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Generating Income with Fresh Promises
Farmers began Home Grown Wisconsin as a cooperative wholesale business Want to make a difference in rural areas? The key is to generate local income.
In January we examined how the Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) sparked an incredible local market for locally produced food. Let’s look at a similar project in Wisconsin and see if we can find common links that worked for both.
Home Grown Wisconsin started as a result of a University of Wisconsin research project. Food buyers told researchers they wanted to buy from local producers, but they needed a process that was “simple, standardized, and efficient.” |
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Mid-States Community and Development Conference
On March 23, the Marina Inn in South Sioux City, Nebraska will host the 2005 Mid-States Community and Development Conference.
David Okerlund, nationally renowned educator and consultant will discuss what is vital for small rural communities to thrive and grow.
Conference registration is $25 per person, $35 after March 15. You can download the registration form at
www.extension.iastate.
edu/communities You may also contact Dewey Teel at 402.370.4027 for more information. The Center for Rural Affairs is one of the conference’s sponsors. |
To fill this need, farmers banded together to start a cooperative wholesale business, and in 1996 Home Grown Wisconsin
(HGW) was born and generated about $12,000 in sales. In 2004, those numbers had leaped to just shy of $400,000 according to the co-op’s general manager,
Suzanne Rubinstein.
How It Works
Home Grown Wisconsin links growers and buyers to provide a single source for ordering and delivery services from the 25 member farms. “Most of our members are within an hour of Madison [Wisconsin],” said Rubinstein, “and location is a really big part of our success.” The members all follow organic practices, but not all are certified organic. Membership in the co-op is also “by invitation only.”
Local Marketing Is Best
“The best marketing tool we have is being active in local farmers markets and participating in local events and initiatives,” said Rubenstein, who notes the Dane County Farmers Market in Madison was the first step in getting the co-op off the ground.
“We’ve been very fortunate. Our major clients are restaurant chefs who love the taste of the fresh foods. They are also very loyal,” Rubinstein added. When a chef changes to a new restaurant, “they take us with them.”
The co-op expanded into the Chicago market in a similar way, and they are represented every week in the major Chicago farmers market. Again, the chefs are a key factor in the success of the program.
“We keep our relationships very personal. Chefs have visited our farms to put a face on the food and the farm where their foods come from, so that is an advantage of being local,” she added.
Of course, “local” is a relative term, since Chicago is at least a two-hour drive from the majority of the farms. Rubinstein also agrees it can be another two hours from the edge of
Chicago to downtown, “if the traffic’s against you.”
Similarities and Differences between HGW and PFI
- Both find farmers markets a key factor in helping their public find them.
- The key services provided by HGW are the trucking and ordering process.
- For HGW, marketing is a face-to-face effort at the farmers markets. This has worked well for them with major markets like Madison, Chicago, and Milwaukee within the region.
- Practical Farmers of Iowa focus their dollars on marketing, creating customer awareness of the value of fresh foods. This is likely due to the nature of the lower population density.
- Both Home Grow Wisconsin and the Practical Farmers of Iowa cite institutional sales as their major source of increased revenue.
As Jon Bailey and Kim Preston state in Fresh
Promises, a more isolated area would need to use more indirect marketing strategies, “such as retail outlets, internet marketing, and catalog sales.”
Regardless of the differences, the key is that both groups have shown there is an ability to bring additional dollars to rural areas by capturing some of the money that would normally leave. Those dollars are a crucial difference for rural counties and rural communities.
Contact: Russ Gifford at 402.687.2100 or russg@cfra.org
You can see Fresh Promises on this website.
Center Web Log Is an Online Journal
The Center for Rural Affairs has created a web log where you can find up-to-the-minute information regarding Center activities, projects, opinions, and responses to legislative action affecting Center concerns.
A blog is not something that crashed to Earth from outer space and will eventually come oozing out of a movie theater to devour everything in sight. At least, I don’t think it will.
Blog is short for “web” “log”. It’s the latest in online journaling for organizations and businesses as well as individuals. It’s a collection of postings of information and opinions that may or may not be linked to a more traditionally created website.
While a regular website can house a great deal of historical as well as current information about an organization, a blog is like the express check out lane at the grocery store. It carries a smaller amount of information so topics of interest are easier and quicker to find.
Blogs have recently evolved from personal online diaries to large scale organizational information outlets related to everything from political campaigns, computer technology, and recipe exchanges to animal rescue groups, community self-promotion, and searching for tsunami survivors. Anything and everything is
“bloggable”.
