A12
AGRICULTURE DAY
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
For the birds: Growers raise sunflowers for birdseed
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
CLAYTON, Wash. — Pris-
tine white snow shimmered in
the sunlight on Dennis Urbat’s
field the morning of March
1, but come summer it will
be awash in a golden wave
of sunflowers whose seeds
are bound for a feathered
clientele.
Urbat primarily raises the
striking yellow flowers for
their seeds, which are used in
bird feeders around the world.
He doesn’t grow the flow-
ers solely because of a love
for birds. During last year’s
drought, sunflowers were his
only crop that was profitable,
Urbat said.
Urbat farms with his son,
Blaine, 20 miles north of Spo-
kane. He also raises alfalfa,
timothy, oats, hard red wheat,
soft white wheat and canola.
He typically plants sun-
flowers the last week of April
or first week of May, and then
harvests them in late Septem-
ber or early October. They can
reach a height of 6 feet.
Urbat started raising sun-
flowers about nine years ago.
He was the first farmer in the
area to raise them as a rota-
tional crop.
“Everyone else was kind
of onlookers and seeing if I
would be successful with it,”
he said.
A friend in North Dakota
was raising sunflowers for
birdseed, so Urbat decided to
plant 40 acres of the crop to
see how it would grow.
He got about 2,600 pounds
per acre, which penciled out
to $600 per acre. He estimates
the cost of production is about
$100 per acre.
“It was quite profitable,”
he said.
The following year, Urbat
increased his acreage to 120
acres.
Since then, he has grown
250 to 1,000 acres of sunflow-
ers each year on his land and
for neighbors.
Sunflowers for birdseed
make up about 20% of his
total operation, he said.
“It’s an amazing plant, how
it survives in drought-tolerant
conditions,” he said. “It actu-
Dennis Urbat/Contributed Photo
A field of sunflowers, raised by Dennis Urbat in the Clayton, Washington, area for birdseed. Urbat was the first farmer in the area to
try growing sunflowers as a rotation crop.
Global Harvest Foods
Black oil sunflower seeds are the most popular ingredient in wild
bird food.
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Blaine Urbat and his father, Dennis, stand in the snow with their
dog Remy in a field March 1 in Clayton, Washington. Come sum-
mer, the field will be filled with sunflowers raised for birdseed.
ally surprised us.”
More people feeding
birds
The company Urbat grows
sunflowers for, Global Har-
vest Foods, is the No. 1 wild
bird food manufacturer in the
world.
“If the average tube-style
bird feeder holds one pound,
we sold enough bird food to
fill 500 million feeders” last
year, said Judy Hoysak, vice
president of product develop-
ment and marketing.
In the early days of the
COVID-19 pandemic, interest
in feeding wild birds surged,
Hoysak said.
“With people spending
more time at home, and work-
ing from home, bird food and
feeder sales shot up,” she said.
“Initially, it was a real struggle
to keep up with demand.”
Many people who picked it
up have stuck with it, she said.
“There have been studies
that show the positive effects
of wild bird feeding on mental
health and how it helps allevi-
ate depression and anxiety,”
she said. “I think it’s a reward-
ing hobby that has brought
a great deal of comfort and
peace to people, especially
over the last couple years.”
Sales have not slowed
down, Hoysak said.
“We are seeing a new gen-
eration of birders that are
excited to feed their backyard
birds and share this reward-
ing hobby with their own chil-
dren,” she said.
Most popular food
Of the hundreds of mil-
lions of pounds of birdseed
Global Harvest Foods pro-
duced last year, the largest sin-
gle crop input is black oil sun-
flower seed, the most popular
food among wild birds, Hoy-
sak said.
“It’s extremely nutritious
for birds, containing high lev-
els of healthy fat and protein,
as well as vitamins and miner-
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als,” she said. “Birds also like
it because black oil sunflower
shells are thin and easy for
them to open. Birds love to eat
it, and consumers know it will
attract a broad variety of birds
to their backyard.”
Consumers look for differ-
ent birdseed blends depending
on their geographic region, the
birds they are trying to attract,
and their budget, Hoysak said.
“We have decades of scien-
tific research on the best types
of seeds to offer wild birds, and
we work with ornithologists to
make sure our foods are best
for bird health,” Hoysak said.
The company has its head-
quarters in Seattle and Spo-
kane and manufacturing plants
in Mead, Wash.; Akron, Colo.;
Roscoe, S.D.; Harrold, S.D.;
Reynolds, Ind.; and Allentown,
Pa.
The company supplies
bird food to major retailers
across the country — mass
market, discount, big box,
grocery, hardware and garden
stores.
U.S. farmers produced 1.3
million acres of sunflowers
last year, said John Sandbak-
ken, executive director of the
National Sunflower Associa-
tion, based in Mandan, N.D.
