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Collectors Issue 2008: Farm-Fresh Fuel |
Farm-Fresh Fuel
Off the cob and into your stove
By Rhonda Triller
The fact that a farmer is nearly doubling the acreage he devotes to growing corn for fuel may appear to be a sign of the times, representative of a political and environmental battle taking place across the country. But to Billy Duquette it's just the most recent change he and his father, Clifford, and brother, Gary, have made to keep the family's 1,200-acre farm running. "When things happen—as things change—you gotta, too," Billy says.
The Duquette Farm is tucked neatly between two sharp turns on Hardscrabble Road, within view of the Saranac River in the Clinton County town of Cadyville. It's a tidy scene: the sun gleams off rows of freshly washed equipment, the barn that houses 130 dairy cows is immaculate, the grounds neatly mowed. Clifford was raised on his father's farm on nearby Duquette Road; later he bought his own land from his brother. In the beginning his operation relied heavily on harvesting trees to sell for timber or firewood, but over the years Clifford added cows and crops and continued buying land. Gary and Billy grew up working in the fields, dedicating their lives to the land. Their own sons spent some of their teen years helping out after school. "It's a family thing," Billy says proudly, but also with sorrow in his voice, knowing he and Gary are likely the end of the line. "This is the second generation and there probably won't be a third."
For years the business was known in the area informally as the Duquette potato farm. It cultivated more than 100 acres of spuds each year and sold them to restaurants, stores and locals. In the past five years, though, the Duquettes have cut back on potatoes; competition from Canada has made it tough to find a broker in the area to ship their wares. This year they'll plant just 30 acres. They've always grown high-moisture corn to feed their cows, but now they've increased corn production to help compensate for the reduced profits from potatoes.
In response to an increased interest in alternative fuels, they're devoting about 550 acres to corn this year, though not for ethanol, the controversial gasoline additive. Rather, a growing number of families in the North Country buy the grain in 50- and 100-pound bags to heat their homes with corn stoves. "Because people started inquiring more about corn stoves, we started growing more," Billy says.
A corn stove costs between $1,200 and $4,000, comparable to a woodstove. How much corn a home burns depends on many factors, including the house's size, structure and insulation. Mike Haefner, president of Minnesota-based American Energy Systems, says an average-insulated 1,600-square-foot home would burn about a half-bushel of corn a day. If corn costs $6.50 a bushel, it would cost $994 a year to heat that building. If propane costs $3 a gallon, it would cost $2,632 a year to heat the same space, by Haefner's calculations. Gary Duquette heats his family's raised ranch with a corn stove. Last year he used about 53 100-pound bags, which would have totaled about $530 for the winter. Billy Duquette is installing a corn furnace now for this winter.
American Energy Systems is credited with developing the first corn stove to be certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in the early 1980s. Haefner is quick to point out that during the Great Depression people burned corn in their coal stoves; his company only refined the technology. "There's quite a science to making a kernel of corn burn," he explains. The first year American Energy Systems offered corn stoves it sold about a hundred. Today it sells about 15,000 a year; dozens of other manufacturers in the U.S. and Canada share the market.
Corn is in the spotlight, Haefner says, because it is readily available, it's in the news frequently and it's economical. Plus corn stoves are designed to burn clean. The EPA approves an appliance that burns seven or fewer grams of particulates per hour. Corn stoves burn as little as 1.7 grams an hour.
The conversion to corn processing and packaging has required a significant investment for the Duquettes—they added two silos to house their corn crop in 2005, and a third since. The silos include an automatic bagging function (they used to bag corn by shovel) and a propane-fueled dryer to control the moisture content of the kernels—between 11 and 12 percent is ideal. If the moisture content is too high the stove's cleanliness and effectiveness decrease, which is why the Duquettes invested so much in their silo system; the seven- to eight-ton dryer cost about $80,000. But Billy Duquette knows that if the corn is too wet it will mold or, worse yet, combust. A low moisture content guarantees the farm's customers can safely store and burn the fuel in their homes.
The first year the Duquettes started selling low-moisture corn they had six families as regular customers. The next year, 23; the third year, 40. This year they are expecting 50 households. The Duquettes plan to put up more silos if demand continues and would even consider selling stoves some day. As demand grows, Billy says, "we will grow with it."
The increasing use of corn for biofuel is controversial. Opponents of ethanol worry that investing in it will divert acreage from vital food crops. But the impact of increased use of corn stoves on farming is less clear. "The amount of corn used for heating homes is so insignificant," Haefner says, "it would not and could not have a bearing on the price of corn."
Bill Cox, a grain-crop specialist at Cornell University, agrees that for small, residential heating, corn is an excellent local heat source. While he recognizes the food-versus-fuel controversy on a national level, he doesn't feel it impacts the Adirondacks. "Food versus fuel is real, but in this case, it's more important to keep a farm in production."
However, Cox worries about long-term sustainability. He says farms like the Duquettes' are making an excellent move in the short term, since the infrastructure to grow the crop is already in place. But corn will likely be competing with perennial grasses as heat sources in the future, he says. "We'll see what happens."
And, like they have for two generations, so will the Duquettes.
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