A FRESH CROP OF IDEAS

...There are now 272 of these nurturing centers in forty-three states...

...State agencies in Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Texas, and Vermont have used their certification authority to open new markets, establishing high quality standards for agricultural products and applying "seals of approval" that consumers can trust...

...Organizers of a 1986 conference in Des Moines on alternative crops, for example, were stunned when more than 5,000 farmers registered—ten times the number they expected...

...Too many farmers are too dependent on the production of too few commodities...

...The genius of the federalist system is that states can serve as cauldrons of experimentation, and successful experiments can become models for sound national policy...

...Could you help me...

...grain then ends up with a bum reputation, and sales are lost...

...Dozens of similar money-making, direct-market breakthroughs have been made by Texas producers...

...When the marketing path of their wheat was traced, the farmers found that much of it was being sent 250 miles away to Kansas...

...dramatically reducing dependence on chemicals...

...This money is not being tossed out in the blithe hope that maybe something will happen...

...Critics may scoff that these enterprises are just small potatoes, but the fact is that 80 per cent of the jobs created in America and most of the business innovations come not from big-name conglomerates but from small firms...

...They need not be expanded, but they must be refocused, reorganized, and reinvigorated...

...Through these efforts, more than $ 172 million has been invested in food-industry development and 3,000 jobs have been secured...

...It was like watching a bear open its mouth to growl, only to see a butterfly float out...

...Fourteen states have enacted standards defining how food must be grown if it is to be labeled organic, with Washington State and Texas establishing on-farm inspection programs to certify to consumers that producers are complying...

...States have been active in this much-larger marketing mainstream as well, organizing cooperatives and creating other arrangements so farmers can reach higher into the marketplace and sell directly to these buyers, thereby earning a larger share of the money that consumers spend for food...

...We must go back to basics, beginning with a clear statement of national purpose...

...FAME also administers a special job-start program to provide capital for the business aspirations of low-income "micro-entrepreneurs...

...It makes sense to stop focusing on how much of a given commodity we can produce and start paying primary attention to finding growth markets and putting producers in closer touch with consumers in those markets...

...His operation has been hemorrhaging money for the past few years...

...States are also taking on the task of opening new markets for their producers...

...A co-op of previously low-income Mexican-American farmers in Hidalgo County, Texas, sells winter-season jalapeno peppers and other vegetables to Pace specialty-foods company and to Safeway...

...For example, the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME) focuses on the pragmatic needs of small and medium-sized businesses, including a winery, a salmon farm, and a nursery...

...And that, in turn, causes us to spend billions of additional tax dollars to subsidize the depressed prices of these surplus crops...

...At a meeting to discuss alternatives in west Texas last year, a rough-hewn old farmer shyly approached staff members of the Texas Department of Agriculture...

...encouraging more diversified and sustainable family farms...

...This requires neither a fat budget nor a heavy hand...

...Similarly, by negotiating a unique, government-to-government cooperative agreement with Mexico, Texas has helped its producers make major sales of such commodities as grain sorghum, cattle, cottonseed meal, and dairy goats—despite Mexico's economic woes...

...With increasing frequency, the states attach technical help, entrepreneurial training, research, and other practical assistance to their loan programs, enhancing the odds that the new enterprises will succeed...

...These state initiatives are proving that a modest investment and a skilled staff can bring a substantial economic stimulus to rural communities...

...Though many public servants in the U.S...

...By opening the channels of participation and helping more people enter, government is strengthening and democratizing our economy...

...Instead of trying to offer handouts, the staff provides technical assistance and tools of self-help: market development, business planning, capital formation, product promotion, problem solving, and general advocacy...

...11 Government is not The Enemy, it's just us, the people, and it should be turned into an activist, problem-solving ally...

...In the west Texas town of Dawn, for example, several wheat farmers became outraged by the low price they were being paid for their grain, while the price they were paying for bread for their tables kept going up...

