Planted acres of teff, the Ethiopian and Eritrean fine grain that is a cuisine staple and lacks gluten, will be down slightly this year after increasing in 2024.

Boise-based The Teff Co., a processor and marketer instrumental in bringing the crop to the U.S. more than 40 years ago, contracts with 21 growers in five Western states.

“Overall acres are actually down slightly, but we’re basically growing more in the more northern regions,” farmer relations manager Charlie Fereday said. “We’re holding acres steady in Idaho, Washington and Nevada and even increasing a little bit” in those states.

The company grows teff in California, and a small amount in Oregon. California acres will be down due to cost — mainly related to trucking — although “we’re looking into storage solutions down there for the crop,” he said.

Encouraging on-farm storage is a recent emphasis across all growing areas, Fereday said. The idea is to accommodate higher production and spread processing over more of the year.

Teff Co. is on track to grow about 6,400 acres this year, including nearly 2,400 in Idaho, he said. Planting is completed in California and is expected to start in middle to late May elsewhere.

The company last year increased Idaho acreage by about 50%, mainly due to crop rotations and demand. Contract prices in 2024 were 2-6% below those of 2023.

Prices “went up a few years ago to track with input costs, but as some inputs have come down, we have adjusted prices down just a little bit last year and into this year,” Fereday said. Prices in 2025 are about the same as last year’s, reflecting “stable acres and stable demand from our customers.”

Near Kimberly, Idaho, sixth-year Teff Co. contract grower Scott Patrick doubled the size of his farm to about 1,600 acres.

“So I’m going to almost double teff production,” he said, to about 275 acres. “I kind of follow the rotations instead of chasing the markets, so to double my farm basically I’m going to double the acres of everything to meet the rotations.” He also grows sugar beets, corn, malt barley and alfalfa, “and teff can rotate with them all.”

“The price of teff is going to stay the same this year, unlike almost everything else,” Patrick said. “So it will be nice to grow a crop we can still make pretty good money at.”

He also likes teff because it generally “doesn’t mold and have insects that bother it, and doesn’t take a ton of water and a ton of fertility,” he said.

Tesfa Drar of Minnesota-based Selam Foods is a major grower of teff. Northern Nevada is one of his major production areas.

Last year, he did not plant — instead focusing on selling his stored crop.

“My plan is to plant teff this year,” Drar said. How much he plants will depend in part on tariff impacts on South Africa, which has supplied more teff to the U.S. in recent years.

For teff, “demand is large and growing, helped by health benefits,” he said.

Among growers, teff’s reputation as a thrifty user of water is one factor driving continued interest, Fereday said. “And along with that, farmers are looking for some sort of diversity of crops.”

The small-seeded crop can be challenging at first — one reason Teff Co. works closely with growers, who often start small.

If seeds are planted too densely, for example, the plants can compete with each other and grow too much foliage rather than seed, Fereday said.

“And teff being a warm-season grass and heat-loving crop, you want to plant it at the right time in the spring and harvest at the right time in the fall,” he said.