A32-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 28, 1992
COLLEGE PARK, Md. Be
fore 1973, U.S. farmers didn’t
have to worry much about market
ing their products. Increased pro
duction was the watchword. But
emergence of a global economy
and phasing out of federal govern
ment price supports have changed
all that.
James R. Russell, commodity
marketing specialist for the Co
operative Extension Service,
Maryland Institute for Agriculture
and Natural Resources, predicts
that farmers not utilizing sophisti
cated marketing techniques within
the next 10 or 15 years will be out
of business.
Like a knight from King Ar
thur’s Roundtable, Russell came
.out of the West (Oklahoma) in
1988 to join (jie University of
Maryland System faculty as an
agricultural economist.
During the past four years, he
has carried the message of market
ing to countless farm meetings
throughout Maryland and the
Mid-Atlantic area.
Two years ago, he established
grain marketing clubs for fanners.
At last count, there were 15 clubs
with 300 fanners from 19 of
Maryland’s 23 counties. Many
clubs hold bimonthly 7 a.m.
breakfast meetings. All have ac
Backdoor Effort
(Contfnucd from Pago A 1)
until Wednesday night, represen
tatives on all sides of the issue
were ready with comments lauding
the measure as one of the best
pieces of legislation to come out.
A spokesman for Gov. Robert
Casey, Wednesday said that Casey
supported the nutrient manage
ment proposal and was expected to
sign it into law.
Gene Schenck, press secretary
of the state Department of Agricul
ture, said that the department sup
ported the concepts of the propos
al, although they were still analyz
ing it late Tuesday, after it passed
the House.
Although support of the propos
al was almost entirely unanimous
by the few who are familiar with it,
many strongly decried the back
door tactics used by the House
members and staff to push the
measure through.
Mike Brubaker, a Lancaster
agronomist who has been involved
with helping to develop nutrient
management legislation for more
than five years, said he was disap
pointed that almost the entire rank
and file of the agricultural industry
was excluded from knowledge of
the proposal and it passed the
House and was hours away from
passing the Senate.
Coy and Rep. John Barley, R-
Conestoga, had originally co
sponsored House Bill 496, which
was a nutrient managment bill.
Barley, who wanted to see the
measure help farmers avoid a legal
patchwork of local nutrient man
agement ordinances (He farms a
several thousand acre operation in
two counties), among other things,
withdrew his support of the mea
sure after some changes were
made which did provide the full
protection he sought
Nevertheless, the measure
passed the House and was appa
rently going to die in the Senate
agriculture committee, because of
a number of unresolved conflicts
between lobbyists for environmen
tal groups and representatives of
groups presented as vanguards of
agricultural interests.
Rep.-elect Sheila Miller, who
Maryland Establishes Ag Marketing Center
cess to Data Transmission Net
work satellite dishes that receive
the latest market news and price
quotes throughout each business
day.
The 300 marketing club mem
bers account for more than
400,000 acres of grain, with sales
totaling $l2O million to $l6O mil
lion during 1991. This accounts
for 75 percent of Maryland’s cash
grain crop.
But Russell is not resting on the
laurels of sophisticated grain mar
keting. He sees the need for better
marketing techniques in a wide
range of agricultural enterprises.
Toward that end, he has spear
headed establishment of an Agri
cultural Marketing Center, head
quartered at the Wye Research
and Education Center, an Eastern
Shore showcase near Queenstown
for the University of Maryland
System and its Maryland Institute
for Agriculture and Natural Re
sources. The Wye REC is operat
ed by MIANR’s Maryland Agri
cultural Experiment Station.
Malcolm J. Commer Jr., also an
agricultural economist, works
with Russell as an agricultural
marketing specialist at the center.
Commer joined the University of
Mainland System in 1989. He has
extensive experience as a planta-
had been the executive director of
the Senate agriculture committee,
had said last Tuesday that H.B. 496
appeared to be dead, but that much
work had been done and that a final
compromise was near.
