Marketing and Production of Alternative
Agricultural Opportunities
and Enterprises
CEMP 14
Plan of Work
In this document:
This Cooperative Extension Major Plan (CEMP) is an educational
program aimed at encouraging audiences to consider agriculturally based opportunities and
enterprises in response to market signals. It uses an integrated team approach in the
education of business oriented (large, small, full or part-time) and limited resource
farmers by assisting them to work through the discovery, analysis and pursuit of
alternative agricultural opportunities. Agents in counties provide leadership with a
program to teach the appropriate process skills in a planned way. The three component
areas of the program are: 1) assessment of a range of opportunities based on available
resources and other specific factors; 2) the decision making process of analysis,
selection, planning and implementation of production choices; and 3) discovery, creation
and development of appropriate marketing opportunities.
Situation Statement
Agribusiness (and agriculture in general) is very important to the North Carolina economy. Its impact goes beyond the $6.8 billion of farm income and the $1.35 billion farmers spent on seed, feed and fertilizer in 1993. It is estimated that North Carolina's total agri-business sector generated an income of $42.1 billion during 1993.
This represented 28.3 % of all the final goods and services
produced in the state during that year. Agribusiness industries also accounted for about
21% of all employment in the state. There are many important changes occurring here
and abroad which are impacting upon agribusiness and more specifically on agricultural
producers, large and small. As a result, educational assistance with the development of
Alternative Agricultural Opportunities is important to both agriculture and the entire
well being of the state. Following are examples of some of the changes.
A. Urban population increased from 2,823,180 in 1980 to 3,335,570 in 1990. For the first
time more than 50% of the population of the state lives in metropolitan areas. Retirement
areas continue to grow as do Hispanic and other ethnic populations. Cities like Charlotte,
Raleigh, and Wilson have spread out and developed sprawling suburban belts. This change
impacts on land use, land values and life style but also brings new local markets with
diverse demand.
B. Dramatic changes are occurring in production agriculture, natural resource management,
and rural life options. For example, there are difficulties occurring in the tobacco
program and competition is growing in world markets within the context of NAFTA and GATT.
There are new regulations imposed on the dairy and livestock industries concerning waste
management. For all areas of agriculture, there are more
environmental concerns, water quality issues, and calls for better chemical and fertilizer
management. All of these bring challenges to traditional production and marketing systems.
C. More than 54% of the agricultural production of North Carolina is exported out of the
United States with the top markets being Japan, Germany, Belgium and Canada. Tobacco,
which was the major export crop, peaked in 1990, and new exports are emerging.
D. Eighty percent of the food and fiber is produced by twenty percent of the producers.
The large scale producers making up a minority of this population need to explore and
assess high capital investment and large scale market options.
E. There are also many landowners in the other eighty percent of the farm population who
want to explore and assess new production options and new local markets with less capital
requirements and lower risk. They need educational assistance to explore these options.
Extension needs to make extra efforts to reach and develop meaningful educational programs
with limited resource audiences.
F. The number of farms in North Carolina continues to fall, going from 59,384 in 1987 to
51,854 in 1992. In 1992, 12,982 farms reported sales of greater than $50,000 and the
remaining 38,872 are small farms with gross sales less than $50,000.
G. Only 2,497 farms remained in the hands of African Americans in 1990- down from 12,000
in 1978. On the other hand, there are retirees and others looking for new agricultural
business and rural lifestyle opportunities.
OBJECTIVE #1:
Business oriented producers will identify, create and develop Alternative Agricultural
Opportunities and Enterprises.
Target Audiences
The target audience is the business oriented individual or firm. This audience includes individual, family and incorporated entities. These businesses may be large, small, full time or part time whose primary questions relate to investment opportunities. The audience is educated with at least a high school diploma and often some college
education. This audience is looking to invest and is concerned about returns on investment and/or integration of an alternative enterprise within an existing business. The audience includes commercial, organic, herb and other specialty crop producers. These people might be considering contract growing operations. They are often well-heeled retirees, second career investors and people looking to make investments out of concern for the environment.
a. Decision making as it pertains to selecting alternative opportunities: establishing long term goals; establishing short term goals; planning implementation steps, managing and monitoring the process and assessing results.
b. Marketing as an active producer managed process: researching markets; creating markets; testing markets; developing a market plan; evaluating each step of the process.
c. Managing the implementation of the process: 1) choosing appropriate production systems and scale of operation; 2) managing for profitability, return on investment and equity; 3) adopting risk management strategies; such as diversifying, finding
other sources of income, intensifying production, developing sustainable production practices; and using risk management tactics for dealing with specific problems through cost and loss minimization decisions.
a. The traditional strategies of conducting meetings (both county and regional) and tours will be integrated and supported by a planned package of curricula, fact sheets and handouts (#2 following).
b. A package of simple but complete handouts and fact sheets will be developed which will be usable in supporting the traditional strategies as well a ready response to individual questions.
c. Tours of discovery will be held to meet with practitioners of alternative opportunities.
d. Networking with e-mail (WWW) and the AIO mail group will be fostered to provide agents with ready response to a broad range of questions.
There will be 2000 potentially interested producers (as a benchmark). $800,000 in Extension time, overhead and educational programs will be invested. 1000 producers will gain knowledge about alternatives. 500 producers will try alternative enterprises, methods, and practices.There will be $7,000,000 of new investment in production and marketing of alternative enterprises.
There will be $2,500,000 gross income impact.
Materials on hand:
a. Various applicable fact sheets, videos and other materials with some specifically focused on Alternative Enterprises as usable.
Materials to be developed:
a. A list of what is on hand and a proposal to make those materials readily available.
b. The SMP team will develop an integrated package of curriculum materials and fact sheets to support the educational programs and be available for distribution in response to the audience.
