Final report for FNE25-130
Project Information
The purpose of this project was to develop production & processing systems for sorghum cultivation appropriate for small- & medium-scale diversified farmers in the North East. Sorghum has significant potential as a drought tolerant, soil-regenerating cover crop, and mature sorghum can be processed into value-added products like syrup, whole grain, and flour. We prepared 0.8 acres of mixed sandy & clay bottomland soils with pelletized chicken manure, compost, & biochar, then transplanted 5 varieties of sorghum for grain & syrup production. In early October, we hosted our 2nd annual Sorghum Harvest Festival, and welcomed ~100 volunteers to harvest sorghum grains, press canes, an cook down sweet syrup. For syrup varieties, Rox Orange and Simon performed the best, and Korsajz was the most productive grain variety. Our most important development was securing a rare, PTO powered, custom-modified sorghum cane press, which allowed us to press an acre of sorghum in less than 8 hours, an exponential improvement over prior harvests that were managed over 2+ weeks. Our outreach - through our flagship Sorghum Harvest Event, several in person workshops & field days, participation in networking events, and consultations with other growers & producers - reached ~80 farmers, ~10 agricultural service providers, and ~120 neighbors, consumers, bakers, wholesalers, retailers, young people, and more.
Farmers in New York are increasingly experimenting with sorghum, an African tall grass relative of corn, as a resilient & regenerative field crop with strong value-added potential. However, existing production & processing systems appropriate for small & medium scale, diversified farms are poorly developed for New York’s climate. The objectives of this project are to expand the cultivation and processing of sorghum in New York State, focusing on both syrup and grain production for human consumption. Specifically, we aim to:
- Grow sorghum at scale for both syrup and grain production: We will cultivate 1 acre of sorghum on our farm for the dual purposes of syrup and grain, including flour production, addressing the gap in the region where sorghum is primarily grown for syrup but not for grain.
- Cultivate the market potential of sorghum through outreach & collaboration with farmers and consumers: As the only farm in the region scaling up sorghum cultivation, we will make this crop more available to farmers and communities by sharing seeds, transplants, knowledge, and equipment sharing, contributing to the availability of nutritious, in-demand foods.
- Transfer knowledge on growing and processing sorghum to farmers: We will develop educational materials and hands-on training to teach farmers in the region how to grow and process sorghum for both syrup and grain production, building capacity for a sustainable sorghum network within the farming community.
By meeting these objectives, this project will provide important information on sorghum cultivation & processing techniques, and offer practical guidance for farmers interested in diversifying into sorghum production. It will also contribute to the creation of a more resilient and sustainable food system in the Northeast.
Sorghum is a drought-tolerant, nutrient-cycling, soil-regenerating, multi-purpose field crop with a long history of production in the United States. Sorghum seeds can be harvested for a nutty, nutrient dense, gluten-free whole grain & flour. The stalks can also be pressed and the juice boiled for sorghum syrup, a delicious and mineral-rich sweetener with a deep history and durable market in the southern United States. Even the bagasse, the pressed-and-spent cane stalks, can be left in fields as a silica-rich mulch suitable for many regenerative agriculture applications.
Sorghum presents an opportunity to introduce a regenerative, resilient, and meaningful food source to farmers and communities in New York and beyond. With environmental benefits, adaptability to the Northeast, and broad potential as a nutrient-dense sweetener and grain, sorghum stands to benefit farmers and consumers alike.
Evidence of Need and Interest from Farmers
An emergent network of New York sorghum farmers - including Sweet Freedom Farm, the Carbon Sponge, White Feather Farm, Wally Farm, Empire State Syrups, Home Farm (and many other colleagues & neighbors who are planting a bed or two) - have been experimenting with production techniques suitable for the North East, including transplanting the sorghum to adapt to a shorter growing season, adapting sugar-cane equipment for mechanized processing, and finishing sorghum syrup in maple evaporators. We have witnessed a demonstrated interest in value added sorghum products - grains, flours, & syrups - from chefs, bakers, wholesalers, retailers, and CSA managers.