She said that even though she
didn’t expect any action on the
measure (Sen, Edward Helfrick,
chairman of the Senate Ag Com
mittee, was out of town), she said
she expected to meet one last time
in December with representatives
from both sides to finalize a draft
of a new nutrient management
proposal.
However, on their own, rep
resentatives of the Chesapeake
Bay Commission and House rep
resentatives decided to not to wait
for a final draft and through Rep.
Coy introduced the compromise
work as a rider onto S.B. 1444,
according to statements made by
several people who attended a
closed breakfast meeting early
morning Nov. 18 at the Grantville
Holiday Inn.
Although there were a few
others present, the meeting was
attended by Crawford; Thomas
Beauduy, lobbyist for the Chesa
peake Bay Foundation; Miller;
Keith Eckel, president of Pennsyl
vania Farmers’ Association; A 1
Myers, PFA lobbyist; John Bell,
PFA attorney; George Wolff, lob
byist; Rep. Arthur Hershey, R-
Cochranville; Brenda Shambaugh
and Gordon Hiller from the
Grange, Sheryl Cook from the
Pennsylvania Farmers’ Union; and
John Hoffman with the Pennsylva
nia Poultry Federation.
At that meeting, it was
announced by Beauduy and Craw
ford what was going to happen
that Rep. Coy was going to spon
sor an amendment to S.B. 1444
with nutrient management lan
guage that all had helped write.
By Tuesday this week, although
none of its regular membership nor
delegate bodies were informed,
letters of support were issued to
Crawford and Coy by the PFA and
PFU and statements of support
were made by the Grange.
According to PDA spokesman
Gene Schenck, the agriculture
tion manager and livestock man in
Mississippi.
Commer is Maryland’s state
representative on the marketing
committee of the National Cattle
men’s Association. He also has
been asked to chair a committee
studying breeder incentive pro
grams on a national basis for the
horse industry.
Commer spent three weeks this
summer serving as an advisor to
the Mongolian government on
livestock economic issues as part
of an overseas project sponsored
by the Center for Institutional Re
form & the Informal Sector
(IRIS). Headquartered in College
Park, Md., IRIS is funded by the
U.S. Agency for International De
velopment.
Russell and Commer share a vi
sion that Maryland’s Agricultural
Marketing Center will receive na
tional recognition within five
years and international recogni
tion in 7 to 10 years. They see it
operating on a partnership basis,
involving Maryland’s Coopera
tive Extension Service and Agri
cultural Experiment Station, along
with several state and federal
agencies, private groups, and in
dustry.
Their major objective is to pro
vide assistance to agricultural pro-
Fails
department was not invited to the
breakfast meeting.
“We were not part of the break
fast meeting where a lot of (the
final negotiating) transpired, but
we knew it was happening,”
Schenck said.
“Our concerns are the same,” he
said. “We want agriculture to be
treated right and we want agricul
ture to be a part of (nutrient man
agement planning). We want the
department of agriculture to have
some control.”
The agriculture department
would have had responsibility for
education and certifying people to
make nutrient management plans.
Crawford defended the back
door and secrecy involved in push
ing through the legislation.
“We have done everything to
accomodate (the different groups),
and what is left is a small, but voc
al, group who have no interest in
this program.
“It was introduced in 1991 and
has sat in the Senate for a year and
a half. What kind of timetable do
we need?” he said.
Crawford accused the Senate of
dragging their feet on purpose.
“Now, at the end of the legislative
session, we have feigned interest.
It was clear to others, that there
was not enough time to do what
wanted to be done with 58496.”
He also said that the method of
introduting legislation that has not
been reviewed by any rank and file
agriculturalist, and received no
public review, was not an attempt
to grab glory for the Democratic
party.
“Not at all,” Crawford said, “it
was an attempt to finally get a
responsible nutreint management
program that has the support of the
farm community, in this legislative
session.
