20 years of wheat

REARDAN - When Fred Fleming graduated from Washington State University in 1973, he dreamed of raising a family on his family's farm. Little did he know that one day his innovative farming practices and business model would lead him to form Shepherd's Grain, a company that tracks its bags of flour from farm to table.

Fleming was raised on a farm north of Reardan and graduated in 1968. He married his high school sweetheart Vicki Wollweber.

With his degree in hand, Fleming put his knowledge to work. But"the drought of 1977" forced him to find another career.

He landed a job as an agronomist with the Spokane Tribe, overseeing their newly installed irrigation system. In 1980, while working for the Tribe, Fleming started the Reardan Seed Company on 90 acres of land that he purchased from his father.

After seeing his neighbor's cultivated topsoil and wheat seeds wash away in a downpour, Fleming had an epiphany. He determined that adopting a no-till system would help the soil hold water, retain nutrients and produce a more sustainable crop.

"The most valuable nutrient that we provide to a living crop is moisture," he said. "No-till farming allows a field to be a living compost pile."

From then on, Fleming viewed farming differently. He likened the impact of his decision to that of attending a 12-step recovery program.

He envisioned himself standing around a circle of peers and saying, "Hi, my name is Fred, and I'm a recovering conventional farmer."

Fleming's longtime friend Karl Kupers was on a parallel path. Both were trying to figure out what to grow besides wheat and barley.

The two had been high school rivals on the basketball court. Fleming won state championships at Reardan in 1967 and 1968, and Kupers won a championship at Harrington in 1965.

In 2003, they joined forces to form Shepherd's Grain, a company that buys wheat from farmers who use regenerative agricultural practices such as no-till farming.

Their company can track the origin of the wheat throughout the milling and marketing process in order for consumers to know which farm their food is coming from.

In 2007, Board Chairman Kupers, and Fleming hired Jeremy Bunch to be in charge of logistics and farm relations. They promoted him to CEO in 2012.

"My hiring philosophy was to give him enough rope to swing across the valley of success, or to hang himself," Fleming said. "It was one of the best decisions we ever made. He is a visionary who can take our business to the next level."

Bunch grew up on a grass seed farm in Oregon and later was an assistant coach for the Arizona State University women's basketball team.

"We believe that the wheat produced from no-till farms behaves differently from wheat produced from tillage farming," Bunch said. "Testing shows the nutrient density is higher."

Fleming said that Shepherd's grain is 100% farmer owned. There is a waiting list to let farmers in, "but we have developed a formula that guarantees farmers will make a profit. It entices a farmer to market a certain percentage of his crop through us, to bring it from farm to table."

Shepherd's Grain is a business that has grown from processing 1,000 bushels of wheat in the first year to now processing approximately 500,000 bushels.

"Our flour appeals to consumers who want environmentally friendly ingredients and who want to be part of the movement to regenerate degraded farm ground into healthy, living soil," Fleming said.

One of Fleming's greatest satisfactions is going into Caruso's Restaurant in Spokane to order a pizza and to see on their chalk board that one of his farmers produced the crop that made the flour for his dinner.

"Knowing we can trace our product from the land to the grain bin to the consumer's plate is the most satisfying legacy we can give to the American farmer," Fleming said.