After more than four decades in the field, Joe Cramer knows a thing or two about Michigan agriculture and what makes it special. His 40-plus-year career has been dedicated to strengthening the state’s dry bean industry, first with a private business and now serving as executive director of the Michigan Bean Commission since 2012.
The commission is a grower-led organization that advocates on behalf of the industry, using farmer dollars to support research and marketing efforts.
While he was more focused on the end product in his private-sector position, Cramer’s executive experience with the commission has given him an inside look at how partnerships are essential to getting dry beans from the field to the fork. Cramer said Michigan State University’s role in that collaboration has been eye-opening.
“I’m always fascinated every time I’m at MSU, and I learn something new,” Cramer said. “The staff is so smart and has so much capacity that we benefit from. Every time our growers put a dry bean seed in the ground, they may have bought that seed from a private-sector company, but I’m willing to bet those seeds have some tie to MSU. Whatever it is the growers are trying to eliminate in terms of a disease or gain with yield, there’s a green fingerprint from MSU on it.”
The vast majority of Michigan’s dry beans are grown in the Thumb region, home to some of the state’s most fertile soils. A variety of crops are present in fields here, but dry beans hold a special place.
According to the Michigan Bean Commission, roughly 1,100 growers produce more than 500 million pounds of conventional and organic dry beans annually in Michigan, making it the second-leading producer of total dry beans in the country. The state is the No. 1 producer of organic beans in the U.S. and also ranks first for black beans, cranberry beans and small red beans.
MSU has a rich history with the dry bean industry through a multitude of research projects aimed at challenges such as diseases, insects, nutrient application and weeds. But most notable is a 100-plus-year breeding and genetics program supported by MSU AgBioResearch.
For more than 40 years, the program was led by Jim Kelly, whose efforts yielded nearly 50 varieties of dry beans, many of which are grown throughout the world today. The laboratory is now led by Valerio Hoyos-Villegas, who is looking to build on that success.
Cramer said the program has been an integral part of keeping Michigan at the forefront of the industry globally.
“The dry bean breeding program at MSU has been so instrumental for our industry,” he said. “For instance, there’s a small red bean variety called Viper. I would say that over 99% of that variety grown today has its roots in East Lansing. It’s had a tremendous impact on the bottom line of our growers for domestic and international markets. It’s a product of great quality that consumers are enjoying, and that’s just one example.”
Partnerships are the crux of what makes this research possible, including two initiatives led by MSU, the Michigan Plant Coalition, and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.
For 27 years, Project GREEEN has helped growers across the Michigan plant agriculture spectrum address urgent and emerging issues. The Agricultural Resiliency Program was created in 2024 to examine long-term challenges related to water and extreme weather.
“Project GREEEN is a great example of how we’re able to stretch dollars to benefit our growers,” Cramer said. “If you look at the dry bean industry and the product we put on the shelf, we think it’s the healthiest, most nutrient-packed, shelf-stable product, and it’s gaining more consumers all the time. The quality our growers produce and the yield they benefit from, it’s all a product of Project GREEEN and the research we can’t afford to support on our own. We so appreciate the Michigan Legislature and the work that was done 27 years ago to create the program, as well as the work that continues to be done to support it.
“With the Agricultural Resiliency Program, when you bring growers into discussions, it seems so common sense to them to think about longer-term things like improving soil health and holding nutrients in the soil. Farmers have a desire to think long term, and this program is an opportunity to encourage more of that, further identifying additional ways they can protect their futures and their investments.”
Cramer said it’s vital that legislators and funding agencies understand how support is used to prop up agriculture and the larger economy.
“Quality research is expensive, and we don’t have a large budget at the Michigan Bean Commission,” he said. “When you put those two things together, we can’t get a lot done on our own. Without support from the State of Michigan or federal dollars, we don’t get these research programs off the ground. All of those mechanisms that help us stretch our grower dollars go away, and our research would come to a halt. Every time we get the opportunity, we’re thanking lawmakers at the state and federal levels for that support and trying hard to express how necessary the funding truly is to our industry and other agricultural industries.
“In Michigan, about every third row of dry beans is exported, so we can measure our economic impact domestically and internationally. Our lawmakers like to hear about that kind of thing and need to hear about it.”
Greg Ackerman and Nathan Capps have seen the fruits of MSU dry bean research firsthand. Ackerman, who is a past chair of the Michigan Bean Commission, operates a farm in Vassar, Michigan. Capps is the quality director for Bush Brothers and Company, a family owned business founded in 1908 that sells an array of bean products across the U.S., including roughly 80% of the canned baked beans consumed throughout the country annually.
Below is a Q&A with Ackerman and Capps in which they discuss their experiences with MSU research.
How does MSU research currently support your goals?
