STATE COLLEGE (Centre
Co.) The slide on the screen at
the Nittany Lion Inn shows a com
bine harvesting a huge Held of ripe
grain.
“This guy is a bagel grower,”
said Sarah Vogel. He is not simply
a grain farmer, but a pasta produc
er.
"Our goal is to change the way
we lode at ourselves,” said Vogel,
North Dakota's twice-elected
agriculture commissioner. Farm
ing in America, she said, will be
come more profitable only when
farmers throughout the country
begin bypassing the middlemen
selling directly to consumers
and turning low-priced cattle,
milk, and grain into value-added
products such as steaks, cheese,
and pasta.
Such bold thinking and heavy
emphasis on the bottom line is ex
actly what drew a record crowd of
more than 600 fanners to the fifth
annual conference of the Pennsyl
vania Association for Sustainable
Agriculture (PASA) earlier this
month in State College, said Tim
Bowser, PASA executive director.
Theme of the two-day conference
was “Growing Markets, Adding
Value, Sustaining Farms.”
“We even had people here from
Farm Fly Program
Harrisburg/Lebanon
717-274-5692
Farmers Hear Call For High
as far away as Michigan and
signed up five new members from
New York state. West Virginia,
and Michigan,” said Bowser.
Past PASA conferences drew
only about 500. Why the big turn
out this year?
“Sarah Vogel’s keynote address
was as inspiring a talk as I have
heard in a long while. There was a
lot of food for thought,” said Bow
ser. “The topic of marketing prob
ably had a lot to do with the record
attendance. We’ve always had
sessions dealing with marketing.
This is the first time we have made
it the theme. I think it really reson
ated with a lot of people. I heard a
lot of discussion that it was prob
ably the best conference we have
had yet from a content standpoint
“But we also pushed the dairy
end of it a lot more. We always tty
to address issues which are clearly
very important to Pennsylvania
agriculture,” Bowser said.
One of die dairy speakers. Bill
Patterson of Crimona, Va., ex
plained how he switched to a
grass-based dairy system in the
late ’Bos. “Although his total pro
duction declined, his profits more
than doubled. He got everybody’s
attention,” Bowser said. A dairy
mini-conference on the second
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day of the meeting focused on
“Balancing Profitability and the
Environment” with heavy empha
sis on low-cost grazing systems
and innovations in managing
wastewater and manure.
Other standout speakers in
cluded Eliot Coleman, author of
the bestselling “Four Season Har
vest” and “The New Organic
Grower,” who raises vegetables
commercially for eight months of
the year on his small farm in
coastal Maine, and “guerilla mar
keter” Robert J. Matarazzo whose
200-acre fruit and vegetable farm
in Belvidere, NJ„ is said to be the'
most diversified farm on the East
Coast
“My farm is 90 minutes from
New York and Philadelphia.. .so
I have to do a lot of crazy things to
attract people.” said Matarazzo.
“I’m a strong believer in trying to
develop a proprietary relationship
with customers so that they feel
the farm is their own.”
To help do that, he sends out
hundreds of press releases every
week of the year to media in four
states, publishes his own newslet
ter and stages up to IS festivals a
year on the farm, including spring
and summer powwows that fea
ture native American dancers and
Value Farming
artists from throughout North
America. Those festivals produce
nearly 75 percent of his farm in
come in just 30 days.
Other PASA workshops cov
ered commercial herb and flower
gardening, selling specialty vege
tables directly to chefs, pastured
poultry production and marketing,
cash grain rotations for soil im
provement and weed control, de
veloping business and marketing
plans, winter grazing, forming
grower cooperatives and Com
munity Supported Agriculture
marketing programs.
They all echoed Commissioner
Vogel’s keynote call for “Devel
opment Economics Through Co
operative Efforts.” Vogel, who
sued the federal government in the
early ’Bos to stop 78,000 unlawful
farm foreclosures, said, “We need
to create new wealth and jobs
through the development of new
and expanded uses of agricultural
products.” She is doing just that in
Scranton
LancaMr Firming. Saturday. Math 2, 1996-Al9
North Dakota with state programs
that encourage more producer co
operatives to bypass profit-drain
ing middlemen and sell value
added products directly to con
sumers. “When farmers win, we
all win,” she said. “There can be
no return to economic prosperity
that doesn’t begin with fanners.”
PASA has a wide variety of on
farm production and marketing
demonstrations, field days and
other activities planned through
out the summer, including'its sec
ond annual Harvest Festival on
Aug. 10 at Walnut Acres in Penns
Creek. Pa. Last year’s festival
drew a crowd of 1,800. The festi
val is likely to be even bigger this
year because Walnut Acres is
celebrating its 50th year of organ
ic farming.
For details on PASA member
ship, field days and the-Harvests
Festival, write PASA, PO Box
419, MiUhcim, PA 16854.
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