Blog postings are updated as needed, depending on what is happening at the Center and around the world. It’s an ideal place for media representatives to review Center news releases, opinions/editorials, and legislative updates.
In addition to carrying cutting edge information from the Center, it also links to our historical information, outside articles, and other sites on the web that are pertinent to individual postings. You can find the web log at
www.cfra.blogspot.com For more information, to provide posting material, and/or to leave comments, please contact Steph Eastman at the Center, 402.687.2100 or email
stepheniee@cfra.org
Making a Rural Move Work
The author shares the story of his family’s move back to rural America; telecommuting was a factor
The articles of the past two months have highlighted people coming from urban environments to live a peaceful rural life. The key to making these situations successful is the ability to bring new ideas and skills to the rural community. It is not easy to simply come to a small rural community and say, “Here I am!” Somehow the people that make these moves have planned how they will make it work.
This month I want to highlight a story that is close to home. A little over four years ago, I moved my family from Pittsburg, Kansas back to Nebraska to be closer to my native home and my mother and father.
The move was difficult, but the security I had was the fact that my wife Christine worked as a Medical Transcriptionist for a Denver, Colorado clinic and was able to work from home. She had honed her skills for the past decade working both at home and in the office. Typing between 100-110 words a minute, Christine is proficient in what she does. This arrangement gave her the ability to spend more time with the children and watch them grow up.
All she needed to make this job work was access to broadband computer lines and a telephone. Both of these were available in Plainview, Nebraska, where we moved, and she began her work within hours of the hook up.
This story presents two advantages for rural living. Christine is able to bring in money to help raise a family, and she is bringing real dollars from outside the area to stimulate the local economy. It is a win-win situation that needs to be replicated.
When money is generated within the community it may come at the expense of someone else. A closed economy works this way, and if there are no leaks, the money will stay. In most small rural communities, leaks occur. One of the keys is to bring in outside revenue to increase the flow of dollars. Hopefully that is what we have done in Plainview.
Contact: Michael L. Holton, michaellh@cfra.org
for more information on community revitalization.
Corporate Farming Notes
Senators oppose opening Canadian border; state legislation in Vermont, North Dakota, and Montana over GMO liability
>>On February 10, 2005, U.S. Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD); Kent Conrad (D-ND), Craig Thomas (R-WY), Max Baucus (D-MT), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Harry Reid (D-NV), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and Pete Domenici (R-NM) signed a Resolution of Disapproval of USDA’s proposal to reopen the U.S.-Canada border to imports of Canadian live cattle beginning in March.
The Senators were concerned about Canada’s ability to prevent contaminated feed from being consumed by cattle. Canadian newspapers have reported that government tests discovered animal tissue in more than half the “vegetable-only” cattle feed.
The Resolution of Disapproval would block USDA from reopening the Canadian border. Signatures of 30 members are required to force it out of committee and onto the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote. Once out of committee, a simple majority can approve the resolution. If the House approved, the resolution would then be sent to the President for his signature.
>>Due to the aggressive nature of Monsanto’s litigation efforts (see February’s
Corporate Farming Notes) farmers in Vermont, Montana, and North Dakota are supporting legislation to make biotechnology companies, not farmers and grain elevators, liable for damages from genetically modified crops. These bills would also prevent the manufacturers from suing farmers who unintentionally grow these crops when their fields are contaminated by genetically engineered crops.
Currently, farmers who buy genetically engineered seeds must sign a Technology Use Agreement. These agreements shield the patent company from liability for contamination and place the full liability burden on farmers. Ultimately, these bills seek to protect farmers from aggressive litigation and instead hold the biotechnology companies responsible for the products they manufacture.
The bills introduced in the Vermont and Montana legislatures, S.18 (Vermont) and Senate Bill 218 (Montana), were heard on February 4, 2005. The North Dakota bill, Senate Bill 2235, was heard on February 10, 2005. That bill was voted down, 30-14 on February 14, 2005.
Rural Vermont and the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) have been actively involved in this three-state legislative initiative. For more information, go to WORCs website at
www.worc.org
Contact: Traci Bruckner, tracib@cfra.org
for more information.
Latest Agricultural Research Updates
Efforts to strengthen support for sustainable and organic research are underway
>>Kit Bond (R-MO), in his new and powerful role as Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is leading the charge to form a new USDA program called the National Institute for Food and Agriculture
(NIFA).
