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Dr. Charles O'Dell, Extension Horticulturist, Department
of Horticulture, Virginia Tech, Blacksberg, VA 24061, 540/ 231-9836, e-mail:
olecro@vt.edu
Taken with permission from Western Fruit
Grower, May 2001
Within Virginia's past two
growing seasons, produce buyers for certain large chain store supermarkets
have come to recognize what consumers have always known: Locally grown
produce tastes better! Whether it's eastern can taloupes, sweet com, tomatoes,
snap beans, cabbage, or strawberries, fresh product from nearby
farmers' fields and orchards always beats long-hauled items for flavor
and value in consumers' eyes and taste buds.
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It takes one gallon of fuel to move 1 carton of
produce across country…!
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Buying locally grown produce during our growing
season also makes environmental sense. For example, hauling produce from
far western states, up to 3000 miles, with a load of 900 boxes of produce
per tractor-trailer, consumes up to 1000 gallons of fuel per trip one
way – or roughly 1 gallon of fuel for each box or carton of produce. Multiply
a thousand gallons of fuel by the hundreds of loads of produce per day
shipped from far production areas. Up to a million gallons or more of
fuel might be saved each day by buying locally grown produce.
A Discouraging Record
However, up until two years ago, chain store buyers who would even consider
buying from local sources usually paid only the lowest price for any item
available on that day from any production area. Large, distant producers
always set the lowest purchase price, often below the cost of production
of our smaller-scale, one-season-per-year growers.
Growers were discouraged by frequent low prices
in our season such as $6 per 24-pound carton for broccoli, $2 for 50-pound
boxes of cabbage (or 40 per pound), 400 for their cantaloupes, and $4
and $5 per carton for tomatoes and bell peppers. Most recently, $4 per
8-quart carton of fresh-picked Virginia strawberries was the wholesale
price set by shipped-in California strawberries produced there year-round.
Harvesting and packaging costs alone in Virginia amount to over $5 per
carton! It seems as soon as growers in our region are finished harvesting,
distant year-round growers always get much higher prices, and are able
to recover and realize a profit.
Buyers Helping the Cause
Now, in order to get the steady in-season source of locally grown, flavor-packed
produce being requested by more and more eastern U.S. consumers (bless
them!), wholesale buyers are beginning to offer grower contracts for fresh
vegetables and berries!
In the fresh market produce industry this is radically new. Buyers involved
in this program sit down with individual growers or groups of growers
to work out a pre-set, season-long price for the seller's entire vegetable
or berry crop. The produce must meet grading and cooling quality standards
and must be packaged by the growers to identify its local origin for consumers.
The season-long price allows the growers a fair, modest profit (above
production, harvesting, packaging, cooling, and delivery costs).
This is a win-win situation for consumers, growers, markets, and the environment.
It's also a policy that may help prevent the entire eastern U.S. from
being paved over and built upon. Here's a perfect example of a type of
regional energy policy that is being achieved because of savvy consumers,
alert produce buyers, and experienced growers in need of stable, profitable
markets.
Interested growers can learn more about this marketing program by contacting
their regional Virginia
Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) Domestic Marketing
Manager. Elsewhere, state departments of agriculture generally have
agricultural marketing specialists who may have, or be developing, similar
programs. We all can help right now by going out to our local supermarkets
and asking for locally grown produce during the harvest seasons.
U-Pick Also Showing Gains
This direct store buyer-grower wholesale marketing contract trend mirrors
an increase in the U-Pick form of direct marketing with consumers, especially
popular with strawberries in Virginia, There have been cycles where U-Pick
has lost favor with consumers, but the spread of raised-beds, plastic-mulched
hill system strawberry culture draws both former and new customers to
the berry fields. I predict that U-Pick will be on an up-trend for many
years ahead wherever growers learn to produce with this new system nationwide,
and as newer, better-adapted berry varieties are developed and released
specifically for plastic mulch culture.
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