Sweet Freedom Farm's past five years of experience with sorghum have generated enthusiastic interest from farmers & consumers in our community. However, cultivation & processing systems for small and medium scale farmers in the North Eastern bio-region are still in the early stages of development, especially for diversified farms looking to incorporate sorghum into their field rotation as a regenerative cover crop. In order to recruit producers & grow the market, we need scalable, sharable and mobile equipment-driven systems to plant, harvest, process, & market sorghum.
Farmers in the Hudson Valley have also voiced a need for in-demand crop options that can serve as sustainable, high-value alternatives to more input-intensive crops. Sorghum meets this need: it requires relatively low inputs, conserves water, and contributes significantly to soil health, all of which are critical for small-scale sustainable farms. This project, by trialing multiple sorghum varieties and refining growing practices, will directly serve these farmers' interests by providing data and resources that will support the establishment of sorghum as a staple Northeast crop.
Proposed Solution and Approach
Our project's goal is to test & refine production systems for sorghum and to demonstrate sorghum's viability as a sustainable crop for small & medium scale sustainable farmers in the North East. Small & medium scale, sustainable farms are the most likely to experiment with & benefit from sorghum, but are the least able to invest in efficient systems for post harvest processing. Our team is developing a model for regional sorghum harvesting using equipment sharing & mobile infrastructure to harvest & aggregate sorghum sap & grain for co-packing & marketing as part of the emerging Webatuck Valley Farm Collaborative in Millerton, NY.
Our plan is to test a minimum of 3 sorghum varieties; collect data on conditions, yields, labor requirements, and value added production; and develop a production model that other farms in the region can adopt. This research will contribute to the creation of a best practices guide for Northeast sorghum cultivation & processing, shared through a network of farms, farm advocacy and organizing groups, and more. We plan to partner with Brooklyn Packers, a worker-owned cooperative distributor to bring sorghum grain, flour, and syrup directly to consumers.
Contribution to Northeast SARE's Outcome Statement
Sweet Freedom Farm's project aligns with Northeast SARE's outcome statement, which envisions an agricultural system that honors the interconnectedness of land, water, and community while promoting sustainability. By introducing sorghum-a heritage crop with a regenerative footprint-as a Northeast staple, we are actively working to build a food system that respects these principles.
Our project addresses several key aspects of sustainable agriculture:
- Environmental and Health Benefits: Sorghum's low-input requirements and water efficiency make it a suitable crop for small and medium-sized farms aiming to reduce environmental impact. As a regenerative crop, sorghum also improves soil health and builds soil organic matter. Sorghum provides a nutritious alternative to processed sweeteners.
- Improved Productivity and Economic Viability: Our project will generate data on labor, yield, and economic viability, which will be shared with local farmers interested in adopting sorghum. We aim to boost net farm income and create additional market opportunities for farmers and food producers in our community.
- Conservation of Soil and Natural Resources: Sorghum's adaptability to various soil types and climates makes it an ideal crop for maintaining soil health. Its deep root system prevents soil erosion. Our long-term goal is to establish a crop rotation that includes sorghum and other heritage crops like millet.
- Enhanced Employment and Quality of Life: Our project promotes a pathway for farmers and youth interested in sustainable agriculture. By offering hands-on learning experiences with heritage crops and the opportunity to cultivate meaningful food, we hope to strengthen our community and improve the quality of life for farmers and their families. Through community events, tours, and workshops, we will create an environment of education, inspiration, and connection, empowering the next generation of farmers to grow, process, and distribute food.