Limited resource producers will use an integrated approach to
implement Alternative Agricultural Opportunities and Enterprises.
Target Audience
The target audience is the limited resource producer, individuals and families. Traditionally, we have used the following criteria to define the limited resource audience: small (less that $50,000 gross income from farming); limited resource (less than a completed high school education for the principle participant in the business); limited access to capital; being a member of a social group which has had to face discrimination from society for social, economic, gender or ethnic reasons.
a. Collaboration and consensus in groups addressing common problems; problem solving skills and community connection skills.
b. Decision making as it pertains to alternative opportunities in terms of life style and standard of living: establishing long term goals; establishing short term goals; planning implementation steps, managing and monitoring the process.
c. Small scale marketing as an active producer managed process: researching markets; creating markets; testing markets; developing a market plan; evaluating outcomes in the development of direct, niche and local markets.
d. Managing the implementation of the process within the constraints of limited access to capital:
- choosing appropriate production systems and scale of operation;
- managing for profitability, return on investment and equity;
- adopting risk management strategies; such as diversifying, finding
other sources of income, intensifying production, developing
sustainable production practices; and, using risk management tactics
for dealing with specific problems through cost and loss minimization.
a. A program to educate the extension staff about successful ways of working with, connecting with and developing successful educational programs with the limited resource audience will be developed.
b. The traditional strategies of meetings and tours (field days, demonstrations and hands-on methods) will be integrated and supported by:
c. A package of simple complete handouts and fact sheets which will be usable by the audience in addition to supporting the traditional strategies as a ready response to individual questions.
d. Tours of discovery to meet with practitioners of alternative opportunities will be conducted.
e. Networking with e-mail (WWW) and the AIO mail group to provide agents with ready response to a broad range of questions will be fostered.
f. The Farm Opportunities Program of NCA&TSU Extension paraprofessionals provide one-on one educational outreach with limited resource audiences. It is a planned program with a goal of graduating cooperators to ordinary extension collaboration after four years.
There will be 3000 potentially interested producers (as a benchmark). $640,000 in Extension time, overhead and educational programs will be invested.
2000 producers will gain knowledge about alternatives.
1000 producers will try alternative enterprises, methods, and practices.
There will be $50,000 of outside funding support.
There will be $1,000,000 gross income impact.
Materials on hand:
a. Community Voices Leadership Program.
b. Decision Making Curriculum materials (NCA&TSU).
c. Alternative Enterprise publications and enterprise specific videos and fact sheets.
d. Working with the Limited Resource Audience- a Curriculum, NCA&TSU.
e. The Greenbook (a marketing directory and guide).
f. Sell what you Sow! and other marketing and production information available commercially.
Materials to be developed:
The CEMP team will develop an integrated package of curriculum materials and fact sheets to support the educational programs and be available for distribution in response to the audience.
Evaluation Strategies, Iimpact Indicators, Mileposts and Techniques
A. Evaluation will occur on two levels; internal to the county and for state level aggregation. Information used at the county level will also be collected as success stories for use in publicizing successful Extension programs in Alternative Opportunities.
B. At the county level, evaluation focuses on:
(1) Private Benefits (accruing to an individual who participates in our programs). Agents will keep track of success stories, testimonials, and "silver bullets" so as to be able to document and market successful Extension Service educational programming to the local news media, county commissioners and other interested parties.
(2) In addition, success stories in terms of obtaining Public Benefit (Benefits from our programs which accrue to society as a whole) from programs in Alternative Opportunities will be also be recorded and publicized at the county level to document outcomes from Extension Programming. These success stories and "silver bullets" will be collected and maintained on file for use at the extension system level.
C. Evaluation at the state level will consist of providing information to the state team in terms of a: Benchmark as of January 15, 1996 (before the program begins); Milestones of progress throughout the time frame of the program and Cumulative Educational Program Accomplishments.
(1) This information will be collected in a template or
questionnaire format. Numbers will be collected in terms of the following indicators:
Numbers of potentially interested producers (as a benchmark); Extension input; numbers of
producers who gain knowledge about alternatives; numbers of producers who try alternative
enterprises, methods, practices and the investments in alternative opportunities and gross
income
achieved.
(2) Information on extension inputs and outside funding will be obtained from organizational sources.
(3) Information about investments will be gathered from horticulture, crop, natural resource, and livestock production surveys and questionnaires being conducted by university departments and researchers.
(4) In addition, information will be collected about barriers
faced by farmers in implementing changes as well as reasons why changes were made.
A. North Carolina Department of Agriculture, Marketing Division, Raleigh and field offices, "The Goodness Grows in NC" Program, State Farmers' Market management.
B. The Commerce Department.
C. The North Carolina Center for Rural Development
D. Producer Associations
E. Interested NGOs (non government organizations), farmer, churches, organic, wildlife, land conservancy groups.
F. USDA agencies (Forest Service, Cooperative Service).
G. Small Business Development Centers
H. Business Incubators.
I. Electric and County Economic Development Agencies and Associations
J. Special funded projects (SARE/ACE, Foundations)
K. Other Land Grant Universities, ATTRA, Rodale Center.
Marketing, the planned effort to publicize and inform the various publics about this planned educational program and its outcomes, will occur within the Extension organization (as a means of informing agents about educational and resource opportunities); in the county (by agents to encourage participation and to report programming activities, outcomes and impacts; and at the state and national levels.
The CEMP team takes responsibility to develop a brochure promoting
the CEMP;
providing news worthy reports for Agricultural Communications to distribute; and to
explore ways of finding financial support for marketing. Field faculty are expected to
provide success stories and -- silver bullets, make connections within the county and
participate in the development of interested and supporting publics.