Blooming Prairie Warehouse in Iowa City, Iowa, stocks his beans, and The Havana Cafe in Minneapolis, Minnesota, keeps on cooking them up in their menu items. That may mean he can take a break from marketing this year. Boyer contracted some 20 beans and sold most of the rest for 27 to his processor. Washburn explains that the black beans are a staple in South American, Central American and Mexican diets. Agri-Sales ships to Mexico City by rail.
Consumption is on the rise in the U.S., too.
Plenty of other pluses Dry beans do require some special equipment. But this led to cleaning other farmers' soybeans and wheat for seed. His seed comes from Idaho. They irrigate there, so it's dry enough to control leaf-born diseases, the greatest threat to black beans, according to Boyer. Investments in specialized harvest equipment were relatively modest, he says.