Q&A

DEAR NEW FARM:

We are looking to buy organic raw oats, freshly dehulled, from a certified organic farm anywhere in the U.S., the closer to New York the better. We are looking to buy 1,000 pounds at a time; we would arrange pickup with a carrier. We are looking for the "unstabilized" kind of oats, which means oats that have not been heat-treated, with neither infrared light nor steam, etc. Any information you can provide would be appreciated.

Sincerely,
Ibo Gencay
Healthy Baking
Bronx, New York

DEAR IBO:

Once again, we turned to New York organic grain farmers Mary-Howell and Klaas Martens. Here’s what they had to say:

Dehulling oats requires specialized equipment that few farms would have, and most oats do need to be hulled before eating.

There are two possibilities - one would be to find a source of a hull-less variety, like ‘Buff’ or ‘Paul’, but our experience has been that while these varieties are mostly hull-less, there are still enough hulled kernels left, which make using the oats for cooking without sorting difficult. We roll ‘Buff’ oats nearly every morning for oatmeal, but the oats have to be washed after rolling to remove the light hulls that rise to the surface of the water. This works fine for oatmeal but doesn't work well for oatmeal cookies!

The other possibility would be to contact one of the food grain mills in the New York/Pennsylvania area that deal in organic products and see if they could help you find “organic oat groats.” These would include Agriculver Seeds in Trumansburg, New York; Birkett Mills in Penn Yan, New York; Champlain Milling in Westport, New York; or McGeary Grain in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Perhaps one of them has an oat-dehuller or can direct you to where you can get dehulled oats.

The New York organic oat crop looks very good this year, and harvest will start next week. It would be nice for New York organic farmers to be able to help you.

Hope this helps.
Mary-Howell Martens

Contact us with comments, suggestions and questions.