Anticipated Impact and Measurement of Success
To measure success, first we'll assess sorghum's productivity as a regional crop by documenting data on yield, syrup production, and labor efficiency. We'll also measure community impact through feedback from farmers and attendees at our workshops and harvest festivals. In addition to production data, our success will be measured by our ability to engage local farmers, youth, and community members in sorghum production and to establish a sustainable distribution model. Ultimately, the impact we envision is a network of farms in the Northeast cultivating and co-packing sorghum products as part of a broader movement toward resilience and food security.
Conclusion
Sweet Freedom Farm's work with sorghum addresses pressing needs within communities, supports farmers' contributions to sustainable agriculture, and aligns closely with Northeast SARE's vision. We hope to establish sorghum as a valuable crop that sustains both people and the land, creating lasting impact for farmers and their communities in the Northeast.
Sweet Freedom Farm broke ground as a diversified & sustainable vegetable operation in 2020, with a mission to grow nutrient dense produce for community food security programs responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, we have expanded as a non-profit teaching farm supplying food banks, mutual aid programs, and CSAs for working families with ~20,000lbs of free & low-cost produce each year. Our largest distribution partners are Dutchess Outreach, a food pantry in Poughkeepsie, and the Multicultural B.R.I.D.G.E., a 200-member CSA serving working families in Berkshire County, MA.
Our non-profit farm provides living wages &; on the job training to developing farmers. Additionally, we steward land for incubating farm businesses, like Sovereign herbs, a current incubating grower focused on medical & culinary herbs - and Home Farm, a former incubator, now growing diversified vegetables, grains, and seeds on their own operation nearby. We host community events & educational workshops, both on our land and with community partners like Kite’s Nest, Poughkeepsie Farm Project, Wildseed Community Farm & Healing Village, Operation Unite, and more.
Our vegetable operation includes ~5 acres in sustainable production across two locations in eastern NY. We started in Millerton on one leased 0.5 acre in 2020, before opening 3 acres in Germantown the following year, and transitioning most of our production to that site. In Germantown, we are the primary stewards of a 60 acre property, including 50 acres of maple sugar bush with 700 taps, producing ~ 100 gallons of maple syrup in an average year. The Germantown land has been a community farm for 20 years, but was under-developed. We have installed or restored roads, fences, wash &; pack facilities, &; cold storage in Germantown. In Millerton, which has no existing infrastructure (no well, shelter, or fence) we have continued to cultivate sorghum and other bulk field crops like potatoes and corn, now on 1 acre leased from WILDSEED Community Farm &; Healing Village.
Along with WILDSEED and neighboring Rock Steady Farm, we are partners in an emergent food & farm hub, the Webatuck Valley Farm Collaborative, seeded by a 2025 Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure grant from the USDA. WVFC is developing 1) a 4-season, ergonomic wash &; pack facility, with expanded cold storage and loading / distribution infrastructure, 2) a commercial kitchen for processing value added products, and 3) a grain & staples mill. Sweet Freedom is primarily responsible for the development of the mill, which will serve regional small & medium scale producers to bring products like dried beans, corn grits, buckwheat flour, and of course, sorghum, to market.
Cooperators
- - Technical Advisor
- - Technical Advisor - Producer
- - Technical Advisor - Producer
- - Producer (Educator)
- - Technical Advisor - Producer
- (Educator)
Research
On May 5, 2025, we started our sorghum plants in a greenhouse in standard cell trays using Fort Vee potting mix. In the first two weeks of June, we prepped a ~ 0.8 acres of beds by applying 1200 lbs of 5-4-3 pelletized chicken manure, as well as a mixture of 10 yards of compost and 5 yards of biochar. We shaped 12 x 300ft foot beds and planted the sorghum transplants on June 12, with 3 rows per bed, 12 inches spacing between each plant. We treated each planting with diluted fish emulsion, and used overhead towers to water the planting in.
We planted the following varieties:
Korsaz - 3 beds
Rox Orange - 3 beds
Sugar Drip - 2 beds
Honey Dale - 2 beds
Simon - 2 beds
We cultivated mechanically only once. We allowed the crop to mature without additional irrigation. We originally applied for the SARE grant with the intention to trial our planting under two different irrigation conditions, to test whether irrigation made a significant impact on syrup yields. We were not able to complete this component of the experiment due to an untimely irrigation pump failure.
