Passionate about sustainable agriculture, northern Colorado man starts safflower oil business
Degrees in Natural Resource Tourism and studies of soil and crop sciences at Colorado State University led Patrick Conrey to grow safflower plants to press into cooking oil for his startup, The Oil Barn Colorado. Photo courtesy of The Oil Barn Colorado.
By Emily Kemme
Patrick Conrey admits he is an angry young man. After earning a degree in Natural Resource Tourism from Colorado State University, followed by a short stint in the military, Conrey returned to CSU to study soil and crop sciences. The path has led him to grow safflower plants to press into cooking oil for his startup, The Oil Barn Colorado.
“I became angry about the way we live and our interaction with nature, that we abuse it, don’t care about it and we need to change,” Conrey said.
He wasn’t raised on a farm, but growing up in Berthoud, Colorado, he moved hay on farms and horse ranches during high school. Over the years, questions about how to practice sustainable agriculture percolated to the top of his mind.
For Conrey, a key issue is how to create resilient soil systems, factoring in input, output and making use of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s five principles of soil health.
Soil quality is determined by whether a farmer engages in practices of soil armor — protecting soil from wind and water while keeping temperatures moderate; minimizing soil disturbance from tillage; plant diversity; keeping a living root in the soil year-round; and running livestock.
Safflower plants are drought tolerant and efficient for irrigation and nutrient sourcing. The species also helps break up compacted soil, aiding soil rejuvenation. Photo courtesy of The Oil Barn Colorado.
“You look to when bison herds grazed on the Great Plains, there were herds 50 miles across, but they didn’t graze down to where there was nothing left,” Conrey said. “They ate, pooped and moved on. There was natural regeneration and the ecosystems benefitted from the carbon, nitrogen and recyclable plant material going back into the soil.”
Soil is a nonrenewable resource. It takes between 100-500 years to build an inch of topsoil, according to numerous websites devoted to healthy soil topics. But it can take thousands of years for fertile soil to develop.
Conrey started small, planting vegetables. When his former boss leased him 30 acres in Wellington, he recognized that amount of land was too big to grow vegetables for a person just getting started. Without machinery to plant grain, he’d have to pay someone to plant and combine a crop, so he landed on oil seed crops.
After Conrey bought safflower seeds from Oil Barn Montana, the owner of the business, Bob Quinn, suggested they go into business together, and The Oil Barn Colorado was born. It is one of the only organic, cold press cooking oil company in Colorado.
It turns out that safflower might be the answer to Conrey’s healthy soil obsession: as a member of the thistle family, the drought tolerant plant is ideal for Colorado’s climate. Safflower retains water, thanks to taproots that can reach lengths up to 12-18 feet annually, making it efficient for irrigation and nutrient sourcing. For every three acres of irrigated safflower, Conrey said the crop saves one million gallons of water, when compared to crops like corn, beans or alfalfa. Those long taproots also work to break up tillage through compacted soil, aiding soil rejuvenation.
“Safflower doesn’t like water — there’s a certain point that if you put too much water on it, your yield potential plateaus. Once you get to 9 inches of water, yield drops off,” he said.
The Oil Barn Colorado is one of the only organic and cold press cooking oil company in Colorado. Safflower’s neutral flavor is ideal for high temperature cooking, and has natural antioxidants that make it a healthy dietary choice. Photo courtesy of The Oil Barn Colorado.
So, what is safflower oil good for?
Safflower oil has a neutral flavor and is ideal for high temperature cooking, Conrey said. The Oil Barn doesn’t refine its product, which would require bleaching, deodorizing, lightening the color and filtering the oil, leaving only a medium for frying that has no nutritional value.
“Ours leaves the natural antioxidants in the oil product after pressing. It’s monounsaturated, high in Vitamin E2 and omega-9 fatty acids, which are the same elements olive oil is touted for.”
Safflower oil has the second highest smoke point of any oil, so when cooking at high temps it won’t degrade, or break apart the molecular bonds which creates a host of carcinogenic results. This makes it a good choice for sautéing, baking, roasting and stir-frying.
This year, Oil Barn planted 25 acres of safflower in Colorado with an average annual yield of 600 pounds. After pressing in Montana, Conrey achieves about 27% extraction efficiency, translating to 162 pounds of oil. But there’s also 438 pounds of organic animal feed by-product, making it a zero-waste process. He is in the process of setting up a pressing facility in Fort Collins.
His goal is to plant enough acreage — he said 150 acres looks right — to establish $10,000 in monthly revenue. Plans include selling oil to consumers for cooking in restaurants and at home, as well as selling the oil to soap companies. Safflower oil is a common product in soap and shampoo.
The third prong is animal feed, which Conrey hopes to supply to local livestock growers, creating a reliable source of feed that’s not exorbitantly expensive — he hopes it would make organic meat more reasonable to buy.
It’s one more playing card in safflower’s toolkit, another reason why it’s a Colorado-friendly product worth incorporating into a healthy diet.
Where to get The Oil Barn’s Safflower Oil
Buy online at The Oil Barn | Greeley Farmers Market (through October and possibly at the winter market) | Lincoln Park Emporium (Greeley); Lucky’s Market, Beavers Market (Fort Collins); Bottled Olive (Centerra); Sweetheart City General, Eclectic Market (Loveland)