Other Products: Honey, Seeds, Wild & Foraged Foods, Food-Grade Grains, Mushrooms, Syrup

What's at Stake?
 

Products and crops grown for human consumption, other than vegetables and fruits, make up an important segment of New Hampshire’s food system, providing diversity, flavor, and cultural significance to our plates. These crops allow farmers to diversify their operations by capturing niche corners of the market and offering higher-value, unique products that respond to specific consumer demands. Encouraging the growth of these crops and their industries in New Hampshire supports the viability of the state’s farmers and food producers, leading to a more vibrant and inviting food system for Granite Staters.

Current Conditions: Bees & Honey

Honeybees are the primary pollinators for a variety of crops, including fruits, nuts, and vegetables; more than a third of the world’s food production depends on bees.¹ Honeybee pollination contributes significant dollars to New Hampshire’s agricultural economy and provides specialty products such as honey, wax, and propolis, which only honeybees are capable of producing.

For decades, the honeybee population has been declining at an alarming rate. In New Hampshire, honeybee colony losses have averaged between 45-50% each year.² Pesticide use, combined with habitat loss, climate change, and disease, have contributed to this staggering decline. A lack of supportive legislation, loss of communication systems between pesticide applicators and beekeepers after the passing of HB 1698, an optional (rather than mandatory) hive registration program, and lack of a fully operational bee lab in the state further challenge New Hampshire’s beekeepers. Increasing collaboration between beekeepers, agricultural service organizations, and state entities is needed to better support New Hampshire’s beekeeping industry and protect honeybees before their decline leads to a catastrophic loss of pollinator-dependent agricultural crops.

Current Conditions: Seeds

Being the material from which nearly all food crops are derived, there is perhaps no other natural resource as crucial to human life, culture, and the economy as seeds. Over the last 75+ years, the University of New Hampshire (UNH)’s plant breeding program has been incredibly successful at introducing flavorful, productive, and climate-adapted varieties. Dr. Elwyn Meader alone introduced more than 60 varieties during his time at UNH^3,4 and exceptional modern hybrids bred by the late Dr. Brent Loy are appreciated and sought after across the globe. Many UNH-bred varieties are commonly available through reputable regional commercial seed companies.

In the case of New Hampshire heirloom and classic open-pollinated seed varieties, many lack available seed quantities for farm-scale use or retail packet purchase. The histories and culinary excellence of these varieties are mostly unknown in today’s food, hospitality, and agricultural industries. Likewise, the underutilization of New Hampshire’s traditional varieties adds to the broader, alarming trend of food crop variety extinction, which fundamentally threatens food security and resilience.

Currently, the seeds and produce of New Hampshire-bred varieties are not widely recognized or celebrated in the state for their local origin and high quality. For New Hampshire-bred traditional and modern varieties alike, branding and building awareness for this excellent specialty produce is an exciting opportunity for all participants in New Hampshire’s food system. With support and partnerships, including from New Hampshire’s network of seed libraries, current and aspiring seed growers can develop a renowned New Hampshire-based seed supply and promote a unique specialty crops marketplace. Connections between seed savers, farmers, researchers, food organizations, respected chefs, and eaters must be strengthened if we hope to enjoy the New Hampshire-originated flavors of the past and future and encourage the state’s seed and food economies to reach their full potential.

Current Conditions: Wild & Foraged Foods

Wild and foraged foods connect us to the water, soil, and land of the greenspaces and watersheds where we live. They enable us to hand-craft local foods, beverages, medicines, and value-added products from blueberries and blackberries to line caught fish and native fiddleheads, mushrooms, and nuts that generations of first nations and immigrant ancestors relied upon. Wild foods and foraging are finding their ways into local markets and restaurants where consumers are meeting them with enthusiasm.

Wild and foraged foods make up a small and shrinking portion of the typical American diet, as we become increasingly disconnected from the land around us and as genetic diversity of food crops continues to decline. Climate change further threatens traditional land-based industries, like maple sugaring and ash-bark basket making. In order to protect cultural foodways, support cottage industries, promote food sovereignty, and protect biodiversity, we must identify and support the cultivation of traditionally foraged plants both through educating our communities and selling these plants in local markets to boost native plant populations and prevent overharvesting.