On October 11, we hosted 100 guests for our second annual Sorghum Harvest Festival. We equipped volunteers with gloves, tarps, and hand held sickles. First we stripped the leaves off the standing cane with our gloved hands, then cut the canes at the base and assembled them on tarps to be dragged to the edge of the field. There volunteers cut & sorted seedheads to be saved for seed & grain processing. The stalks were then fed through a custom-built PTO powered cane press (see results discussion & photos for more information), situated on a trailer. Juice from the mill pan was fed through a fitted PVC-pipe extension, so that the juice could be more easily collected in 5 gallon buckets. At the mouth of the PVC chute, the juice was filtered through as standard maple syrup pre-filter bag.
Raw Sorghum juice will spoil within 48 hours unless it is boiled to XXX standard. After this process, the par-cooked syrup is stable under refrigeration, and can be finished in pots on the the stovetop or aggregated to be finished in a larger evaporator. At our sorghum harvest, juice was immediately added to large cooking pots on an outdoor propane cook station.
This SARE grant enabled us to double our sorghum production in 2025, utilizing the majority of our leasehold to trial 5 different varieties for grain & syrup, and to practice value-added production management at scale. Small & medium scale, sustainable & diversified farms are the most likely to experiment with sorghum, but are the least able to invest in efficient systems for production. Our team is developing a model for regional sorghum harvesting using mobile infrastructure to harvest & aggregate sorghum sap & grain for co-packing & marketing as part of the emerging Webatuck Valley Farm Collaborative in Millerton, NY.
We originally applied for the SARE grant with the intention to trial our planting under two different irrigation conditions, to test whether irrigation made a significant impact on syrup yields. This focus was motivated by the tendency for small & medium scale sustainable farmers in the NE to be producing on land with limited infrastructure, especially on marginal soils that could most benefit from sorghums soil building capacity. Can sorghum grow just as well without irrigation? Due to an untimely irrigation pump failure and other unexpected capacity constraints (detailed below), we could not establish a trial condition for irrigated production, and so our results for this question were inconclusive. We did gather informal data: for example, that the Simon variety grew the best in both the sandy & clay-dominant soils across our field - the only variety with consistent height across both soil types. All other varieties grew better in clay soils on the South end of our field. Additionally, the farmers who led the pressing at the 2026 Sorghum Harvest Festival all agreed that the Rox orange variety was the juiciest.
In addition to the pump failure, our project was impacted by the mid-season confirmation of a $2.3M award from the USDA Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure grant to develop a regional food hub and grain mill on the land in Millerton, NY: the Webatuck Valley Farm Collaborative. Upon the notice of our award, a significant portion of our sorghum team's labor was redirected toward an aggressive planning, development & construction project timeline. Although outside of the original scope of our research proposal, these experiences are critical for knowledge building & market creation for sorghum in the North East.
For example, in the course of this research, we learned that there are virtually no commercially available and suitable equipment options for in-field cane processing - i.e. cutting and pressing sorghum in the fields, so that spent canes can return to the soil as a mulch. An early season consultation with the president of the National Sweet Sorghum Producers And Processors Association (NSSPPA) revealed that many producers in the South have carefully restored & maintained 100-year-old belt-driven sorghum presses, and that many specialty growers still use old-time horse-driven rotary presses. Available equipment of this kind was limited to Facebook marketplace & NSSPPA classifieds with scant listings, and the nearest in Kentucky. We were not able to find any domestic manufacturers of PTO-powered cane presses for sugarcane, let alone for sorghum, that were suitable for our scale.
