Producer Profitability

Priority Actions:

Profitability | Economic Development | Marketing | Trade | Invasive Species Control | Consolidation | Education  

Marketing:

Conclusion: Need to find ways to expand marketing to increase sales of local agricultural products.

Suggested Actions: Here are several ways in which this might be done:

Create a strategy for implementing end-to-end market development:

identify opportunities in as many markets as possible; 

identify market needs and requirements; 

identify delivery methods; 

identify and recruit growers, packers and processors who will participate;

provide financing and training to help growers, packers and processors tailor products to meet specific market needs; 

create a promotional campaign to launch market entry; 

monitor the market to ensure that needs and requirements are being met, with feedback to growers, packers and process; and

create an ongoing promotional campaign.

Create a strategy to provide improved information to producers on market needs and demands, emphasizing the advantages of catering to the consumer, and providing help in matching production with demand to avoid overproduction. 

As part of this strategy, IFAS should consider using its new long-range strategy, Florida FIRST, to work in cooperation with DOACS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Economic Research Service (ERS) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), to provide producers with focused market research to give them detailed information on demand, quantities needed, prices and quality requirements, i.e: What will sell where? What should be planted when? How should crops be staggered? This should include:

Identify marketing opportunities through targeted consumer markets: What do consumers need, what would they like, how much will they pay?

Provide research on commodity marketing strategies: How should products be produced, packaged and promoted to meet — or create — consumer demand, and beat the competition? Use consumer surveys, focus groups, test marketing to determine: What can producers do to get a marketing edge?

Contributing action recommended by U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)

Action: Focus agricultural research on marketing
Responsible: USDA, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and IFAS
Duration: Long term (2+ years)

Conduct research on market development

Contributing action recommended by NRCS:

Action: Develop international markets for agricultural products
Responsible: USDA, DOACS
Duration: Long term (2+ years)

Encourage more grower input into research agenda. As Rick Roth says: "Land grant colleges need to:

Do more ag research with dollars tied to specific demands of society,
Change focus from production to marketing,
Educate ag students why public relations is critical to industry survival."

See comment from Ferdinand F. Wirth, Ph.D., explaining what the state and producer groups can do to ensure that university research is driven by producer needs, rather than grant opportunities, under Endnote.

Funding strategies also should be developed to pursue these ideas. Cattle producers voted to have one dollar collected for each head of cattle sold. This money is put in a national trust fund and distributed to promote beef. As Jim Strickland, of Cattlemen Manatee in Myakka, Florida, says: "It seems to work, judging by our number crunchers. However, our market share is not going to change drastically. Perhaps we need some method to use our dollars to promote the ideas listed here. Not just the idea of selling beef, but marketing ourselves to the public as an economical benefit to our environment."

Other Florida farmers also have taken a portion of their profits to develop domestic markets. Two excellent examples are the Department of Citrus and the tomato committee.

Jim Handley, Executive Director of Florida Cattlemen's Association, concurs. Some commodity groups do an excellent job promoting the sale of their products to consumers. But, he says, much more must be done to educate consumers about agriculture. Handley suggested creating a coalition of ag groups to create of pool of dollars to carry out a unified, coordinated marketing blitz covering all food products and the values of agriculture.

Recommendation:

Who: Florida Department of Agriculture (DOACS) Marketing Division; Enterprise Florida; Governor's Office on Tourism, Trade and Economic Development (OTTED) and University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS).
What: Need major regional effort. DOACS should take the lead in working with Enterprise Florida, OTTED and IFAS to develop a marketing strategy for agriculture, and ensure the dedication of the resources necessary to give special consideration and assistance to agriculture, commensurate with the importance of agriculture to the economies of South Florida and the state. 

Identified as a possible task for assistance from the Governor's Commission for the Everglades