Central Utah farmer Ken Fowles says when he began compressing his hay into rectangles and shipping it to Japanese dairy farmers, his fellow producers questioned his sanity.
But in the 15 years since he spent $35,000 for the hay-cubing equipment that replaced the balers on his 320-acre farm near Delta, Fowles said he's escaped the hard economic times that have plagued many of his neighbors."My neighbors thought I was crazy, but now I think they wish they had done it too," he said in a recent telephone interview.
Fowles is one of a handful of Utah hay producers who've abandoned the 100-pound bales in favor of 6-inch-long, inch-square "cubes" that have found an enthusiastic market among the land-poor farmers of the Pacific Rim.
These days, bale-to-cube conversion costs can soar to $100,000, but Fowles said the security the foreign market offers is well worth the price.
The cubes are made with chopped hay and small amounts of water and clay, then dried, bagged, trucked to California and shipped on barges to Japan, Taiwan and Korea.
Vic Saunders of the Utah Farm Bureau said the quality of central Utah hay is exceptionally good, meeting the requirements of picky overseas buyers.
Many Japanese farmers, confined to tiny plots of land, ride their bicycles to the local co-op each day to pick up a bag of cubes that are mixed with rice straw and fed to the dairy cattle.
Most favor dark green hay even though the preference is more aesthetic that practical, said Jody Gale, an state agricultural extension agent for Millard County.
"The Japanese look strictly at color as an indicator of quality and they will pay less if it isn't the right color," he said.
Fowles, who visits Japan every two or three years, marvels at the farmers who still use hand tools and give names to their animals. And he believes his visits have helped his Japanese counterparts accept the hay-cube concept.
"Even though the Japanese are slow to change to new things, if they know me they will feel better about buying hay from me," he said.
Kerry Holt, who operates a 2,500-acre farm in Enterprise, Washington County, said he switched techniques about 10 years ago when he bought the equipment from a bankrupt farmer.
"Those first years were a test," he said.
These days, he has four full-time employees and hires up to 20 seasonal workers who help process his hay and that of his neighbors.
Holt ships two truckloads of cubes a week to California merchants who sell it as horse feed, but the rest goes to Japan.
While cubes probably will never replace baled hay, their popularity continues to spread in foreign markets as well as in the U.S.
Holt said the hay-cubing venture has been profitable for him, but adds that he can't ignore the growing interest in cubing.
"There are an awful lot of cubers and I think the market could get saturated," he said. "You just have to keep having the best possible product."