Electric presses, especially those calibrated for tougher & thicker sugarcane, were available at relatively affordable prices. We were only able to locate one manufacturer of electric sorghum presses, Industrial Metal Works in Dothan, Alabama. This firm owns the rights to a custom engineered electric sorghum press developed by Joe Todd of Todd Farms in Dothan, Alabama. Mr. Todd is somewhat of a sorghum legend. The Todd Mill 2 is a free standing cane mill optimized for sorghum, with reversibility, that only needs 110v power supply. A mid-2025 estimate, including shipping to New York, was for ~$4800. The Todd Mill is hand fed, and can process ~ 3 canes at a time. This already would have been a significant improvement on our previous production strategy. At our 2024 Sorghum Harvest, we transported the canes from our field to a barn for pressing via three single-stalk table-top sugarcane juicers (~$600 each, borrowed). Not only did we struggle to get adequate power supply, these presses were painfully slow & quick to jam. In 2024 it took us two weeks of staggered cutting and processing to harvest half an acre, because of the bottleneck with the presses. One Todd Mill could potentially triple the output of our previous equipment, but still felt limited. Most fields do not have 110v power supply, and moving the pressing off site means also having to return the pressed canes to the field, or to another composting site.
Before we placed an order for the Todd Mill, we re-connected with Carl Blatt of Empire State Syrups. Carl is the only commercial Sweet Sorghum producer in New York, and has the only small scale, PTO powered sorghum cane press in the NE. He had recently ordered an upgraded replacement and was willing to sell us his old one. The primary limitation of the press is that it is heavy, not on wheels, and was larger & less volunteer friendly for our community programming (i.e. with large exposed grinders, not safe for children to use) But, with a little bit of practice & the right station set up, our team could feed armloads of sorghum into the press at one time, collect the juice, and We used this PTO press for our 2025 Sorghum Harvest, which allowed us to harvest & press half an acre of sorghum in 2 hours with a team of volunteers.
Our original objectives included testing the impact of irrigation conditions on sorghum cane juice yields. Although we were not able to meet this objective, we did meet the others and were able to successfully grow, harvest, and process an acre of sorghum using a one of a kind cane press that dramatically increased our the efficiency of our processing time, from 2 weeks of labor mobilization to one afternoon of work.
Education & outreach activities and participation summary
Participation summary:
Our flagship education & outreach event was our 2025 Sorghum Harvest Festival, on October 11. We hosted 100+ farmers, neighbors, young people, and community partners on the land in Millerton, NY. Volunteers harvest 0.5 acres of sorghum, across all varieties planted, and assisted our staff to press and cook down the sorghum syrup. We served a meal prepared by local chefs featuring sorghum grain & syrup. Guests got to taste finished syrup fresh from the field, and learn about the multi-stage process for refining & finishing sorghum syrup. Jon Kasza of Home Farm led a team of volunteers to select seed to save for next year, and to take harvested grain heads to be dried in a neighboring greenhouse.
Across the production season, we also partnered with Maya Marie Stansberry, an educator and founder of Deep Routes, to lead workshops in our community about Sorghum. We hosted two workshops - one in partnership with Kite’s Nest at the Re-Gen garden, a youth food project in Hudson, NY, and the other at our Sorghum Harvest Festival. In addition to supplying her already developed curricular materials about sorghum history & ecology, Maya developed recipes for sorghum ice cream, sorghum cookies, sorghum grain salad with a sorghum vinaigrette, and sorghum barbeque sauce - which the young people and Kite's Nest enthusiastically enjoyed. At the Sorghum Festival, Maya led a parallel workshop demonstrating sorghum milling, and showcasing sorghum flavors in cookies and ice cream.
In early October, Jalal Sabur also delivered a presentation about our developing sorghum enterprise at the Black Famers & Urban Growers (BUGs) Conference in Detroit Michigan, to a packed room of 80 farmers interested in cultivating sorghum at small & medium scales.
