{"id":65717,"date":"2025-07-08T01:00:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T08:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/?p=65717"},"modified":"2025-07-15T11:05:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T18:05:32","slug":"from-bees-to-beer-buckwheat-is-a-climate-solution-crop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/2025\/07\/08\/from-bees-to-beer-buckwheat-is-a-climate-solution-crop\/","title":{"rendered":"From Bees to Beer, Buckwheat Is a Climate-Solution Crop"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/div>

From a distance, fields of buckwheat may seem serene, with petite, fluffy white flowers and heart-shaped green leaves. But if you\u2019re standing in one, you\u2019ll hear the distinct buzzing of bees as they pollinate millions of flowers<\/a> per acre.<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cBees love buckwheat,\u201d says Keith Kisler, a farmer who co-owns Chimacum Valley Grainery<\/a>, a mill, bakery, and brewery on Washington\u2019s Olympic Peninsula. Kisler and his wife, Crystie, cultivate barley, quinoa, rye, spelt, and wheat on about 70 acres of organic farmland, but buckwheat has become one of his favorite crops.<\/p>\n

Despite its name, buckwheat is not a type of wheat; it\u2019s a gluten-free seed, rich in vitamins and minerals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

That\u2019s because buckwheat\u2014planted in late May and harvested in early October\u2014is remarkably easy to grow. \u201cIn between, there’s really nothing done to that field,\u201d Kisler says. \u201cI don\u2019t do any weed control, and we don\u2019t water. It\u2019s planted, it germinates, it grows, it flowers, it\u2019s harvested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buckwheat is also easy to mill into flour and adds a rich, earthy flavor to some of the Grainery\u2019s products, like bread, beer, and pasta. By managing every step of the process, from cultivation to the finished product, Kisler has overcome buckwheat\u2019s greatest challenge in the U.S.\u2014a solid infrastructure that connects producers with consumers.<\/p>\n

\"Buckwheat<\/a>

Buckwheat flour can be used in a range of recipes, including noodles, pictured here, as well as cr\u00eapes, blinis, and cookies. (Photo credit: Crystie Kisler, Chimacum Valley Grainery)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

Buckwheat has a long bloom period, can build healthy soil, and is nutrient-dense, making it good not only for bees and farmers, but also planet and people. These multiple benefits are why Kisler and a team of scientists are working together to test new varieties of buckwheat and to build a local market for it.<\/p>\n

Led by researchers at Washington State University (WSU) and supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), they hope to increase organic production of this underutilized, low-input crop\u2014one with the potential to address larger challenges like nutrition access and climate change.<\/p>\n

A Versatile Seed<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

Despite its name, buckwheat is not a type of wheat. It is a seed rich in vitamins and minerals<\/a>, including vitamins A, B, C, and E, as well as potassium and magnesium, which play an important role in a healthy human diet\u2014and it is gluten free. The tough outer hulls are typically removed, and the hulled seeds, called groats, have a nutty taste and the al dente texture of farro. Buckwheat groats can also be milled into a flour for use in sweet and savory recipes, from brownies and cookies to breads and crackers.<\/p><\/div>

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Buckwheat originated in southwestern China<\/a>, featuring in Asian cuisines for thousands of years before spreading to Eastern Europe, likely in the 15<\/a>th<\/a> century<\/a>. Today, China is the world\u2019s second<\/a> largest producer of buckwheat after Russia. The grain arrived in North America<\/a> during European colonization and was a favorite of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington<\/a>, due to its capacity to suppress weeds.<\/p>\n

Its culinary uses, however, have yet to be fully explored in the U.S., where it is still typically treated as an export item or cover crop. About 27,000 acres<\/a> of buckwheat were grown here in 2017, the most recent year that data on buckwheat plantings were available.<\/p>\n

Washington is the nation\u2019s second top producer of buckwheat after North Dakota, with approximately 6,000 to 8,000 acres, according to Kevin Murphy, a WSU professor of international seed and cropping systems and the director of Breadlab, WSU\u2019s grain research center. Almost all of the seed grown in the Northwest state is exported to Japan for making soba noodles.<\/p>\n

