Kent Shelhamer speaks on direct marketing
*3?
By JOYCE BUPP
York Co. Reporter
YORK, Pa. - “Fanning is
a way of marketing the
operator’s time.”
The speaker was Kent
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AUTHORIZED DISTR,BUTOR
at York County Extension banquet
Shelhamer, Pennsylvania’s
Secretary of Agriculture.
The event was the 59th
annual York County
Extension Service banquet
last Friday night at Avalong
Farms in York jammed to
Dutchman.
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capacity for the Secretary’s
address.
Shelhamer has selected
farm marketing as the
number one issue which his
administration will tackle,
and the Department of
Agriculture is gearing up to
guide farmers into
innovative ways of direct
marketing their produce.
“We have 90 consumer
outlets in 46 counties where
fanners are selling directly
to people other than other
farmers,” stated Shelhamer.
But the Columbia County
fruit grower is looking
toward an as yet untouched
area of the state for new
marketing - those limited
access four-lane highways
crisscrossing Pennsylvania.
“A ready-made situation
exists for farmers to sell
produce at rest stops along
the Interstates. That’s a
market that many people
have forgotten; and we seem
to be losing areas of direct
trade these days,” the farm
leaser continued.
Diversification is also part
of the answer, believes
Shelhamer. He related the
illustration of one
Pennsylvania farmer who
this year branched out from
his traditional cropping
pattern on a small
percentage of the total farm
acreage. That experiment
included a two-acre planting
of zucchini squash; the
zucchini crop cleared
several thousand dollars
profit.
Another way of exercising
more control of the markets,
Shelhamer noted, is in
New officers were elected during
the annual meeting and banquet of
the York County Agriculture and
Home Economics Extension Service.
They are, from left: Eugene Manifold,
Airville Rl, second vice-president;
Naomi Bupp, Glen Rock R 2.
providing more grain
storage right on the farms.
He would like to see
government funds made
more readily availbale for
the construction of these
storage facilities.
“Grain farmers frequently
must sell their crop at
harvest time when prices
have dropped. Then, several
months later, livestock
feeders and dairymen find
themselves paying higher
per bushel rates for grain
shipped in from the West.
Local on-farm storage will
benefit both the grain grower.
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s / A
Lancaster Farming, Saturday. April 9.1977
and the livestock man,”
Shelhamer explained.
But the agriculture
department head foresees
some high hurdles ahead for
the future of fanning, along
with his optimistic outlook
for marketing expansion. A
good portion of the problem
lies with the increasing
headache of energy
shortages.
“Agriculture is a high
energy-use industry. Today,
tiie four per cent of this
country’s population who are
farmers consume 15 per cent
of the . world’s energy
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255 PLANE TREE DRIVE
LANCASTER, PA. 17603
(717) 393-5807
Route 30 West at the Centerville Exit
secretary; John Marstellar,
Stewartstown R 3, president; Ralph
McGregor, East Berlin Rl, im
mediate past president; Eugene
Kilgore, Airviile R 2, first vice
president; and Lee Poorbaugh, York
R 3, treasurer.
produced. That’s a high
usage, and we’re going to
have to cut back,”
Shelhamer believes. But he
warned that we may not be
able to continue, “going all
out” in production if farmers
get cut back in the amounts
of natural-gas based
fertilized available to them.
Consumers may have to
leam to accept different
buying techniques, too.
Convenience packing of
foods is another high energy
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