“It would be one thing if (the
Senate Republicans) did start
working, but they didn’t do a thing
until two months ago.”
However, Crawford couldn’t
explain how, if no one in the
Senate was working on the legisla
tion, Rep. Coy was able to get a
copy of a proposed revision of the
House Bill 496 and sponsor it.
James R. Russell, left, coordinator of the newly estab
lished Agricultural Marketing Center in Maryland, points to
a crystal ball that he keeps on his desk at the Wye Re
search and Education Center. But the computer terminal
and Data Transmission Network satellite receiver in back
ground are the modern marketing tools that he uses to help
provide hourly information and analysis for grain produc
ers who are members of local marketing clubs coordinated
by agents of the cooperative extension service In 19 Mary
land counties. Looking on is Malcolm J. Commer Jr., exten
sion horse and livestock marketing specialist at the center.
ducers and agribusinesses in mar
keting products and services on
the domestic and international
scenes.
Tools for reaching the objective
will include;
• Providing education through
marketing clubs, workshops, sem
inars, conferences, and presenta
tions at various commodity meet
ings. Information also will be dis
seminated through the news media
and a monthly newsletter set to be
gin publication in September
1992.
• Providing a centralized data
base of local, regional, national,
and international marketing infor
mation to support decision-mak
ing by producers, agribusinesses,
economists. Agricultural. Market
ing Center professionals, and
other interested persons.
• Performing applied research
in the realm of marketing altema-
ADA/DC Program
Increases Sales
SYRACUSE, N.Y. The
American Dairy Association and
Dairy Council’s (ADADC) space
management program increases
dairy sales, according to Insala
co’s, an 11-store retail chain in
Pennsylvanina and the first retail
chain to implement the space
management concept.
Records showed an overall
increase of 5.7 percent in dairy
department sales in a test of the
space management program.
The Insalaco project involved
two stores of comparable size and
volume -'one test store and one
control store.
The test store’s dairy case was
reset according to ADADC’s
space management standards with
the “control” store experiencing
no changes. After 13 weeks, sales
of both stores were compared.
The result was a 3.4 percent
increase in overall dairy sales for
the test store, and a decrease of 2.3
percent in the control store.
According to the measuring
standards of the research firm,
DeLoitte & Touche, the 2.3 per
cent decrease was avoided in the
test store resulting in an overall
increase of 5.7 percent in dairy
case sales.
ADADC’s space management
lives and strategies, price and bas
is forecasting, market develop
ment, and market potential for im-
portant or potentially important
agricultural products and services.
In its first year of operation, the
center is giving major emphasis to
marketing of horses, livestock,
and grain. Attention to marketing
of fruits and vegetables is in the
long-range plan.
Russell also represents the cen
ter on a statewide dairy task force
that is studying ways to improve
competitiveness of the Maryland
dairy industry.
Jim Russell and Malcolm Com
mer believe that the Maryland
Agricultural Marketing Center
represents the first organized ef
fort in the United States to give
farmers the research and educa
tional tools they need to market
their products effectively.
program is designed to help retail
ers increase the profitability of the
dairy case and indications are
extremely positive for the dairy
industry. The space or category
management program uses sales
data from the retailer to determine
the true profit of each item in the
dairy case.
Once the information is pro
cessed, a layout or plan-o-gram is
constructed. The plan-o-gram is
designed to increase shelf space
for dairy products and generate
higher sales and profits for the
retailer. Dairy farmers also benefit
through higer dairy sales as well.
As an outgrowth of Insalaco’s
success, Dan’s Supreme with 26
stores. Twin County supermark
ets, a group of independent stores,
and Shop Rite are to utilize the
space management program in test
stores.
Retail grocery stores m
ADADC’s region have estimated
annual sales of about 24 billion
dollars. Approximately 10 percent
of a store’s total sales result from
dairy product sales. That’s worth
over 2.4 billion dollars m
ADADC’s marketing area.