On knowing your farmer, knowing your food

February 6th, 2012 | Posted by Urban Perspective in Regional economics - (0 Comments)

Observations from Feb. 3 symposium – ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food: A Local/Regional Food System Conference’ –  Chicago Illinois, sponsored by the USDA, Fresh Taste, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Illinois Farm Bureau and Sheila Simon, Lieutenant Governor of Illinois.

This conference drew participants from around the Midwest and at least two specialists in food security: one from Primus Labs California and one from Equicert, which specializes in meeting the food security needs of horse-powered farms.

The conference was chaired by Illinois’ USDA Rural Development State Director Colleen Callahan with keynote addresses from Senator Dick Durbin and the USDA’s Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. It seemed like government and the private sector were really trying to collaborate. That alone was a shock to me. Also, virtually none of the talk revolved around commodity farming. Corn and soy beans were generally off limits. The audience of farmers, shippers, grocers, agricultural extension educators and regional planners were entirely focused on bringing local fresh produce to the consumer.

For me the highlight of the morning session was a presentation by a team from southwest Wisconsin. The regional planning manager, Amy Seeboth (government), David Bruce, Organic Valley’s produce director (cooperative) and David Parr, founder/owner of Parrfection Produce (entrepreneur and a senior at college!) talked about how they were promoting the local food movement with a group of regional partners from about 20 counties in three states. Their initial funding is through a USDA grant program. Their goal is to tap into a 34-million-person market which spends $105 billion on food annually all within a four-hour drive. The presenters really gave the impression of wanting to make regional collaboration work between government and private sector participants.

Separately, Jim Slama of FamilyFarmed.org noted that of $50 billion spent on food annually in Illinois, only about five percent ($2.5 billion) is “locally produced food.” Most new business sponsors would salivate at market data like this. There’s no room for ambiguity there. Usually the most difficult part of the start-up process for an entrepreneur is working out an answer to the question “what is my market?”

Another tough issue is resolving the logistics challenges. It begins with a lack of local aggregators (collectors and intermediate processors for “Mom and Pop” producers), not enough packing sheds with temperature controlled facilities and loading docks that are too high, too low, or not there at all.

The largest distributors have to worry about making sure that their supply chain is full. If you need to meet 98 percent of your orders in less than 48 hours, you need to be sure that the local growers on whom you are relying have the capacity to grow the product … and for as long a period in the year as possible. These big wholesalers would therefore likely encourage the use of season-extending technologies such as growing tunnels or hoop-houses, CO2 recycling and innovative temperature control technologies as important elements in the development of local contributors to the food network.

When you start to think about how these needs could be met in a produce-growing market like the one in southwest Michigan, you begin to understand the multiplier at work in terms of job creation. The USDA’s Merrigan referred to a study that found that $1 million in revenue from local/regional food production creates 13 jobs as opposed to only three jobs created by mainstream food production. This doesn’t begin to take into account how many jobs might be created by enlarging the network of growers contributing high quality produce to the supply chain.

With stories about how David Parr, at only seven years old, was growing more vegetables in his garden plot than his family could eat, which led him to find new markets; and about how Supervalu through its supermarkets like Albertson’s and independent grocers served by its trucks has been finding ways to offer local products on ersatz farm stands in their stores, this was a dramatic and inspiring day.

photo credit: time by Robb North via CC

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A vision of Benton Harbor beyond factories and golf courses: Part 2

January 23rd, 2012 | Posted by Urban Perspective in Regional economics - (0 Comments)

Benton Harbor Map 1870

In a recent New York Times magazine article on the state of affairs in Benton Harbor, Jonathan Mahler wrote a fascinating report on how one de-industrialized town in Michigan is trying to alter its trajectory after 30 years of economic decline. The story focuses on the recent development of a Jack Nicklaus golf course, Harbor Shores, largely on the site of demolished Whirlpool factories and other former industrial plants.

When first settled by French traders in the 17th and 18th centuries, the area that is modern-day Benton Harbor was a marshy area at the confluence of the St. Joseph and Paw Paw rivers where an abundance of wild rice grew. In addition to beaver pelts, the Miami nation that lived in the area traded a wide array of hedge fruits and vegetables. Southwest Michigan, historically, was the great provider of food and produce to growing communities throughout the region.

From the 1850s until the 1970s, Benton Harbor became the industrial heart of Southwest Michigan. In the 1860s, industrialists dug a mile-long canal into the heart of the growing city to serve the growing number of factories and the then-huge fruit processing and exporting market. Auto parts and metal forging replaced food as the town’s principal activity.

In 1911, the forerunner of Whirlpool was founded in Benton Harbor by the Upton brothers, local entrepreneurs. In 1948, anticipating that the town might not return to World War II levels of economic activity, they formed The Whirlpool Foundation with the stated goal of ensuring that the company maintained its focus on the future of Benton Harbor and its outlying areas. Members of the Upton family still live in the area and one grandson is its long-standing Congressman.

The creation of Harbor Shores is a direct result of the Upton brothers’ vision in 1948. It is a step toward recreating Benton Harbor using the assets that come naturally to it. In the case of Harbor Shores, this is the beautiful scenery along Lake Michigan, an aspect of the community long-ignored as it followed its industrial destiny. As Jonathon Mahler points out in the New York Times Magazine, taken alone, Harbor Shores does not solve the area’s difficulties:

“In the short term, Harbor Shores could be a tough sell to developers. Plans for a water park have already been jettisoned, and no hoteliers have expressed sufficient interest to build there yet.

Long-term, though, Benton Harbor’s future as a tourist town seems foreordained. Harbor Shores is well under way, and in any case, what are the city’s other options?

In between Harbor Shores’ champions and detractors are a lot of people who question the wisdom of pinning the town’s hopes on a golf course but who acknowledge that something is better than nothing.

Harbor Shores is not without precedent. Recently, a golf course helped revive a troubled neighborhood in Atlanta known as East Lake. But at this point, it seems more likely that Harbor Shores will simply bring a new population to Benton Harbor and hasten the town’s fracturing into two distinct communities: the second-home owners and Whirlpool executives who live inside Harbor Shores and frequent the Arts District — and everyone else.

The question is, can “everyone else” include a stable, working-class population, or is Benton Harbor beyond repair?”

Benton Harbors “other options” and the region’s future prosperity, including job growth, depend on taking advantage of the area’s other natural assets. Aerial maps from 1870 show Michigan’s famous orchards and produce farms butting right up against Benton Harbor’s boundaries.  Chicago would not have been fed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries without Southwest Michigan’s extraordinary climate, water resources, topography and soils.

These attributes may well carry the seeds of the area’s next step along the path to further regeneration. The re-creation of sophisticated food processing, advanced agriculture and agri-tourism businesses can feed directly into the burgeoning local food movement in a 26 million-strong consumer market within a three hour drive of Benton Harbor. The area’s economic vitality can be boosted and jobs at all levels can be created through the development of new agricultural-related businesses.

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