NIFA would focus on very basic research in agriculture and would be modeled after the National Science Foundation and the National Institute for Health. A bill to authorize this new program is circulating, but questions remain about funding.
We will continue to fight for funding within the National Research Initiative (NRI) to increase the farm share of the food dollar, support conservation and rural community development and the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (SARE), Organic Transition, Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative, and Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA). Stay tuned!
>>Sustainable and organic agriculture research and education have a new national advocate – the 14-member Committee on Organic and Sustainable Agriculture (COSA). COSA resulted from collaboration between the Tri Societies, Organic Farming Research Foundation, and the Center for Rural Affairs.
The committee is advocating reinstatement of funding for SARE, NRI, and Organic Program research funding. Heavy cuts to these programs are proposed in the President’s FY 06 budget.
COSA will also identify emerging issues and recommendations to serve Tri Societies members interested in sustainable and organic agriculture and will develop programming for the Societies’ Annual Meeting to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah in early November of 2005.
The committee grew out of discussions at the Tri Societies annual meeting “sustainable and organic agriculture roundtable.” Members of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America make up the Tri-Societies.
>>The first project of the Center-led Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (CSARE) is to influence the fiscal year 2006 agriculture research budget. We will work to maintain and increase sustainable and organic research funding in several ways.
We are part of a working group concerned about the reduction of federal spending on agricultural research, whether it is a cut to formula funding at state agricultural colleges or the SARE program. We are developing strategies and policy options to support sustainable and organic research.
The group is researching the powerful network of land grant lobby groups to identify champions who can speak as advocates for sustainable and organic research in Washington, DC when budgets are drawn.
Contact: Kim Leval, COSA chair at kimleval@qwest.net
or 541.687.1490.
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Feature
article:
President’s Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Analyzed
On February 7, 2005, President Bush released his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2006. As the principal policy statement of the President, it frames the debate for Congressional action in the months to come.
The President’s budget is thousands of pages, but in the following three pages we will concentrate on two issue areas of chief concern to rural people and rural communities – rural development and agriculture.
Rural Development
The President’s budget proposes substantial spending cuts for rural economic and community development.
Tables showing an outline of several rural economic and community development programs with current and proposed funding
levels can be found in our Rural
Action Brief on the President's proposed budget.
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We believe the President’s budget would have significant impacts on rural communities and rural people.
>>Less Rural Economic and Community Development
Rural America will lose more than one-third of its federal resources for rural economic and community development. The President proposes a new “Strengthening America’s Communities Initiative” that consolidates 18 economic and community development programs into one, but provides one-third less funding (from $5.61 billion in FY05 for the 18 programs to $3.71 billion proposed in FY06 for the new
initiative).
Extrapolating the 29.7 percent non-entitlement community share of the FY05 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, rural America stands to lose at least one-third of its federal economic and community development resources through the elimination of the CDBG program and other rural development programs (and significant spending cuts in other community and economic development programs) in the new initiative.
The result would be: 1) a shifting of rural economic and community development costs to state and local resources, including an increased property tax burden in many places, and/or 2) rural communities left without the resources for vital projects modernizing their infrastructure, developing their economies for the 21st century, and enhancing their quality-of-life.
The ultimate impact of the President’s FY06 budget proposal is to make rural communities less attractive places to live with fewer economic opportunities and potentially higher taxes.
>>Fewer Jobs and Businesses
Programs that create jobs and businesses for rural America are eliminated. The Small Business Administration programs that provide capital and technical assistance for microbusinesses are a major source of businesses and jobs in rural communities. Nearly 17 percent of all private, non-farm jobs in the United States come from microenterprise, and over one-in-five private, non-farm jobs are attributable to microenterprises in the most rural states in the nation.
In addition, several of the economic and community development programs being targeted for elimination or significant cuts create business and job opportunities in rural America (the Rural Business Enterprise Grant program, the Rural Business Opportunity Grant program, the Economic Development Administration, and the Resource Conservation and Development program, for example).
The President’s budget would result in fewer resources and fewer opportunities to create jobs and businesses in rural communities.
>> Less Participatory Community Development in Rural America
One hallmark of the CDBG program was the requirement for public hearings and public input on community and economic development projects. That may be lost under the proposed “Strengthening America’s Communities Initiative,” which would provide funding only to communities meeting specified criteria with no apparent requirement for public involvement.
Criteria for the new program will include unemployment, further damaging rural communities of the Midwest and Great Plains that lead the nation in multiple jobholding and have low unemployment rates, yet still have economic and infrastructure issues.