About 40% to 50% of the
crop goes to birdseed each
year, he said.
“There was a great upturn
as far as bird feeding (during
the pandemic) because obvi-
ously people were stuck at
home,” Sandbakken said. “The
future’s bright for bird feeding
because it’s a great hobby.”
The association is always
looking for opportunities to
expand acreage, Sandbakken
said.
Helping small farmers
As part of Global Harvest
Foods’ black oil sunflower
program, the company seeks
smaller farms, supplies them
with seed and commits to buy-
ing their crop.
“They have a guaranteed
customer every year and sun-
flowers offer great long-term
benefits to the soil,” Hoysak
said. “Sunflower roots grow
deep into the ground and pull
up nutrients that other crops
are unable to reach. This fertil-
izes the soil and makes it fruit-
ful for future crops, so farmers
can continue to farm their land
for generations to come.”
The company buys about
45% of its primary grains
directly from farmers. About
10 to 12 farmers around the
Pacific Northwest are in the
sunflower program.
Urbat says the company is
“definitely” helpful. It helps
a farmer locate the seed and
provides answers to questions
about marketing, delivery,
handling, varieties, fertilizer
and chemical recommenda-
tions, he said.
The Mead plant
“I am an enthusiast, I
do have bird feeders at my
house,” said Bud Hansen,
business unit manager at the
Global Harvest Foods plant in
Mead.
The plant produces more
than 50 million pounds of
birdseed each year. The main
ingredients are sunflower
seeds, millet, milo, wheat, bar-
ley and corn.
The company does not reg-
ularly source any other major
ingredients from Washington
farmers, Hoysak said.
“Occasionally maybe a
truckload of something here
or there, but mostly it is grown
in other areas,” she said.
The minor ingredients —
“gosh, there’s a lot,” Hansen
said — include fruit pieces,
whole or broken peanuts,
“confectionary”
sunflower
kernels without the shell and
thistle seeds.
Most farmers consider this-
tle a weed, but the seeds are
sterilized before they arrive at
the company, Hansen said.
“Finches enjoy thistles,” he
said.
Mixes also include cher-
ries, raisins, mangos and tree
nuts such as walnuts and
almonds.
But people should not eat
the birdseed, Hansen said.
“It’s very well-documented
on all of our packaging —
the product is from the field,
so it’s raw,” he said. “It’s not
human food because there’s
no process to make sure that
it’s consumable for humans.”
As grain comes in from
the field, it is weighed and
run through an aspirator to
pull light material off with
air. Then it goes through a
tumbling aspirator to remove
more stems and sticks.
The grain drops into a
multi-deck screener, remov-
ing sticks and cob on top and
allowing seeds to fall through
the screens.
A second deck sifts out all
of the small pieces, such as dirt
particles, dust and broken ker-
nels, considered “sub-prime”
materials, Hansen said.
“Sometimes you get prod-
uct from the Midwest or some
place like that, it’s coming
out of an elevator and it’s not
always the highest cleanliness.
We have to process it when we
get it into the facility,” he said.
“These local guys, they take
great pride in trying to bring
us the cleanest stuff they can.”
Hansen enjoys watch-
ing local farmers evolve in
the program, as they work
to provide the best birdseed
possible.
“I enjoy the fact that you
can drive a very short distance
and go out and see a field of
sunflowers,” he said. “That
is just not seen in this area. It
causes some backups on the
road, people taking pictures.”
Attracting attention
The sunflowers are a
big draw indeed. Urbat, the
farmer, said the response can
be “overwhelming.”
“People for the most part
are pretty good about staying
out of them,” he said. “Prob-
ably the worst thing is if they
just let their kids run wild.
It’s public access to a play-
ground for them, but it’s our
livelihood.”
Urbat puts up signs, and
local news media advise peo-
ple to stay out of the fields.
Birds, deer and elk do a lot
of damage, Urbat said. He esti-
mated he had more than 160
elk cause $30,000 worth of
damage last year. He expects
to be compensated through a
Washington Department of
Fish and Wildlife program.
Urbat particularly appre-
ciates sunflowers for how the
plant grows.
“It’s just an incredible crop
to watch throughout the stages
of its growth,” he said.
While demand is high, the
bird seed plant accepts grain
on a capacity basis, said Han-
sen, the Mead plant manager.
He recommends farmers con-
tact the company’s purchas-
ing group in Spokane to learn
more.
Urbat plans to grow 250 to
300 acres again this year, dic-
tated partly by the availability
of land from his neighbors.
He estimates the imme-
diate area could handle close
to 7,000 acres of sunflower
production.
“We’ve had as much as
3,500 acres, but we could eas-
ily double that,” he said.
Any advice to a new
farmer?
“It’s well-worth the enjoy-
ment of growing them, and it’s
profitable,” Urbat said.
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