A John Deere Publication

Closeup of a millet plant drooping and backlit by the sun

Millet is one of many gluten-free crops replacing wheat on Pfaltzgraff's dryland Colorado farm. It's a star ingredient in many of the gluten-free baking mixes he developed using his crops and sells on his farm website.

Agriculture, Education March 01, 2025

Gluten Free Farming

Finding crops and markets to push profits.

by Martha Mintz

Roy Pfaltzgraff is a bit of a farm magician. Since his 2016 return to his family's 2,000 acre dryland farm in Haxtun, Colorado, he's been making things like risk and market middlemen disappear—or at least fade a bit—while conjuring record farm profits.

The real sleight of hand is in identifying and being bold enough to pursue opportunity. Instead of growing wheat as was long tradition, for example, Pfaltzgraff now grows a wide variety of strictly gluten-free crops, contracts grain to specialty markets, cleans seed, mills grains, and has his own 100% gluten-free baking mixes he markets direct to consumers to name a few of his truly numerous ventures.

Above. Raising more types of crops spreads workload and risk. There's never a time when every crop is vulnerable to hail, for example. Markets for crops like black-eyed peas are also independent of traditional market stressors.

Plan ahead. "My father had one rule when I took over farming. I could do anything I wanted as long as I had a market or a really good lead on a market before we seeded a crop," he says. Pfaltzgraff wasn't afraid of a cold call. Each new crop he grew and each new market he contracted with led to the next farm transformation.

Raising buckwheat for a gluten-free malting company led to getting bees to produce unique buckwheat honey. This led to farmers' markets, where he then also went on to sell whole grains, pinto beans, and milled flour.

Trying to enjoy a meal with a gluten-sensitive girlfriend set Pfaltzgraff on the path to a gluten-free farm. He found her gluten-free foods unappetizing at best.

Pfaltzgraff loves problem solving and has a culinary arts degree. He was already growing a variety of gluten-free crops, so he started milling different flours and experimenting to see if he could whip up some better-tasting options.

Millet ended up the winner. He developed millet flour based recipes for biscuits, pancakes, brownies, and more recently scones. He started selling mixes at farmers' markets to rave reviews.

"The mixes sold well, so we started selling them on our farm website and doing home delivery twice a month to Denver," he says. The mixes were loss leaders.

"We make money with direct sales to processors and specialty companies. The mixes allowed us to develop relationships and build a reputation with consumers," Pfaltzgraff says. It opens conversations about their regenerative farming practices and how those practices serve the consumer. "It helps them to see added value in our products. Distributors then see it, too."

As demand for gluten-free crops, flours, and mixes grew, it made sense to remove gluten from the farm entirely.

"It got rid of a lot of stress. We didn't have to clean equipment constantly and it greatly reduced any risk of contamination," he says. Pfaltzgraff now grows open-pollinated corn, confection sunflowers, millet, hull-less oats, sorghum, pinto beans, black-eyed peas and is experimenting with crops like dryland rice.

A good year sees 14 inches of rain. In those conditions, black-eyed-peas don't yield well, but they don't need to. At harvest 2024, black-eyed peas were $60/cwt. Even averaging 10 bu./A (600 lbs/A) that's $360 per acre.

"Very few traditional dryland crops get anywhere close to that value. These crops give us opportunity for profitability. The diverse rotation including legumes helps build soil health, too," he says.

Processing is another way Pfaltzgraff adds extra money to the coffers. A wooden 1969 Clipper Super 248-DH seed cleaner produces his favorite magic trick.

"I put seed worth $0.20 per pound in the top and it's worth $0.40 per pound when it falls out of the bottom," he says. He can clean $0.30 pinto beans and make them worth $0.60. Put them in a nice bag with a label on it and now they're $4.00 per pound.

"You can't hit the easy button on some of these crops and just haul them to the elevator, but it's worth the extra work," he says.

He's ready to stand by that sentiment as his success with mixes and milling gluten-free flours brought him to a crossroad.

"We got to the point where we could see this could be profitable. We had to get serious, or get out," he says. He chose, 'get serious.' He's currently building a facility for milling, mixing and bagging.

"We're making the move," he says. ‡