Farmers smell success with crop of clary sage

CHOWAN COUNTY, N.C.

Right now, farmers in northeast North Carolina are harvesting an unusual crop that allows perfume, cologne and other fragrances to last longer, replaces a product previously gleaned from an endangered species and adds beauty to local roadsides in early summer.

It's clary sage.

"Clary sage likes dry weather," said David Peele, president of Avoca Inc., the company that grows and processes the sage and ships it to fragrance makers. "We probably provide 95 percent of the fragrance fixative to perfume makers. It's all about diversification for farmers."

Except for that one corner of North Carolina, clary sage is grown only in France and China. Farmers growing it contract with Avoca. Local farmers are anxious to grow it, said Peele, but he's uninterested in a few acres here and there. He's looking for large plots, attempting to keep down costs of transportation to the small factory in Merry Hills, N.C., where the processing is done.

The sage is squeezed into an essential oil that has taken the place of a product from the now-endangered sperm whale.

"There's not much market for it," said Fred Smith, whose family has been growing the sage in Chowan County for more than 20 years. "We use a silage cutter to harvest it. They take it and press the oils out and use it in perfumes."

The crop was first planted in North Carolina by R.J. Reynolds, when the company was experimenting with adding clary sage to tobacco. Peele, Avoca's president, worked for Reynolds for 25 years. At the time, Avoca was a subsidiary. In 2003, Avoca became a private company, concentrating on clary sage and the perfume industry.

The company deals with 16 farmers in the counties of Chowan, Bertie, Perquimans and Washington. Clary sage is cut one day and left in the field to dry the next. Flowers, stalks and all are hauled to the plant in Merry Hill for processing. The small industrial plant is capable of processing 250 tons of sage a day. About 99 percent of what is hauled in goes out as waste, Peele said.

Weather is an issue, he said. The farmers who work for him are some of the few who don't routinely pray for rain in the summer. The plant loves dry weather. Bad storms can damage the tender blossoms, where droplets of the waxy oil ooze out even before harvest.

"We could lose 50 percent of our yield in one thunderstorm," Peele said. "If the rest of the state of North Carolina is crying for rain, we're in good shape."

The company is at the cutting edge of the chemical industry of the future, said David Danehower, in the department of crop science at the University of North Carolina.

"Avoca is selling a product from a natural source," he said. "This is the future of mankind, where we get chemicals from plants. And this area is the only place I know where clary sage is grown in North America."

The perfume fixative is one example; biofuels are another, Danehower said. He praises not only what Avoca is doing, but also the company itself.

"They have come into one of the poorest counties in North Carolina and made it better," Danehower said.

Peele said the work can be entertaining. The crop that fills the rural landscape with tall spears of lavender and white flowers for sometimes a month in early summer is an attention-getter.

"People have a concept of what it should smell like," he said.

"We have to laugh when we see them stop on the road and grab a bunch of the flowers.

"Then, about a mile down the road, we'll see the flowers thrown out on the side."

The natural smell isn't exactly sweet. At the very least, the odor is strong. It fills the fields during harvest time.

Linda McNatt, (757) 222-5561, linda.mcnatt@pilotonline.com