Kisler\u2019s buckwheat, grown on 12 acres that produce 16,000 to 18,000 pounds of seed annually, remains in his regional food system. His brother, on the other hand, grows between 200 and 300 acres of buckwheat in eastern Washington, entirely for export to Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a need for different scales of operations,\u201d Kisler says. \u201cFor somebody like my brother to grow several hundred acres of buckwheat and for small production at a local level.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>

\"Buckwheat<\/a>\"Buckwheat<\/a><\/div>

Buckwheat flowers develop abundantly about 30 days after seeding. At right, an aerial view of a buckwheat field trial. (Photo courtesy of WSU)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/section><\/div>

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Kisler has worked with Breadlab since 2008, and the buckwheat in his fields are varieties they developed together. For years before this collaboration, Kisler used buckwheat as a cover crop, and he saw how it enhanced his soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps break disease cycles,\u201d Kisler says. \u201cIt grows really quickly, so it out-competes the weeds in a field. It sends down a fairly deep tap root, which loosens compacted soils. It does well even in marginal soils. I don\u2019t ever need to water it, even in a dry season. And it\u2019s planted later, so from a production perspective, it spreads out planting and harvesting so all that work doesn\u2019t need to happen all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buckwheat\u2019s agricultural benefits extend beyond the lifespan of the plant. \u201cWhen I follow it with a grain crop, that grain crop does better in that section of the field where there was buckwheat the previous year than next door where there was no buckwheat planted,\u201d Kisler says. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Pancake Project<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

In 2021, WSU researchers began collaborating with local producers to assess the regional market for buckwheat and millet and build consumer demand for these crops, supported by a $350,000 Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Project (SARE) grant<\/a>, funded by the USDA.<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cI don\u2019t do any weed control with buckwheat, and we don\u2019t water. It\u2019s planted, it germinates, it grows, it flowers, it\u2019s harvested.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

They used the most promising buckwheat varieties from nearby farms to develop a pancake mix for Washington\u2019s school lunch programs. Stephen Bramwell, Thurston County Extension director and WSU agriculture specialist, coordinated with nearly 300 school districts for their feedback. A critical factor, they found, was the ratio of buckwheat flour to whole wheat flour.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter many rounds of taste tests at the Breadlab and schools, we\u2019ve dialed it in to 50 percent buckwheat,\u201d Bramwell says. \u201cWe tried to get it close to what people know, what wouldn\u2019t be too different from other pancakes\u2014fairly light, not too grainy, a little bit sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pancakes\u2019 appearance was particularly crucial. \u201cThe color\u2014that\u2019s a huge one for kids,\u201d says Bramwell, noting that students prefer the lighter hue of pancakes made with refined wheat flour. \u201cBuckwheat pancakes brown faster and can become really dark, so we\u2019ve done trials to moderate the color.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"Washington<\/a>

Buckwheat pancake-mix packets at the Thurston County Fair, created by WSU Extension. At the booth, kids could grind their own buckwheat flour for the packets using a hand-crank mill. The booth was extremely popular, with some kids returning two or three times to grind more buckwheat groats. (Photo credit: Stephen Bramwell)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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To familiarize students with buckwheat, the team also organized hands-on lessons, including growing it in school gardens, harvesting and threshing it, using hand-crank mills to pulverize the seeds into flour, making pancakes, and taste testing batches made with different flour ratios.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best way to reach kids is not just when it shows up on the plate,\u201d Bramwell says, \u201cbut when they\u2019ve had a chance to get exposure to a new product by learning about it, as a plant, as a seed, and then as a food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018More Bang for Your Buckwheat\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

After the SARE grant ended in 2024, the WSU team received another USDA grant for a project they call More Bang for Your Buckwheat (MBYB). Their goal is to develop new buckwheat varieties based on traits that both farmers and consumers like and want. With these new varieties, the team plans to develop a diverse selection of \u201cflavorful, affordable, and nutritious\u201d buckwheat products and continue collaborations with 50 school districts in the region.\u00a0 <\/p><\/div>