...They drew up a development plan, specialists were hired to work with emerging food enterprises, a Food Industry Institute was created to provide research services, for a fee, to new and growing businesses without research facilities, and a Rural Venture Fund was proposed to make development capital available...

...Iowa has gone so far as to levy a tax on pesticides and nitrogen fertilizers and dedicate the funds to research and demonstration programs for lessening the use of agricultural chemicals...

...This shut-up-and-eat-your-grits argument misses the point: Today's food is not cheap...

...States have searched for means to bridge this financial gap...

...Change must come, then, from elsewhere, but where...

...The policy is hands-on agricultural development, and it works...

...Most state land-grant colleges now make at least a minimal effort to consider "sustainable agriculture" in their research, teaching, and extension programs...

...Unless we change directions, the few will continue plundering the resources of the many...

...States are also encouraging new cropping practices, hoping to lower costs for farmers, conserve natural resources for all of us, and restore the premise that agricultural production is the art and science of cooperating with nature...

...Today, those farmers own and manage a state-of-the-art flour mill that produces 300,000 pounds a day of premium-quality flour...

...He has a thousand-acre spread on which he has raised wheat and cattle all his life, just as his daddy did before him...

...Of every dollar the consumer spends for food at the supermarket, only thirty-one cents goes to farmers, while processors take forty-six cents and the rest goes to wholesalers and retailers...

...State leaders have paved the way for such experimentation, demonstrating that government can provide services rather than excuses...

...Fed up, the five states put up funds and created an organization in September 1987 to make direct sales of some of their grain, to assure the delivery of a top-quality product and to restore a premium price to U.S...

...Nebraska and New York have established similar processing centers, while many other states have created small-business development programs that include help for new food enterprises...

...Brothers in Bowie County, Texas, have become pioneers in the state's blueberry industry and sell all of their production to Dallas-area supermarkets...

...In a system long geared to large-scale commodity production, however, a transformation does not occur simply because it makes sense...

...of such "aquaculture" crops as crawfish, fresh-water shrimp and redfish, talapia, and catfish...

...The revival of family-farm agriculture depends on a shift from a "production mentality" to a "marketing mentality...

...All of these grass-roots initiatives have sprung from a different set of assumptions than the one that now prevails in Washington: 11 Family-farm agriculture is not a relic to be discarded, but a productive, creative, human resource to be called on for new economic growth...

...it can also make a big difference...

...As a result, top-quality grain leaving the farm gets mixed with low-quality grain or deteriorates because of bad storage practices...

...Michigan, a state best known for automobile production, has become a leader in developing its food-processing capacity...

...Hard-pressed farmers and ranchers are taking advantage of new opportunities...

...Revival of farm prosperity would obviously be a tremendous boost to America's rural economy...

...This rejuvenated spirit of inventiveness ought to be taken to Washington as the first step toward a rational policy for regenerating American agriculture...

...States have found that direct-marketing initiatives also pay off in the international sphere...

...What kind of food economy do we want to build...

...But, indeed, wildflower production in Texas alone has at least a $20 million annual sales potential for such pioneers...

...Processing is big business, and Federal policies have encouraged the domination of this industry by conglomerates...

...When Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933—another time of crisis for family farmers—he said, "The country needs and...

...A quick survey of bakeries and other flour buyers in the Dawn area revealed that they would prefer to buy from a local mill and many would even sign advance-purchase contracts to do so...

...defenders of the status quo usually resort to the spurious claim that consumers are getting the cheapest food possible from today's system...

...Whom do we want to help...

...The "Maine Bag" logo, for example, can be applied to bags of Mainegrown potatoes only if they are submitted for state inspection and are of a higher quality standard than the highest U.S...

...She lives in Austin...

...The Massachusetts Industrial Finance Agency created a $60 million fund specifically to make short-term expansion capital available to small businesses at the favorable interest rates usually reserved for the largest corporations...

