Mad Cow Problems Could Boost Legume Sales Eastern Washington Farmers See Opportunity To Get New Customers

It’s a familiar theme: Historically low prices are threatening to force farmers out of business.

There may be a few select crops that families across Eastern Washington and Idaho can grow to make money, but they aren’t the plants that have made the region some of the best-farmed land in the country.

Wheat, potatoes, apples, onions - they’re all money losers this year. In fact, it’s not easy to find farmers who can grow such crops and make money in these markets.

It’s not much different for pea and lentil growers.

Yet, there’s an opportunity for the beleaguered legumes in overseas sales.

“We’re looking at the lowest prices since 1973, but on the flip side, there’s some good news out there:” said Tim McGreevey with the USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council, “mad cow disease.”

During the group’s recent annual meeting, McGreevey said concerns about livestock feed may put high-protein peas in the diet of European cattle.

Mad cow disease has battered the beef industry, causing worries about what is being fed to cattle. Meal made of bone and blood has come under increasing scrutiny as bovine spongiform encephalopathy - known as the brain-wasting mad cow disease - continues to plague European beef sales.

Scientists believe the disease originated in Britain when cattle were fed meal made with the blood and bones of sheep. The result has been deadly, as the disease is a suspected link to a human condition called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

If peas can become a food staple for European cattle, it could provide an exciting new market, McGreevey said. And that’s good news for Palouse farmers, who grow about 75 percent of the country’s crop of peas and lentils.

Although those numbers drop dramatically worldwide, some of the U.S. supply may be headed for the troughs instead of dinner plates.

As for lentils, consumers are becoming more picky, so farmers are being asked to adopt a stronger grading system. It’s in the beginning stages now, but with shoppers carefully choosing lentils, it has forced food companies to consider means to assure that lentils are high-grade.

Consumers seem to want the skins on lentils to be a certain thickness and grade.

It shouldn’t be too much of a problem for area farmers, yet further classifying food adds another hurdle for growers to put their lentils on store shelves.