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Advice on Publications Available.The following exchanges occurred on New Crops LISTSERV during a 24 hour period last April. They demonstrate the potential value of this form of communication and involve people in education, business and rural development across the USA and Colombia, South America.
To the Purdue New Crops LISTSERV
From Charles Jacks
Email: charles@ce.ufl.edu
2 April 1997 3.44 pm
I am a new subscriber to this list and would normally lurk for a month or two but what you said struck a chord in me.
In my discussions with small family farmers, I have found that the most successful are those that grow alternative crops and leave the mainstream crops to the large farms. An acre or two of shallots or some other crop can net as much as a hundred acres of corn or wheat.
Their problem is finding a market and getting the crop to the market in good condition.
Is there an information clearing house or brokerage system for alternative crop farmers to get in contact with a buyer and a shipper?
Please excuse my ignorance if this is a frequently asked question or easily answered.
To LISTSERV
From Glenn Hyman
Email: ghyman@gis.ciat.cgiar.org
Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, Apdo. Aereo 6713, Cali, Colombia S.A.
Telephone: 572 445 0000
Facsimile: 572 445 0073
2 April 1997
Could you please summarize your responses for the list?
I am interested in similar information. The potential of non-traditional export crops in Central America is receiving greater attention.
I have been asked to consider developing a Geographic Information System (GIS) that would allow mapping of NTE (Non-traditional export) crop potential. I am thinking of developing a database with market info, transport networks, and the biophysical environment.
The idea would be to find places where the soils, climate, and other bio- physical characteristics are suitable for an NTE crop. Then see if the transport network and market access would allow development of the crop. Do you know of anybody doing similar work?
To LISTSERV
From Charles Jacks
Email: charles@ce.ufl.edu
2 April 1997 6.43 pm
My interest is mainly hereditary and futuristic. My knowledge is mainly incidental.
I have a few acres and plant a garden. I also buy from farmers in my area and from the "farmers market".
In talking to my neighbours and the farmers about making a little money off my land I came to the conclusion that traditional crops were out, due to the low ratio of nett to area.
Several of the farmers at the markets told me stories about growing an acre or two of alternative crops and making more money off those crops than the traditional ones.
The ones that could find region-sized businesses to buy their crops in mass were able to expand past the several acres. The rest tended to supply local businesses and the public directly. This limited them to a few acres.
I think a study could be done on which is better for the farmer: one specialty crop of ten to twenty acres or ten to twenty crops of one or two acres.
I suspect this would depend on how close the farmer lived to a city. But since farms near cities tend to decrease in size it may workout as a positive.
The local stores in my area (Gainesville, Florida, USA) carry alternative crops in the specialty section at unbelievable prices. If the alternatives become more available would they still be profitable?
The lower prices should increase demand but the lower margins may not make that worthwhile ....[Specific detail about soil tests and their usefulness].......I suspect a GIS system for alternative crops would need to have information on elevation, existing vegetation and location of bodies of water so that microclimates could be estimated....[Specific detail about GIS programming].
From Robert Faust
Email: drfist@ilhawaii.net
Faust Bio-Agricultural Services, Inc.
P.O. Box 800, Honaunau, Hawaii 96726 USA
Telephone: (1) 808 328 2083
Facsimile: (1) 808 328 9760
Web sites: http://www.wp.com/bioag/ and http://www.humic.com
2 April 1997 8.13 pm
The problem with new crop introduction is a chicken and egg thing, there is no existing market so the farmer has to find it, but if there isn't a market how does he find it?
He is taking a big risk planting a crop if he doesn't know what he is going to get or even if it will perform. Once he gets into the market by hanging in there and developing a demand, other farmers get in.
The problem with a specialty crop is that it is limited in supply and therefore profitable. Once one more farmer gets in, the price drops, the buyers "whip saw" the farmers down, play one against the other till only the big survive and the margin is low, and we start over again.
As a speciality crop agronomist, I have seen this over and over again. I grow many specialty and exotic crops in Hawaii, such as Malabar chestnuts, carambola, annato, and so on.
We can't seem to compete with third world countries. It all boils down to the "capital cycle" and if you don't understand it, you will lose.
Capital is growing fast and it can finance over-production of everything. The slice of the pie gets thinner and no body can make a profit.
All that interest debt is providing money for the very large operators to invest in shopping malls, office buildings, farm development overseas and so on.
If they see the small grower make some money by developing a new crop market, they wait and with their almost unlimited capital, take over that market by undercutting the small grower.
The growers lose: such has happened with Macadamia nuts here in Kona and now with coffee.
To LISTSERV
From Bob Batson
Email: bob@sky.net
2 April 1997 9.59 pm
I don't know of any offhand, but I'd think a good place to being looking would be "The New TVA Rural Studies Homepage". This web site is at http://www.rural.org/ and once there you'll find links to...many other useful sites.
