Tree shaking during late October at Sorrells Farms in Comanche, Texas. Photography courtesy of the Texas Pecan Growers Association.

Plant-based milks have proliferated in the marketplace over the past 15 years; a 2020 study notes that they accounted for 15 percent of all milk sales and 35 percent of the plant-based food category, totaling $2.6 billion in sales.

And there are a lot of milk alternatives out there. Almond, pistachio, macadamia, hazelnut, walnut, cashew, peanut, soy, pea, potato, oat and hemp are just some of the options for anyone forgoing traditional dairy. Yet, pecan milk has been largely absent from the plant milk space. 

“I feel like pecans haven’t had a place in the market because no one grower or conglomerate had a significant supply of nuts to make the milk into a national or global product,” says Kortney Chase. Growing up in southeastern New Mexico, her family would harvest pecans from their farm and make creamy milk from the buttery-tasting nuts. The family would add it to cereal or drink it straight. Years later, Chase wanted to share her love of pecan milk with the world, so she launched Pecana, in late 2023. 

Kortney Chase. Photography by Samantha Marie.

People have tried to introduce pecan milk into the plant-based space before, with varying degrees of success. In 2014, Houston’s MALK Organics became the first brand to make pecan milk, although it was later discontinued; the company now makes almond and oat milk. In 2015 and 2016, Atlanta became home to Treehouse Naturals and Pecan Milk Co-op, respectively. The former is now the only brand manufacturing canned pecan milk.

Pecana sources its pecans directly from its own farms—those same orchards in which Chase grew up. A third-generation pecan farmer, Chase’s family started Chase Pecan in Artesia, New Mexico, in 1986. In 2003, Chase Pecan relocated from New Mexico to San Saba, Texas, the self-proclaimed “Pecan Capital of the World.” The Hill Country town is home to what may be the oldest fossilized pecans on record; the remnants discovered on the banks of the Colorado River in San Saba are estimated to be at least 65 million years old.

But, the pecan holds a special place for Texans in particular; in 1919, it was declared the state tree because of its role in Texas heritage, economy and culture. Pecans were also a crucial food source for the indigenous peoples of the region, whose upriver trade routes expanded the nut’s habitat and eventual agricultural terrain. But pecan growers in Texas have faced hardship in recent years due to climate change, crop input costs, water expenses and lack of labor.

Pecan trees in Brownwood, TX. Photography via Texas Pecan Growers Association.

Chase Pecan is now the leading grower of pecans, with 13,000 cultivated acres comprised of tenant farmer-occupied estate orchards and small family farms in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, with roughly 3,000 acres of that land dedicated to organic farming. The company specializes in the Pawnee (a large, buttery variety popularized in the western states by Kortney Chase’s father, Richard) and Western Schley (a small, crunchy variety) pecans. It’s also one of the largest manufacturers of pecans, harvesting an average of 20 million pounds of nuts annually, which ensures Pecana gets a consistent supply.

 After graduating college in 2011, Chase set out to learn the manufacturing side of her family’s business, as well as doing sales and market research. “I would look at certain products like nut milk and wonder why they weren’t made with pecans,” she says.

It wasn’t until the pandemic, however, that Chase began formulating a “commercial nut milk that I wanted to drink.” While higher in fat and calories than almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and cashews, pecans make an indisputably creamy milk and, unlike oats, they don’t require the addition of canola or sunflower oil to yield a product with an equivalent consistency. 

Pecan production. Photography via Chase Pecan.

Because pecan milk is so new to the marketplace, there’s little data comparing it to other plant milks, but its lower environmental imprint and the crop’s long production cycle bode well for the future of the industry. Pecan trees take five to seven years to bear fruit, but they produce for up to 300 years. By contrast, almond trees don’t bear fruit for three years and have an average production span of 25 years, while English walnuts bear fruit in four to seven years and have a 30-year production period. 

Pecans are also wind-pollinated, which means the trees can reproduce without human or insect intervention. These cross-pollinated trees yield larger, higher-quality orchard nuts (commercial pecan varieties are hybrids developed through controlled pollination). 