We also established and deepened collaborative partnerships with regional producers and consumers. For example, Mel The Bakery, a very successful bakery in Hudson, NY that mills all of their own flours in-house, welcomed us to use their New American Stone Mill to mill 50lbs of our 2024 sorghum harvest early in the project period. We took our 2025 crop to be threshed at the Hudson Valley Farm Hub, a regional mill serving farmers at a larger scale than our operation.
In late November, we served gluten-free sorghum waffles with sorghum syrup (as well as fried chicken with spicy sorghum butter) to 100+ customers at the Basilica Farm & Flea, an extremely popular and long-running food & craft fair in Hudson, NY. We also sold 20 1lb bags of sorghum flour, as well as ~25 bottles of sorghum & maple syrup at our stall.
Other activities included a field-day focused on planting in partnership with Poughkeepsie Farm Project and ~8 of their youth farm staff, a networking event touring local granaries and bakeries with the NE chapter of the National Bakers Guild with 40 other farmers / bakers, and our ongoing work developing the Webatuck Valley Farm Collaborative, including a briefing to 60 area funders and partners in early February, 2026, about the need & potential for a community grain mill in Millerton.
Learning Outcomes
Sorghum varieties for grain and syrups suitable for the NE
Transplanting sorghum
Processing sorghum using a PTO driven cane press
Sorghum seed selection & saving
Sorghum marketing opportunities as a value added syrup, whole grain, and milled grain
Project Outcomes
We plan to expand our sorghum production to 2 acres in 2026, and to establish a crop rotation on ~5 acres in Millerton to include sorghum, buckwheat, corn, and black beans. In the future, we hope to co-pack & market sorghum syrup - and have been in conversation with Carl Batt of Empire State Syrups about this prospect. Carl also shared a technique to clarify sorghum syrup using lime, that we plan to utilize in our 2026 harvest.
Through this project, we learned that we could safely operate our PTO sorghum press while leaving the press (which is extremely heavy) on the back of a standard trailer. With that added mobility, we plan to activate this press within our already existing equipment sharing networks, so that other local small scale producers can
The primary challenge in our project approach was balancing experimental research goals with the realities of operating a rapidly growing community farm enterprise. Our original methodology included a comparison of irrigated and non-irrigated sorghum production systems, but an untimely irrigation pump failure prevented us from completing this component of the study. In addition, the mid-season launch of the Webatuck Valley Farm Collaborative significantly shifted staff capacity toward infrastructure development and regional planning work. Although this altered our original timeline and research scope, it also generated important new knowledge about the infrastructure and equipment barriers facing small and medium-scale sorghum & grain producers in the Northeast.
The greatest factor in the project’s success was securing access to a PTO-powered sorghum cane press. This dramatically increased our processing efficiency and demonstrated that sorghum syrup production can become feasible at a larger scale for diversified farms in the region. Moving from small tabletop presses to a mobile field-scale processing system reduced harvest labor from weeks to hours and opened the possibility for cooperative equipment sharing among producers.
While we were not able to fully answer our original research question regarding irrigation and syrup yields, we successfully demonstrated that sorghum can be grown and processed efficiently at small and medium scales in the Northeast using adapted infrastructure and collaborative labor models. We also identified several promising varieties for syrup and grain production under our conditions, especially Rox Orange, Simon, and Korsajz.
Going forward, we plan to continue expanding sorghum production and refining processing systems. Future methodology revisions will include more formalized yield tracking, sugar content testing, and replicated irrigation trials. Additional research is also needed around regionally appropriate harvesting equipment, grain threshing and milling systems, syrup clarification techniques, storage, and cooperative processing models for diversified farms.
We believe this work is most relevant to small and medium-scale diversified vegetable and grain farmers in the Northeast, especially those working on marginal soils, operating with limited infrastructure, or seeking climate-resilient crops with value-added potential. The project may also benefit regional grain hubs, bakers, educators, food justice organizations, and farmer cooperatives interested in developing resilient local staple crop systems.