Programs such as the Resource Conservation and Development program (with half its funding proposed for elimination) also directly involve communities and community members in community and economic development projects, with community members participating in governing boards and project committees.
The proposed budget also seeks to eliminate programs such as the Northern Great Plains Regional Authority, planning grants from the Economic Development Administration and the Rural Strategic Investment Program based on a community participation model that many are recommending as a democratic method for rural development on both the community and regional level.
>>Less Asset-Building in Rural Communities
The President’s budget provides for greater resources for several rural housing programs within USDA, particularly loan programs. However, what the budget gives with one hand, it takes with the other – it proposes to eliminate other rural housing programs and programs that provide resources for rural community-based organizations that develop and construct housing.
The budget also decreases opportunities for rural people – particularly low and moderate-income rural residents – to own their own businesses and provide jobs. Asset-building – those investments in one’s life or family that will serve to build long-term wealth – is an important strategy for the future of rural America.
Assets like businesses and houses bond one to a place and help to build strong, more sustainable communities. Commitment to a place is what makes asset-building development an important and viable model for rural communities.
The combination of public resources to modernize rural community infrastructure and enhance quality-of-life and asset-building strategies can lead to rural community revitalization in the United States.
Such an approach would lead to full inclusion of rural Americans in the “ownership society” President Bush touts. Unfortunately, the President’s FY06 budget neither recognizes this possibility nor makes it a priority.
Agriculture in the Budget
In agriculture, the President’s proposal to tighten the cap on payments to mega-farms is an important first step. Establishing an effective payment limitation is a win-win solution.
It would be good for family farms. The single most effective way to strengthen family farms is to stop subsidizing mega-farms to drive smaller farms out of business by bidding land away from them. And it saves money – potentially eliminating the need to cut funds for programs that offer a future to family farming and rural America.
But the President’s proposal is only a first step. The President proposes to tighten rules to prevent payments to one farm from being divided on paper among many recipients to avoid any one recipient from exceeding the limits. It would also impose a $250,000 cap on some or all payments.
The details are sketchy. What is clear, however, is that the proposal is estimated to save only $1.2 billion over 10 years, less than one percent of projected commodity program spending.
Aggressive payment limitation reform could save much more and take the place of other cuts the President would make at the expense of family farms, the environment, and rural communities.
In addition to the deep cuts in rural programs described above, the President’s budget would repeat the deep cuts made last year in farm bill funding for critical programs. Over half of funding would be taken from the Value Added Producer Grant Program. It makes grants to producer initiatives to capture a larger share of food system profit through cooperative and value added initiatives.
The President would again take more than half the funding from the Conservation Security Program, which rewards farmers and ranchers for managing in ways that protect the environment. For too long, many environmentally-conscious farmers have been penalized with small crop bases and payments. The Conservation Security Program would change that by rewarding good stewardship. It should not bear the brunt of the cuts.
Finally, the President would impose an across-the-board five percent cut in farm program payments, which will hit hard on small and mid-size farms.
More effective payment limitations are a better alternative to each of these proposed cuts.
Contact: Jon Bailey, jonb@cfra.org
or Chuck Hassebrook, chuckh@cfra.org , 402.687.2100.
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Home Grown Energy Options — Small Wind Turbines
Small wind systems help control individual energy costs and send message of support for clean energy
It frustrates many to see train after train cross states loaded with coal (from another state) soon to be converted to carbon dioxide and other air pollutants. Nebraska, with few conventional energy reserves, ranks sixth in wind energy potential, but still lags behind neighboring states in wind energy development.
Nebraska is the only totally public power system in the union. Public power means only public entities can retail electricity. Blamed by some for slow adoption of wind energy, the public power system is credited for low energy rates in the state, but that doesn’t mean coal should be the main energy source.
Public power does not prevent individuals from installing electrical generator units for their own use, but for the uninformed, small wind systems are a giant step. For more information on small systems contact the following organizations:
>> The American Wind Energy Association ( www.awea.org
) is a great information source, especially for small wind systems. Windustry ( www.windustry.org
) or 800.946.3640 has extensive documentation on wind energy units large and small. Both these sites feature basic wind information, conference notices, a resource library, project calculators, links to other organizations, and more.
>>The U.S. Department of Energy Regional Office (Denver serves the Great Plains Region, 303.275.4826) features, “Small Wind Electric Systems: A U.S. Consumer’s Guide” (downloadable at
www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/36680.pdf
). This 24-page document gives a practical approach to small wind systems including terminology, planning, sizing, cost, and site selection.