Almonds, by contrast, require pollinators for reproduction. California produces 80 percent of the global almond crop, which is aided by the importation of European honeybees, which then compete with and displace native species. Imported bees also die in large numbers due to pesticide exposure, parasites and disease. 

Nuts litter the ground after tree shaking at Sorrells Farms in Comanche, Texas. The workers at Sorrells Farms will now come through with harvesting equipment to collect the fresh crop. Photography via Texas Pecan Growers Association.

Regardless of the type of plant milk you consume, “all tree nuts and legumes are, generally speaking, far more sustainable from orchard to manufacture than any milk from an animal,” says Dana Ellis Hunnes, a dietitian and assistant professor at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health. “However, the degree of sustainability for one nut or legume to another varies as some are more water intensive than others, but tree nuts are a carbon sink because trees pull carbon out of the atmosphere and into their roots. Plant milks also require 50-percent less water and up to 10-percent less land than cow’s milk and produce minimal greenhouse gasses.”

While dairy milk shouldn’t be demonized, it does come with a more significant environmental footprint. “The primary reason is that you have to feed a pregnant or lactating animal more food, and this is inefficient,” says Hunnes. “When you consider the water use, emissions produced by the animals themselves and land use, plant milks will always win.”

The post Meet the Pecan Farmer Who Wants to Change the Plant-Based Milk Scene appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“I had to rely on others to eat, and it was really difficult,” says Bista, who is one of six refugee farmers employed by New Leaf Agriculture, a 20-acre organic operation located in Manor, Texas. “I’m happy now, because I can feed myself and I have friends and a support system, thanks to New Leaf.”

When Bista was granted refugee status in 2010, she began taking English classes at Central Presbyterian Church in Austin, 14 miles west of Manor. It was there she met Meg Erskine, co-founder and CEO of the Multicultural Refugee Coalition (MRC), the non-profit that oversees New Leaf and a textile manufacturing studio located at the church. 

MRC’s two social enterprises were created to provide refugees and asylees from traditional farming and sewing cultures with training and dignified employment that reconnects them to their respective vocations. “Working with these people every day, it’s very clear that self-sufficiency is in their blood,” says Matt Simon, New Leaf’s agricultural director. “Being able to take back some control over their lives when they’ve previously had none is empowering.”

Krishna Bista grew up on a diversified farm in her native Bhutan. (Photo courtesy Leia Vita/Farmers’ Footprint)

The public-facing farm, which was established in 2017, employs refugee farmers to cultivate crops for its CSA, Austin’s Mueller and Lakeline farmers’ markets and local restaurants and makers. New Leaf helps refugees who aren’t employees by donating 90 of its CSA shares per week to families in need, in partnership with the Center for Survivors of Torture and the Austin Independent School District.  

New Leaf also runs a community farmer program, established in the fall of 2022, that provides refugees with small plots and supplies so they can cultivate their own culturally desired crops. With grant funding from Travis County, New Leaf purchases all of these crops (including those consumed by farmers and their families) and distributes them free of charge within their respective communities.

The benefits of helping displaced immigrants become self-sufficient after years of instability are many. “Most social enterprise programming is focused on life skills and job placement,” says Simon. “This is different because we’re actually providing them with the assets they need to feed their families. Our goal for this program is to endow and equip our farmers with the skills and knowledge necessary for running their own farming business, should they choose to do so.”

For Doli Wikongo, a refugee farmer employee who grew up cultivating bananas and rice in her native Congo, New Leaf has been a lifeline. “[It’s] helped me to assimilate greatly,” she says. “The farm is a community of immigrants, mostly from Africa and Asia. We’re culturally similar because we traditionally grow the same crops, share resources and live in big, family-oriented groups, so we see one another as extended family.”

Doli Wikongo at New Leaf Agriculture’s farm. (Photo courtesy Leia Vita/Farmers’ Footprint)

After arriving in the US in 2013 with her five children, Wikongo and her teenaged son Wandaka began volunteering at Farmlink, MRC’s predecessor to New Leaf. The agricultural partnership was located at Austin’s Green Gate Farms and provided a way for refugees from farming cultures to keep their hands in the soil and receive free produce in exchange for several hours’ of work each week.