...Texas's agriculture department is developing a full-range program for sustainable agriculture, involving everything from promoting organic production methods to building a germplasm maintenance bank for native varieties of seed, from introducing a nontoxic predator-control program to building a demonstration farm featuring sustainable techniques...

...A FRESH CROP OF ideas BY SUSAN DeMARCO The drought that scorched America's countryside last summer put farmers on the nightly news and set off a new round of concern about the plight of farm families...

...The staff does not wait for people to walk through the agency's door...

...The staff then helped eleven of the farmers organize a partnership, prepare a feasibility study, hire an experienced mill manager, assemble the necessary documentation to obtain financing, and put themselves into the processing business...

...In 1985, some of the farmers asked the staff of the Texas Department of Agriculture to help them explore ways to increase the income from their farm production...

...A cooperative of black farmers in Hempstead, Texas, now sells hundreds of thousands of pounds of watermelon each year to Kroger...

...Such enterprises are spreading across Texas—a shrimp and crawfish processing plant in Port Arthur, a gourmet poultry growing and processing facility near Pittsburg, cucumber processing by MexicanAmerican farmers in La Villa, natural beef processing and retailing in Childress...

...it takes these tools directly to people in rural communities...

...Actually, the phrase "agriculture policy" has become an oxymoron...

...A big wheat and cattle producer near Perryton, Texas, has converted about 400 acres of his spread to pinto beans, which he sells to Sysco...

...This jerrybuilt system holds together because it is enormously profitable for certain powerful agribusiness sectors, including the multinational grain shippers and conglomerate food processors that buy the depressed-price commodities...

...One unfortunate result of this muddle is the continued expenditure of scarce tax dollars to increase production of traditional agricultural commodities, goods with which the world market is already saturated...

...Department of Agriculture in particular—are captives of the past, of self-serving lobbies, and of bureaucratic inertia...

...When all of them come to fruition, they will account for $466 million in new investment, $854 million in first-year sales, and 9,000 jobs...

...In 1985, Governor James Blanchard set up a coordinating group of top officials from his state's agriculture, commerce, natural-resources, and transportation departments, along with Michigan State University...

...Their private gain comes at the expense of the greater public good, as farm bankruptcies multiply dramatically, taxpayer expenditures skyrocket, and costs to consumers, farm laborers, and the environment keep piling up...

...But change is possible...

...One of the most innovative state initiatives for international trade has been the joint effort of Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, New Mexico, and Wyoming to create an interstate grain compact...

...In a gruff whisper, he said, "I've been thinking about getting into the wild-flower business...

...When the prices of wheat, corn, and other staples plummet, as has happened in this decade, hundreds of thousands of families face the loss of their farms, because their entire acreage and capital are tied up in the production of one or two commodities...

...Unfortunately, where there is a will, there are a thousand won'ts...

...The Federation worked with the state agriculture department to set up a "Farmers Feeding People" program that takes unsold food from inner-city markets at the end of the day and gives it to community food programs for distribution...

...In the 1980s, state officials have been implementing this shift in thinking, building direct-marketing arrangements between farmers and consumers on the town square and all the way around the world...

...To stem this loss of farms and build a more rational economic base for the future of agriculture, some state governments have taken the lead in encouraging farmers to diversify...

...America's dinner also bears incalculable hidden costs being paid by farm families who don't even break even on the sale of their commodities, by farmworkers who labor under the meanest conditions for the most shamefully inadequate wages in our society, and by natural resources that are being poisoned, wasted, and stretched beyond their productive potential...

...Not only can small be beautiful...

...The Iowa program, for example, allows the state treasurer to deposit up to $40 million in state funds in private banks at interest rates two percentage points lower than the bank would normally pay to get the deposit, on condition that the banks lend the money at reduced interest rates to farmers who want to plant alternative crops...

...But there are industrial potentials attached to agriculture that offer even greater opportunities...