Legislation can change the economics of owning a small wind turbine, but today in Nebraska, sizing the unit to match individual needs is better than over sizing with the intent of selling excess energy into the system. Utilities are required to buy the excess, but the price paid is usually not at the rate needed to cover unit costs. Plan to use the energy you produce and store excess energy in batteries, compressed air, or use it for space heating.
Wind will be part of the energy mix in the future as electrical rates trend higher and pollution standards tighten. Small wind systems now can help control individual energy costs while sending a message of support for home-grown clean energy sources.
Contact: Martin Kleinschmit, martink@cfra.org
or 402.254.6893 in our Hartington, Nebraska office.
Microenterprise Boost Program Award Available through REAP
REAP women business owners in Nebraska may apply for one of the new awards provided by the Women and Company® Microenterprise Boost Program (MBP). The help comes in the form of a $1000 cash award and access to high quality business training and technical assistance through REAP, the Center’s small business development program.
“We know technical assistance and equity capital are important factors in the success of young and startup business efforts,” said
Glennis McClure, director of the REAP Women’s Business Center, and co-director of the REAP effort statewide. “This is an exciting opportunity, and REAP is proud to be part of the program.”
The Center and REAP staff hurried to mail out over 300 letters to prospective candidates in February, which includes the step-by-step criteria for application. The criteria for application is also listed on the REAP website at www.cfra.org, or you may contact the Center at 402.687.2100 for details of the nearest REAP Business Specialist.
Don’t let the number of steps in the listing put you off. The level of detail is a good thing, says
Karen Linnebrink, REAP Business Specialist in Northeast Nebraska. “You know exactly what is needed to pull together a good application.”
Applications from women entrepreneurs must be received at the Center for Rural Affairs REAP Women’s Business Center office by Monday, March 7, 2005.
A Boost Award application is also available on the REAP web home page. Applicants must have participated with REAP to qualify.
The Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO) will manage the program; REAP is a member of AEO. Funds for the Women and Company® Microenterprise Boost Program are provided by the Citigroup Foundation. Women and Company® is a division of Citigroup Inc.
Contact: Glennis McClure at 402.645.3296 or reap
wbc@diodecom.net for more information.
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Essay: Growing
Budget Deficit Will Cripple our Nation’s Future
Federal deficits are set to balloon over the next decade and cripple America’s capacity to define its own destiny.
Deficits matter. Left unchecked, they absorb all available credit, make us dependent on oversees investors, reduce exports, and weaken our economy. Most troubling, they cripple our capacity to define ourselves as a just society.
They deprive us of public resources to invest in creating genuine opportunity for all our citizens. They undermine our capacity to build vibrant communities in which to raise families and nurture the bonds among us that make America strong. In short, big deficits weaken our capacity to secure the common good.
The President’s proposed budget – detailed on pages 4-6 of this newsletter – is a case in point. It cuts one-third of funding for community development, urgently needed in rural America. It cuts cooperative development and value added initiatives – essential if family farms are to thrive in the 21st century. It cuts soil and water conservation, essential to our long-term survival as a civilization.
We have been harshly critical of misguided government spending such as subsidies to mega farms. A tough and effective payment limitation – tougher than what the President proposes – could take the place of most of the proposed Department of Agriculture cuts for next year.
But the deficits looming in the future will never be fixed by cutting only waste. The stark choices were outlined in a recent Washington Post article:
"The one-year budget deficit will be so large in the next fiscal year that if the government stopped funding everything except defense, homeland security and entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the nation would still be $75 billion in the red…. Making the Bush tax cuts permanent would exacerbate the problem, according to William G. Gale and Peter R. Orzag of the progressive Brookings Institution. By 2015, the options for balancing the budget – based on current deficit projections – would be to cut basically every government program other than entitlement programs by 96 percent, or keep the discretionary spending, cut Medicare by 60 percent and eliminate Medicaid."
Private enterprise can achieve some critical social objectives. But to realize the values of America – fairness, community, and opportunity for all – we need a mix of private enterprise and government. America cannot live up to its highest value without it. Private enterprise alone cannot secure the common good.
But we only get what we pay for. If we want effective government, we have to be willing to pay for it. If we extend the tax-cutting binge, there will be little room in the federal budget for initiatives to create a better future for rural America. That would be a tragic mistake.
Agree or disagree? Send your opinions or
comments to Chuck Hassebrook, chuckh@cfra.org
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