I just read an interesting article about alternative crops and I learned something astonishing.

Alternative crops are ones that don’t get as much attention when commodity prices are good, but when nothing is profitable, like now, everyone is looking around for something new. But the astonishing thing I learned is that one alternative crop is amaranth.

Amaranth? Isn’t that pigweed, that horrible, noxious, herbicide-resistant scourge of farmers everywhere? What the heck are they talking about?

It turns out that Amaranth is also a pseudocereal. It is grown for its edible seeds in places including Mexico. It is produced on only a few thousand acres in the U.S. each year but has earned space on grocers’ health-food shelves. Some growers also market it on the Internet. High in protein, fiber and amino acids and low in saturated fat, it is blended with wheat or other flours to make cereals, crackers, cookies, breads and other baked products.

Now I couldn’t find out if the evil Amaranth is the same as the good Amaranth, but I suspect at one time they were closely related. And when you do some research, some people claim that it is nutritious, easy to grow and high yielding.

Well now, maybe we should sit up and take notice. Maybe we should quit fighting Amaranth and start growing it. After all, no other commodity is worth much this year, it could be the year for innovation. If you do a little more research, you can even find people selling “heirloom amaranth seeds.”

Just imagine farming pigweed and making money at it. What a great thing. There would only be one drawback…your neighbors.

After all the money spent on herbicides, can you imagine what they would do to you if you were to plant a whole field full of pigweed right next to their beans or corn or sugarbeets? It would not make for friendly neighborhood relations.

So maybe Amaranth is not the answer to low corn prices. Maybe its time has not yet come. But wouldn’t it be great to farm weeds instead of fighting them? Maybe after that, they could find a great market for puncture vine and sand burrs…