Broomcorn harvesting used to be a major part of the U.S. agriculture industry before being swept away in the 1990s, but one Kentucky craftsperson is looking to bring it back.
Artisan broom-maker Cynthia Main of Sunhouse Craft in Berea and her partner Doug Stubbs have been partnering with Bryce Bauman at Lazy Eight Farm in nearby Red Lick to raise the crop. On a recent September weekend, they brought in their third harvest together since 2022.
“(Bryce) has really got the growing down, so this year we’ve been focusing on the threshing and processing of the crop so we can get to the point where we’re putting it in bales,” she says.
What is broomcorn?
According to the University of Kentucky Extension Service, broomcorn is not corn . It’s a type of sorghum used for making brooms and whiskbrooms. It comes in natural colors as well as purple and other fall colors.
Broomcorn used to be a thriving industry stateside, with annual production averaging 41,000 tons per year from 1915-1965. But in the three decades that followed, production took a steep drop to just under 12,000 tons. That was because of a number of issues ranging from production moving south to Mexico where labor was cheaper, the introduction of plastic brooms and the widespread adoption of carpet in American homes. Then the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came along in 1994, a kiss of death that led to another thirty years of constant decline leaving very few, if any, commercial producers of broomcorn remaining in the United States.