...Fifteen farmers are organized in north Texas to sell about $850,000-a-year worth of specialty vegetables and livestock to nine high-quality restaurants in Dallas...

...While family farmers, consumers, food-industry workers, environmentalists, independent food companies, small cooperatives, and other outsiders have been frustrated by Washington, they have not just sat and sulked...

...Agriculture policy in general—and the U.S...

...Throughout the country, thousands of farm families are finding opportunity, profit, and hope in the revival of such "ancient" crops as quinoa, amaranth, crambe seed, and jojoba...

...Organic food, once relegated to health-food stores and campus areas, has become a $3-billion-a-year-and-growing mainstream market, as consumer concern about pesticides increases...

...As bad as the drought was, however, the most devastating force at work in the farm belt is not nature but America's disastrous agriculture policy...

...Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii have pioneered state involvement in employee-ownership programs, providing outreach, information, feasibility studies, technical assistance, and help in finding capital so workers can become their own managers and owners...

...Farmers have long complained that they produce the finest quality grain only to have it mishandled by shippers who are more interested in selling quantity than quality...

...Wildflowers...

...While the national success rate of new businesses is about 20 per cent, the success rate of those coming out of incubators averages more than 80 per cent...

...Linked deposits are an inexpensive yet effective way to generate and target bank financing, providing vital capital for a renewed agriculture...

...For examples of agricultural changes that work, for a vision of what public policy can achieve when the broader public is asked to participate, and for the political support to challenge Washington's business-as-usual lobby, the new Administration should look to Texas, Minnesota, Oregon, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Michigan, Kentucky, New Jersey, and other states where the cauldrons have been boiling during the 1980s...

...More often than not, the necessary budget and staff positions already exist...

...As a friend of mine puts it, " 'Status quo' is Latin for the mess we're in...

...Texas farmers and small processors now sell millions of dollars' worth of citrus juice, dairy cows, rice, honey, Mexican-food specialties, and other foods in the Middle East, thanks to the cultivation of buyers in that market by agriculture-department specialists...

...assuring good wages and decent working conditions for all who labor in the food industry, from the fields to the fast-food restaurants...

...From the countryside...

...11 Economic development can best be achieved by nurturing thousands of small, homegrown enterprises rather than by priming the Fortune 500 with billions of dollars' worth of unproductive incentives...

...The Texas department, for example, is providing its full array of new development services on a smaller budget and with fewer employees than it had when its renewal program was launched in 1983...

...The marketing giants have been persuaded to deviate from their usual procurement practices because state government showed it could organize a localized supply that would more than meet the quality standards and price requirements of the buyers, because consumers generally prefer a local product and will buy more of it, and because the state was willing to promote the fact that these companies purchased locally...

...Some farmers find they can make a good living on nothing but alternatives, while others add two or three of the new crops as an income booster to their primary crops...

...Farmers in Massachusetts received organizing assistance and a small grant from the state to establish the Federation of Farmers' Markets, through which seventy markets can establish standards, make cooperative purchases of printed bags and refrigeration equipment, and provide overall management...

...The modest investment of public funds has paid off not only for the individuals involved but also for the communities in which they live a,nd for the more sensible food economy they are building...

...The "small-business incubator" is another phenomenon of the 1980s—a central facility and staff for start-up firms, providing temporary access to inexpensive rent, shared clerical services and office equipment, professional management advice, assistance in finding seed capital, and help in relocating outside the incubator...

...Such redirection is long overdue...

...Of course, the bulk of food moves from the farm through the hands of one or more middlemen and then to supermarkets, restaurants, or processors...

...The payoff for farmers is new income and opportunity...

...To the contrary, these entrepreneurs and grass-roots activists have teamed with officials back home to plant and nurture the seeds of a productive new agriculture policy...

...achieving sound land use and maximum water conservation...