Of these other links, probably the most important for a farmer seeking a market for his crop(s) would be both "State Assistance / Grants" and "Farmer's Guide to the Internet".
As I recall, the USDA has a program on alternative crops that was known by the abbreviation ATTRA.
To LISTSERV
From Charles Jacks
Email: charles@ce.ufl.edu
2 April 1997 10.44 pm
I can foresee three ways for the farmer to win in your scenario:
after developing the market and learning how to grow the crop, the farmer approaches the large investors and convinces them to finance that big crop. The farmer knows the crop and the market. He should be able to ride the wave. His own acreage is used as part of the big crop acreage.
the farmer convinces the large investors to buy his crop and market it as a "select" brand. He should be able to produce higher quality than the 1000's of acres.
the farmer grows a variety of alternative crops, dropping the one the large investors have targeted. They probably can't take them all over. This would require more effort on the farmer at the beginning but probably less than doing one at a time sequentially and lets him optimize the area planted.
Most inventors of new crops would probably hope for option 1.
To LISTSERV
From: Connie Falk
Email: cfalk@nmsu.edu
Associate Professor Connie Falk
Department of Agricultural Economics/ Agricultural Business,
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM 88003
Telephone: (1) 505 646 4731
Facsimile: (1) 505 646 3522
2 April 1997 10.55 pm
This is an interesting posting. Part of the answer is for farmers to get into value-adding as much as possible. There is a pretty good video available on value-added marketing from Rodale in their sustainable agriculture series.
Value-adding is also part of the strategy among "new cooperatives", the type that are closed to members after initial membership drives generate sufficient investment capital.
Some obvious examples of successful value-added cooperatives: Land O'Lakes, Ocean Spray.
I know of recent examples of durum wheat growers in the Dakotas forming a pasta cooperative and cattle and sheep growers in southern Colorado opening a cooperative kosher meat plant.
My recent work is in medicinal herbs and I see the same thing is going to be true soon for them.
Small growers can now make some money on some of the more exotic herbs, but eventually larger investments will drive down the prices.
We can see this happening in Echinacea as large acreages go in around the world.
I would imagine too that by the time universities and other institutions know enough about a particular crop to publish information about it, the market may already be well developed and the prices rather competitive.
Value-adding helps because it helps to expand demand even as supply increases. Notice cranberry juice proliferation.
Product development however is more challenging and requires more sophisticated marketing expertise, which may not be available to small growers.
Again lack of capital works to the small grower's disadvantage.
If you develop any chocolate-covered macadamia products that you can deliver to my door, let me know.
To LISTSERV
From Connie Falk
Email: cfalk@nmsu.edu
2 April 1997 11.31 pm
ATTRA got funded again last I read. The acronym stands for Appropriate Technological Transfer for Rural Areas and they give out information on a wide variety of agricultural subjects.
They have packets of information ready on specific topics, many of which are marketing-related.
I have found them to be very helpful on several occasions. Their phone number is (1) 800 346 9140.
According to the ATTRA newsletter, they are funded by a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and administered by the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT).
To LISTSERV
From Glenn Hyman
Email:ghyman@gis.ciat.cgiar.org
3 April 1997 3.42 pm
I read with great interest the postings of Robert Faust, Connie Falk and Charles Jacks.
I am studying crop distributions of rice, beans, corn, wheat, and other traditional crops - using geographic information systems (GIS).
We have thought about starting a project for non-traditional export (NTE) crops in Central America and the Caribbean.
The idea was to develop a GIS for identifying what potential there is for specialty crops. We would build a database (with road networks, cities and towns, soils, climate, and market info) and then determine where some new crops have potential.
I welcome any comments about this idea - whether it would be useful, possible, etc.
Robert Faust mentioned that farmers in Hawaii were losing out to less developed countries (LDC's). Yesterday in the Miami Herald there was an article on pineapples in Costa Rica.
My guess is that Hawaii has lost market share with the pineapple. Del Monte in Costa Rica has developed a variety they call Gold with 5 times the Vitamin C and more tasty.
They are thinking about expanding operations there - which could make Costa Rica the world's biggest pineapple exporter.
Interestingly, they would move some of their pineapple operation out of the Dominican Republic.
So not only do we see operations moving from developed to less developed countries - but also within LDC's. Costa Rica workers earn $1.50 per hour working the pineapple fields.
My guess is that for the average Costa Rican - this is a positive development...
Faust mentioned the 'capital cycle.' This certainly happened with Chile and I read how Guatemala has increased NTE crops from 10 to 35 percent of all agricultural exports in the last 10 years.
This seems to be part of a world-wide experiment with globalization, and nobody knows how it will all turn out.
With respect to chocolate covered macadamias, my girlfriend just sent some from Costa Rica.
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