Hazelnuts for the Rest of Us

This story from a recent Star Tribune combines many things I hope for in media: detailed information on something that's not widely known, knowledge from people who know what they're talking about, and a look at people who are attempting to solve some of our real problems in a world of climate crisis.

It tells of farmers and researchers who are working to develop a Minnesota-hardy, harvestable hazelnut with large enough nuts to be marketable. It gives a good idea of how hard that is to do. And it also makes it clear why it matters.

Perennial food crops, especially deep-rooted ones like hazelnuts, prevent soil runoff and need less fertilizer than the annuals we all expect as food crops, like corn and soybeans or even most vegetables. And they play well with others, too:

Hazelnuts can...be raised among other crops or wild grasses, offering acres of habitat for bumblebees and other key pollinators brought to the brink of extinction by intense use of pesticides and loss of grass, clovers and flowers.

Hardy hazelnuts have many potential uses as a crop:

With their high protein and oil contents, hazelnuts make for a better animal feed and biofuel ingredient than soybeans, and most soybeans grown in Minnesota end up in livestock troughs or ethanol. The high oil content makes them valuable for cooking oils and hand lotions.

That means the return to farmers could be substantial, once the bushes start producing nuts (which takes four years):

The [University of Minnesota] and [University of Wisconsin] estimated in 2017 that a fully mature hedgerow of hazelnuts would net between $3,400 and $4,200 an acre, with whole nuts at a market rate of $2 per pound.

The average net return over the last 10 years for soybeans in southern Minnesota is just under $71 an acre, according to the U’s Center for Farm Financial Management.

And there's one final advantage of hazelnuts compared to many other food crops:

Unlike almonds and most other crops grown in the United States, hazelnuts do not need pollinators. If butterflies and bees continue to die away, hazelnuts can survive — their catkins carried by the wind.

And while that's a sad possible reality, I'm glad these folks are thinking ahead enough, just in case.