...Try to get a loan to grow amaranth or raise organic poultry, and you'll likely be met with blank stares or outright hostility—but no money...

...What values do we expect our policy to embody...

...Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, and Texas have improvised with a financing tool called the "linked deposit...

...Present "policy" does not address such important questions...

...As the states have shown, it requires only a commitment to the philosophy of fostering growth by working directly with people at the grass-roots level, backed by staff who believe in such democratic development, have the skills and temperament to do the necessary organizing, and possess the stamina and inventiveness to overcome the inevitable obstacles to unconventional approaches...

...Recent state programs, however, have encouraged the exact opposite: building small-scale, locally owned processing plants...

...For starters, such a policy ought to encompass sensible public goals: providing a wide variety of nutritious, safe, tasty, affordable food for all...

...Getting out of the mess will require a fundamental overhaul, not mere tinkering with existing farm programs...

...standard...

...Indeed, when pressed, Susan DeMarco has put in fifteen years analyzing agricultural policy issues, including a three-year stint as Assistant Commissioner of Agriculture in Texas and five years as co-director of the Agribusiness Accountability Project in Washington, D.C...

...generating profitable market prices and lower production costs for farmers...

...Minnesota, California, Ohio, and Iowa have created full-fledged sustainable programs to perform on-farm demonstrations and workshops, develop information databases, perform energy audits on farms, offer competitive grants, and fund nonprofit centers...

...It adds up to real money, not only for individual families but also for the economy as a whole—a 1986 analysis in Texas found that just sixteen alternative crops represent a new sales potential of $2 billion a year for the state's producers, which would increase the total annual value of Texas agricultural production by 20 per cent...

...Thirty-seven of these projects are completed and operational, and ninety-six are getting under way...

...Applying this entrepreneurial spirit, many state officials have forged roll-up-your-sleeves partnerships with local enterprise, devising aggressive programs to diversify farm production, find new marketing outlets for their producers, and develop locally owned agricultural processing industries...

...Our nation's largest, most fundamental industry, far from being governed by coherent policy rooted in public purpose, is entangled in a dizzying array of ad-hoc, often-conflicting programs devised over decades to serve special interests...

...they had $ 14 million in sales the first year, and they created thirty-four jobs for the people of Dawn...

...Government know that the more inclusive policy approach is necessary to build a sound economic and political base for the future of American agriculture, change will not come from within the capital city...

...Chemical contamination of ground water, loss of top-soil, toxic residues in the food supply, water shortages, and poisoning of farmers and farm workers are all indicators that we cannot continue old cropping practices proven to be wasteful, costly, and dangerous...

...In the eighty-one farmers' markets established in Texas since 1983, the thousands of farmers participating are averaging a 30 per cent increase in income, and some good-sized conventional farmers now find themselves earning more from the few acres they have devoted to production for these markets than they do on the hundreds of acres planted in large-scale row crops...

...of such "health-conscious" crops as organic produce and livestock, bean sprouts, naturally low-cholesterol meats like buffalo and wild game...

...Food processing has high potential for new growth and jobs in rural communities...

...grain...

...fostering decentralization of the industry's marketing and processing sectors...

...Government must be made to pursue a democratic policy for American agriculture that is both comprehensive and comprehensible...

...And most of the won'ts seem to work in Washington, D.C...

...Because that was where the nearest flour mill was...

...demands bold, persistent experimentation...

...Despite a 40 per cent drop in prices paid to farmers, consumer food prices have increased 36 per cent since 1980, with the burden falling heaviest on low- and lower-middle-income families...

...And those turning out for such meetings are not merely hobby farmers or back-to-the-land idealists, but mainstream, commercial operators who sense a future in crops and production methods they would have scoffed at only a few years ago...

...of such "market niche" crops as off-season produce, oriental vegetables, light beef and pork, culinary and medicinal herbs, Christmas trees, premium-quality vegetables for restaurants, and native plants for landscaping...