Three years ago, sesame was seen as the little seed with big potential in the Southeast. Demand was strong for products such as hummus, rolls and other baked products, including the famous sesame seed hamburger bun. The sense was sesame could work as a good alternate crop in the Southeast because it was low input and drought and heat tolerant. And another big plus? Deer don’t like it. Interest soon took off. As Alex Coleman, Clemson University Extension small grains and sorghum specialist, noted at the Pee Dee Research and Education Center Field Day in Florence Aug. 28, sesame acres climbed to around 35,000 from Mississippi to North Carolina in 2024. Coleman said prices dropped and contracted acres fell to 20,000 to 25,000 this year. With challenging planting conditions and rain during much of the season, Coleman said only 10,000 acres of sesame are expected to be harvested across the Southeast this year. Coleman said another big challenge is that some farmers received dockages when they sold their sesame last year due to quality issues. “Sesame either goes to the whole seed food market for products like the sesame seeds on your hamburger bun, or it can be crushed for oil. The whole seed market is a lot more profitable. The seed has to have a good appearance and good grade. The lower- grade sesame gets crushed for oil. That’s a lot less profitable,” Coleman said. Coleman said he likes sesame because it is a good rotation crop for sorghum and can be planted on the same dryland acres where sorghum grows. “You can’t grow sorghum every year because of grass pressure. You can control grass with sesame, so it gives you a good rotation on those dryland acres.” A hopeful crop David DeWitt, a Clemson Extension agronomic crops agent in Lee and Sumter Counties, said South Carolina farmers had great hope for sesame because it offered something new and didn’t require as many inputs as other crops. Clemson conducted research at the Pee Dee Center and other locations across South Carolina to give farmers the data they needed for a successful the crop. DeWitt said another challenge with sesame is that it’s a contracted crop. Currently, Sesaco, a fully integrated sesame supply chain company headquartered in Austin, Texas, is the only company that contracts with farmers who grow sesame in the Southeast. “The beauty of cotton, corn and soybeans, and all of those crops traded on the commodity board, is you have a market that’s built in. You have somewhere to go with it. You have a national price being set. You don’t have that with sesame,” DeWitt said. Both DeWitt and Coleman said another challenge for sesame is the lack of processing in the Southeast. Currently, sesame must be transported to Sesaco’s facilities in Texas for processing. In an email to Southeast Farm Press, David Suchoff, North Carolina State University Extension alternative crops specialist, said current pricing has put a real pinch on sesame production. “Sesaco has tied the price of sesame to the price of soy, which isn't very good. Right now, with the current prices, it’s very hard for farmers to make a profit even when they reduce the input to the bare minimum. Honestly, I don't see sesame really taking off if this price structure continues as it is,” Suchoff wrote. “Sesame fit a really nice niche being so drought-tolerant, requiring minimal inputs, and resistance to nematodes. I’m not sure we have anything that will be a one-to-one replacement. There’s still interest in fiber hemp, and processing is ramping up, but we aren’t at a level yet where I would recommend farmers to go out and plant hemp.” Potential cuts to research Both Clemson and N.C. State will continue their sesame research next year. But if farmer interest doesn’t pick up, research will be cut back. Suchoff said N.C. State is examining rapeseed and canola as possible alternative crops. DeWitt said Clemson is also looking at rapeseed, canola, and indigo as alternative crops. “We have an ongoing project that will take us into the 2026 field season with sesame. However, if we find that farmers are no longer planting or interested in sesame, we will need to move on from it as well since that research will not be useful to our stakeholders,” Suchoff said. DeWitt said it only makes sense for Clemson to research crops that are viable options for South Carolina farmers. “We plant what farmers are interested in planting and see how it works.”