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\u201cThe name is sort of tongue-in-cheek,\u201d explains Micaela Colley, WSU professor of participatory plant breeding. \u201cMany farmers grow buckwheat knowing they won\u2019t make any money off it, and they just till it in. We\u2019re interested in all the values of buckwheat as a cover crop, but the idea is that you\u2019re getting a food crop out of it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>

\"An<\/a>\"An<\/a>\"An<\/a><\/div>

An array of foods made with buckwheat, including cookies and crackers, at the Buckwheat Festival. (Photo courtesy of WSU Breadlab)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/section><\/div>

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Recent federal funding cuts devastated some WSU research programs, such as the Soil to Society<\/a> grant, which included buckwheat as a key crop to consider for increasing food security. The four-year, $3.3 million MBYB grant is still being funded through USDA, but may be indirectly impacted by a $1 billion federal funding cut<\/a> to the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program<\/a>, which affects 850,000 students in Washington<\/a> and may limit the ability of some school districts to buy nutritious, locally produced foods\u2014like WSU\u2019s buckwheat pancake mix.<\/p>\n

The MBYB team also includes experts from across the country, with several in New York\u2014another top U.S. producer <\/a>of buckwheat and buckwheat products. Cornell University and the Glynwood Center for Regional Food are key for research and forming relationships with both farmers and food producers to develop products such as BAM<\/a>, a buckwheat-based milk alternative.<\/p>\n

The MBYB grant will also help fund the third annual Buckwheat Festival<\/a> on August 8 at the Breadlab, in Burlington, Washington. The small event, which attracted about 50 visitors last year, will offer an evening tasting of buckwheat foods and drinks for $25 or a full day of activities for $125, including a field tour with plant breeders and cooking demonstrations with chefs.<\/p>\n

Since 2018, the Breadlab has collaborated with chef Bonnie Morales of the Eastern European restaurant Kachka<\/a>, in Portland, Oregon, to develop recipes for the restaurant and pop-up events, including the Buckwheat Festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe makes my favorite comfort food,\u201d Colley says, referring to Morales\u2019 golubtsi, a Ukrainian dish of cabbage rolls stuffed with buckwheat. The seed is used throughout Kachka\u2019s menu, including for custard and blini.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"\"<\/a>

The Buckwheat Festival offers tastings of buckwheat foods and drinks, field tours with plant breeders, and cooking demonstrations with chefs. (Photo courtesy of WSU Breadlab)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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California chef Sonoko Sakai<\/a> has also participated in the festival and will be there again this year. \u201cShe did a demo and made soba noodles by hand,\u201d Colley recalls. \u201cOne thing that stuck in my mind that she shared is that in Japan, master soba chefs will include on the menu the date that buckwheat was harvested and what farm it came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the goal is for buckwheat to be enjoyed year-round, not only on the day of the festival. For this to happen, there\u2019s still much work to be done, especially in local and regional infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really good at growing large amounts of grain and putting them in silos and then shipping them off somewhere far away,\u201d Murphy says. \u201cBut if we want to eat locally and grow these grains at a smaller scale, there are a lot of gaps between the farmers and food companies and schools. How do we work together to bridge these gaps and make regional grain economies and value chains more efficient?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBees love buckwheat,\u201d says Keith Kisler, a farmer who co-owns Chimacum Valley Grainery, a mill, bakery, and brewery on Washington\u2019s Olympic Peninsula. Kisler and his wife, Crystie, cultivate barley, quinoa, rye, spelt, and wheat on about 70 acres of organic farmland, but buckwheat has become one of his favorite crops. That\u2019s because buckwheat\u2014planted in late […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1387,"featured_media":65768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4146,4479,521,3264],"tags":[],"coauthors":[43611],"class_list":["post-65717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate","category-farming","category-local-food","category-nutrition"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Bees to Beer, Buckwheat Is a Climate-Solution Crop | Civil Eats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Farmers and researchers are working together to expand organic buckwheat production in the Northwest and drive up demand for the seed.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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