- Ackerman: We do a lot through on-farm research trials, particularly with Scott Bales (MSU Extension specialist) in dry beans. We use those trials to make decisions for what we’re doing each year in terms of variety selection, disease control, etc. The independent data we get is important. Of course we also utilize the work of researchers on diseases, weeds and soil health. That includes Martin Chilvers (pathology), Christy Sprague (weed management) and Kurt Steinke (soil fertility and nutrient management). They’ve helped us deal with current issues but also start looking five years or so down the road at what may be coming, so that’s always helpful.
- Capps: I touch base at least on an annual basis with Karen Cichy (a USDA Agricultural Research Service scientist studying breeding, genetics and nutritional quality based at MSU). Another important piece for me is the Saginaw Valley Research and Extension Center with Scott Bales. When we get into things that present difficulties with canning especially, it’s immensely valuable to have those relationships. Scott helps put together an annual canning evaluation and trial event, and we have about 15 people there, which shows you how important it is to us. That entire group at Saginaw Valley has also served growers with yield trials for decades, and that helps growers decide which varieties to plant. All of that helps us better understand what growers need and what consumers are looking for.
What outcomes or benefits do you expect from MSU research?
- Ackerman: I expect accurate, unbiased data. To me, if it’s not good data, I don’t want it. When you have independent research, you get the best, most accurate data. The main thing we want to do is to grow the best varieties available. That helps us keep a competitive advantage in the marketplace. We can’t just do what seed companies suggest, so we need that unbiased research. We spend a lot of time in the winter selecting varieties especially, and we rely on MSU research to help us make informed decisions.
- Capps: The industry is always trying to be better at delighting the consumer. That’s our ultimate goal, to provide a product that exceeds their expectations. That doesn’t happen without support throughout the value chain, and MSU has an impact across the entire process. It’s never good enough to stand still, so we always need to be sharpening those knowledge bases, determining what works all the way from improving soil health to canning. The industry might be able to figure some of these things out, but it could take many years. Having places like MSU around with the infrastructure in place to advance new varieties, deal with insects and diseases, improve quality aspects of the bean — all of these things make MSU an invaluable partner.
Can you share an example of when MSU research has positively affected the industry or helped it overcome a looming challenge?
- Ackerman: There was a project years ago started with Jim Kelly for breeding black beans that he developed in Africa. He brought that variety back to the U.S. eventually. It’s a high-quality black bean that retains its color when you can it, which is extremely important for canning businesses. That’s such a huge thing for us to be connected across the value chain and understand what those partners are looking for. It’s the only black bean we grow on our farm for that reason. It brings a premium in the market, and the canners love it. In terms of variety development, MSU is always looking at ways to improve quality for our end users, as well as things like yield and disease resistance.
- Capps: If you think about the legacy dry bean varieties, MSU really set the standard for the best black beans grown anywhere. Jim Kelly did so much for not only black beans but also navy beans and others. The breeding program at MSU has been providing strong leadership for decades, looking at quality attributes and not just yield exclusively. MSU’s breeding program being strong really helps keep the whole industry targeted toward sustainable, quality products.
How can MSU research help to position the industry to thrive moving forward?
- Ackerman: I think MSU can position the industry favorably moving forward by recognizing the challenges coming at us so growers are prepared. It’s not so much what we’re dealing with today, necessarily. It’s more about what we’ll deal with in the future. For example, we heard about the weed waterhemp over and over for years before it was ever a problem for us in Michigan, and now it’s here and it’s real. MSU helped prepare us for that. We need to continue that level of communication. Additionally, I think it’s important for MSU to continue interacting with grower panels and grower boards for commodities. MSU is constantly working on urgent needs — the important things that keep us competitive — and we appreciate that.
- Capps: A lot of those things are happening already, but it’s always important to continue to build on the relationships with local growers. Anything to increase capacity to help hands-on problem solving is always needed.
What would you say to legislators to advocate on behalf of continued funding? What would it mean not to have this funding support moving forward?
- Ackerman: At the end of the day, the support we get through the university keeps agriculture sustainable. It prepares us and educates us. There are so many things people don’t think about when it comes to growing crops, and it’s easy to take it for granted when you see food in the grocery store. If that funding support for research wasn’t there, it would be devastating to our entire industry, including our farm.
- Capps: If places like MSU don’t have that funding, we aren’t going to be as successful in making our consumers happy. We won’t have access to the knowledge they bring to the table, which would introduce more risk to growers and a less stable industry. From the industry standpoint, we lose the network of connectivity that a large institution like MSU gives to businesses like ours and to local agriculture in the region. A lot of what MSU does helps to support specialty crops, and that doesn’t happen without commitment and funding.
This story originally appeared on the Agbioresearch website.