Current Conditions: Food-Grade Grains

Grain is a latecomer to the local foods movement, but there is a renaissance underway, as local grain chains emerge across the country connecting consumers more closely with farmers, millers, and artisan bakers. Local grain movements are growing in response to the need to develop climate resilient, regionally adapted crops in the face of climate change and to build a resilient local staple food economy in the face of global disruptions. At the same time, there is an increased understanding of the nutritional and flavor benefits of locally grown grains and the role of grain in environmental sustainability, as it boosts farm diversity and promotes sustainable agricultural rotations.

However, the development of a culinary grain economy in New Hampshire is limited by the lack of appropriately-scaled equipment for harvest and post-harvest cleaning and creating value-added products, adequate storage capacity, aggregation and distribution for market access from both the consumer and business standpoints, and consumer awareness of how to use a diversity of grains and where to find them. Infrastructure investment, technical assistance, and consumer education are needed to reap the environmental, cultural, and economic benefits of this niche market.

Current Conditions: Mushrooms

Mushrooms are a unique crop that provide a distinct source of important nutrients and medicinal compounds that cannot be sourced from other forms of produce. Mushroom production is increasing around the country. In New Hampshire, most growers sell directly to consumers through farmers’ markets; a smaller number sell to wholesale customers at larger volumes.

Independent wholesale growers face corporate competition, requiring them to sell at low prices while lacking the same economies of scale. The increasing cost of inputs, challenge of sourcing industry-specific inputs (such as “ready to fruit” grow blocks), high cost of production per square foot because of expensive utilities, and lack of insurance coverage for potentially devastating production issues, like a simple bacterial contamination, inhibit the development of this sector. Support is needed to sustain and encourage independent mushroom producers in New Hampshire in the face of out-of-state corporate market dominance.

Current Conditions: Syrup

Maple and other tree syrups hold cultural importance, contain a variety of health benefits and flavors, encourage forest conservation, and provide farmers with a varied source of income. In New Hampshire, where most syrup producers are small (under 2,000 taps), syrup production provides farmers with a source of income from work done during the winter and early spring months when other farm activities are not in full effect.

Syrup production is extremely weather-dependent. In recent years, weather variability during the late winter and early spring has been more common, causing syrup producers to struggle to determine when to tap their trees. On top of this, while interest in maple production from hobbyists to large-scale sugarers remains high, equipment and startup costs can be prohibitive, finding labor is a challenge, and the state, overall, has a limited amount of quality sites for sugar maple growth, which limits opportunities to develop areas for tapping.

While there are not currently any producers in the state producing syrups other than maple syrup, there is an opportunity to develop a market for other types of syrups from trees that may be better suited to future New Hampshire growing conditions, such as birch, walnut, beech, and sycamore trees.⁵ Overall, a strong, collaborative network of syrup producers, syrup researchers, landowners, forest managers, support organizations, and state entities is crucial for the health and success of New Hampshire’s tree syrup industry.

Authors

Contributing Authors

Janice Mercieri, Owner & Beekeeper, White Mountain Apiary
Heron Breen, Independent Plant Breeder
Paul Pollaro, Gardener & Researcher, Heritage Harvest Project
John Forti, Executive Director, Bedrock Gardens
Sarah Cox, Owner, Tuckaway Farm & Tuckaway Food Commons
William J. Dunkerley, Owner/Operator, Dunk’s Mushrooms
Steven Roberge, Full State Specialist/Professor, Natural Resources, Extension State Specialist, Forest Resources, UNH Extension
David Moore, Ph.D. candidate, Natural Resources and Earth Systems Science program, University of New Hampshire

References

¹UN Environment Programme. Why bees are essential to people and planet. Published May 18, 2022. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/why-bees-are-essential-peop…

² NH Winter Hive Survey. NH Honey Bee Diagnostic Network. Accessed December 11, 2024. https://www.nh-honeybee-health.com/winter-loss-survey-results

³ Victory Horticultural Library. Elwyn Marshall Meader. Seedsmen Hall of Fame. Accessed December 20, 2024. https://saveseeds.org/biography/meader/index.html

⁴  Bacon RM. Yankee Ingenuity Aids the Cucumber. The New York Times. Published January 7, 1979. https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/07/archives/yankee-ingenuity-aids-the-cucumber-yankee-ingenuity.html

⁵ Gosling, N. Alternative Syrups: What Are They and How Can They Improve Resiliency of Maple Syrup Industry? UNH Today. Published March 13, 2024. https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/2023/03/research-into-producing-syrup-non-maple-trees