crop. That was not easy; the companies had to promise skeptical growers that they would buy their entire flower harvests at prices above the going rates for wheat and other crops.

A breakthrough came in 1974, when both Cargill and the Department of Agriculture developed hybrid seeds that increased yields by 20% an acre. This made sunflowers financially attractive to farmers, who now net up to 25% more for flower than for wheat.

As a crop, flower resists frost, has a short growing season, and is less affected by drought than wheat. It also has some drawbacks. Says Farmer Tom Sinner, of Casselton, N. Dak.: "You plant flower because it brings a better return than other crops, but weeds and insects just love it." Agronomists fear that repeated plantings of flower on the same stretch of soil will so infest it with insects and diseases that it will become unusable for that crop.

Such considerations have not dampened the enthusiasm of flower farmers, and their fondness for Helianthus at least has a historical precedent. When Francisco Pizarro's conquistadors invaded Peru in 1532, they found Inca priestesses wearing sunflower emblems--symbolic of the sun god--on their breasts. The material: solid gold.

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