Herb no remedy for tobacco grower woes

Reductions in tobacco allotments have slashed production and income for Wisconsin tobacco farmers, and many are looking for alternative crops to replace tobacco.

Echinacea (commonly known as the coneflower) has become a popular herbal supplement, and reports of high profits have some tobacco growers thinking about switching to Echinacea production. That could be a very risky switch, according to university researchers.

Don Schuster, an outreach specialist at UW–Madison’s Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems and Rick Klemme, an agricultural economist and director of CIAS, analyzed the economics of Echinacea for a typical southern Wisconsin tobacco farm. Their conclusions: switching from tobacco to Echinacea could yield big profits for some growers.

But there are also big risks and uncertainties, some of which growers won’t know until they harvest their first crop three years down the road. Potential problems include fieldwork and harvest differences, marketing challenges, and large price swings for Echinacea roots.

Growers will have no income for three years, until the Echinacea roots reach marketable size, but they’ll have plenty of field work. A 2-row tobacco planter, planting Echinacea plugs, will require four people on the planter, one person walking behind to check sets, and one person handling the plug trays.

Echinacea for the herbal-supplement market must be grown organically. The researchers estimated 160 hours of hand-hoeing per acre over the three years. Washing and drying the roots will add 35 hours of labor per acre, and growers must build LP-heated drying boxes.

High prices for Echinacea root have grabbed growers’ attention, but Echinacea lacks the supports that reduce price risk in tobacco, and you can expect sizable price swings. The market is still developing for E. pallida, a high-yielding variety that’s better suited for Wisconsin growing conditions, Schuster notes.

“I suspect that we’re talking about a market where relatively small changes in quantities supplied could lead to major changes in price,” Klemme says.

For a copy of the complete report or copies of Echinacea composite budgets, contact Don Schuster at CIAS, (608) 262-7879; schuster@aae.wisc.edu