On a Saturday morning in October, families clambered out of cars at the University of Missouri’s Center for Agroforestry facility in New Franklin. They had made their way to the mid-Missouri research farm for the Missouri Chestnut Roast Festival.
The event featured tours, tastings and chestnut sales. People sampled the nut in a number of different ways: microwaved, steamed, fried in oil and even cooked into a soup.
The agroforestry center held the festival in an effort to introduce the tree nut and encourage growth and expansion of the crop in Missouri.
This story was completed in collaboration with Missouri Business Alert. A version of it appeared in its Business Brief podcast.
Bill Stouffer and his wife own Cedar Hill Farms in central Missouri, and he was at the festival selling chestnuts. His farm started growing chestnuts in 2010 and has planted 100 to 150 trees a year since then. Currently, the farm has about 1,500 trees.
“We were looking for a way for the farm to support itself as we passed it onto the next generation,” Stouffer said. “Chestnuts give you a high return on investment and a way for a small farm to support itself over a period of time.”
Cultivation of chestnut trees for nut production in the U.S. nearly doubled between 2017 and 2022, to more than 2,800 farms, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Overall chestnut acreage more than doubled in the same period.
In a 2021 survey of chestnut farmers, 70% said they had experienced increased demand for the nuts. More than half indicated demand exceeded supply.
There are programs working to aid in not only production but also commercialization of the chestnut. The Chestnut Improvement Network is a participatory breeding program, established in 2021.
The network connects producers of the tree nut across the central and northern United States. It promotes the growth of the crop and helps researchers collect data on chestnut cultivation.
Ron Revord, an assistant research professor at MU and interim director of its agroforestry center, said chestnuts could provide a financial benefit to farmers.
“Chestnuts are our poster child for talking about the economic opportunity of the specialty crops that the Center for Agroforestry is invested in,” Revord said. “One of our goals is to create specialty crop options that could get integrated into agroforestry systems that provide unique or improved economic opportunities for small farmers.”
He said there is a great opportunity for domestic chestnut producers to compete with importers, in part because it’s difficult to maintain the quality of the nuts in transit.
“But how far will domestic fresh chestnuts go?” Revord said. “As far as market demand, I generally have an optimistic view of that, especially if you’re in proximity to cities that have large international populations.”
Chestnut producers hope to see expanded use of the nut. They promote chestnuts as a low-fat, gluten-free food ingredient that is high in vitamin C and can be used in a wide range of foods.
Revord said that while there’s still opportunity to advance the science around chestnut production, he sees significant potential to grow the industry.
“I think there’s a really big sponge to absorb the fresh chestnut supply,” Revord said. “When we do hit the ceiling, which I think is a long ways away … there will be opportunity for value-added products.”