It was Wandaka who ultimately became the catalyst for New Leaf in 2017, says Simon. The then 17-year-old was also involved with Future Farmers of America through his high school and knew well the importance of agricultural programming for refugee immigrants. In early 2017, the owner of Green Gate Farms introduced Wandaka to a local grower who was leasing land from a man named Jon Beall. 

“Wandaka noticed that there was quite a bit of unutilized land on Beall’s property, so he asked Jon if MRC could lease the acreage,” says Simon. “Jon was happy to do so, and our first growing season was the spring of 2018. Wandaka, who is now attending university in France, was our first farm manager.”

Doli Wikongo and Bista were also two of New Leaf’s first refugee farmer employees. The women are now crew chiefs for the public farm program and oversee four other refugee farmers from Burma and Congo. Together, the farm crew cultivates and harvests more than 50 different crops including heirloom peppers, melons, summer and winter squash, okra, greens, brassicas and botanicals such as Mexican mint marigold, which is used as a textile dye. 

Wikongo and Bista oversee the farm crew. (Photo courtesy Leia Vita/Farmers’ Footprint)

The starting pay for refugee farmers is “competitive with other certified organic farms in the region and actually higher than some small, family farm managers make,” says Simon. “We also give yearly raises and paid time off.” The farmers also receive twice-weekly in-house ESL classes and regular meetings with MRC’s case manager. To help them navigate health care and other benefits, New Leaf connects the farmers to relevant local organizations such as Foundation Communities and Manos de Cristo.

New Leaf launched its community farmer program in the fall of 2022 as a way for refugees to grow their own food and earn supplemental income. Each of the 24 community farmers, including Bista and Wikongo, are allocated a 750-square-foot plot along with farm implements and organic fertilizer; they come from traditional farming cultures including Congo, Burma, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

The community farmers grow culturally desirable crops such as amaranth, various types of eggplants and peppers, red noodle beans, roselle hibiscus and more. Bista cultivates daikon radish, brassicas, kale, beets, winter squash and blisteringly hot Dalle Khursani peppers, which she adds to gundruk, a fermented dish made from the leaves of mustard greens or cauliflower. Bista uses daikon for achar, a pickle flavored with various spices and chiles. “I mostly make vegetables and pickles,” she says. “It makes me very happy to eat the food I had growing up in Bhutan.” 

Bista’s son Bal is New Leaf’s chicken and greenhouse manager, and he and his in-laws also have community farmer plots. Any leftover crops not used by the Bistas and their relatives are given to their neighbors.

Wikongo and her two teenaged daughters grow cauliflower, cabbage, green onions, various greens and winter squash. She uses the leaves from the squash for bishusha, a dish traditionally made with pumpkin greens. After boiling the leaves to remove their thorny outer layer, she cooks them with tomatoes and a bit of heavy cream, to be served over rice. 

“If I have enough vegetables to feed my family, I’ll give the rest to my friends or sell it back to New Leaf,” says Wikongo. “We have a Congolese community here in Austin and New Leaf delivers food to one of our churches.”

Wikongo and her daughters grow cauliflower, cabbage, squash and more. (Photo courtesy Leia Vita/Farmers’ Footprint)

Mang Thian Cing, a refugee from Burma, grows roselle hibiscus, among other crops, on her allocated land. The plant’s tart flowers are used for tea in Burma, and the lemony-tasting greens (known as chin baung hin ywet, or sour leaf), are added to soup or used in chin baung kyaw, fried roselle leaves and bamboo shoots flavored chiles, onion, shrimp paste and fish sauce.

Learning to farm in a climate like Texas’s is challenging, even for farmers like Wikongo who are from tropical regions, because there are differences in botany and methodology, she says. “In Congo, the seeds are bigger, so we just plant them in the ground. Here, the seeds are smaller and it’s necessary to start them in a greenhouse.” She has also learned to mix and amend soil and place irrigation pipes in a way that maximizes water distribution.  

Despite the climatic extremes and lack of consistent rainfall, Wikongo loves farming and considers it her permanent vocation. “It’s what I want to do,” she says. “If you work in the fields, it keeps you active and healthy. I’m able to do so much more.”

The post Meet the Refugee Farmers Raising the Crops of Their Homelands From Texas Soil appeared first on Modern Farmer.