It’s the Markets, Not the Production

“We’ve found that our farmers were great at production, but not at marketing. They were getting it backwards,” Ray Hansen of the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center (AGMRC) at Iowa State said it best when I sat down with him and a half dozen researchers in Ames, IA. I had been following their work with value-added ag and alternative crops in contrast to the more common corn/soybeans/wheat commodity ones.

The change from production agriculture to a marketing focused entitiy is a major shift for a land grant college like Iowa State. But the successes achieved with renewable fuels, niche meat producers, wine, soy milk, organics and others show that not only is such an approach feasible but it is imperative if we are to develop agricultural models which can help to renew our rural towns.

Malinda Geisler is a ½ time grant writer for the center who has taken the lessons learned at AGMRC and started a corn maze and pumpkin patch on their family farm with her husband Darrell. She told me, “We had the next generation returning to the farm and had to find another revenue source. We decided that potential with agri-tourism was tremendous.”

This year they are adding a roadside stand and a second hay rack, which will be ADA accessible. They are also developing a “pumpkin chucker” that they hope to be able to throw a 20 pound pumpkin up to 300 feet. Their website is www.growingfamilyfun.com.

I’m convinced that the work of organizations like AGMRC and others will have a tremendous impact upon the way that we view agricultural production and marketing in the future.