ffite
OYES
for
\fegetables
The Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association
urges you to vote "YES" to continue the Pennsylvania
Vegetable Marketing and Research Program.
The Pennsylvania vegetable industry needs the Program if it hopes to have a source of research and promotion monies available to carry it
into the next century. The industry needs the Program to provide a united voice for the entire vegetable industry.
Consider the following promotional accomplishments of the Program over the past ten years:
• developed the “Pennsylvania Proven Produce” logo enabling growers to identify their produce as being locally grown.
& • printed colorful point-of-purchase materials and distributed them free to growers, again enabling direct
\ \ marketers to identify their produce as Pennsylvania grown with professional-looking signs.
• published consumer brochures about Pennsylvania vegetables, giving consumers nutritional and preparation information
about vegetables.
• distributed point-of-purchase materials to supermarkets, enabling them to clearly identify
the produce they buy from Pennsylvania growers as being locally grown. K
• erected billboards across the state for the past two years promoting Pennsylvania vegetables
with the assistance of the Department of Agriculture. This billboard campaign was the basis
for the Department of Agriculture to place additional produce billboards and establish a
pilot project of encourage supermarkets to purchase more local produce from Pennsylvania
growers.
• mailed news releases about Pennsylvania vegetable crops as they come into season to newspapers across the state. This has
resulted in hundreds of newspaper articles about Pennsylvania vegetables being published in newspapers read by nearly 14
million people.
These promotional efforts are all designed to remind consumers that there is a viable vegetable industry in Pennsylvania that
produces fresh, quality and nutritious vegetables. Consumers need to be reminded that not all produce is grown in California
and Florida. , ,
The Program has also helped fund 78 vegetable research projects with over $165,000 in the last nine years. An additional $22,500 is
allocated for research in 1998. Agriculture has traditionally relied on government funds to support production research but those funds have
declined. Growers need to be willing to invest in research for their own industry.
The following research has been funded in part by the Program and some may not have been
done without the Program’s support:
• the development of the FAST integrated pest management (IPM) system for tomato fungicide scheduling (Dr. Alan
MacNab’s work).
• establishment of a sweet corn insect pest monitoring IPM network in Pennsylvania.
• tomato fertility research which has allowed growers to reduce fertilizers costs.
• snap bean root rot and snap bean herbicide research (which helped support the labels for Ronilan and Reflex)
• the breeding of disease-resistant tomatoes and squash.
• variety evaluations for disease resistance.
• vine crop disease research
• development of greenhouse vegetable integrated pest management practices
Plus the Program has helped fund many more research projects.
This vegetable promotion and research activity by the Program will cease if you as a grower do not vote YES to continue the Vegetable
Marketing and Research Program.
% The Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association cannot pick-up the research and promotion activities of the
wX/l'W Program and continue them on the same level. The vegetable industry in Pennsylvania will lose much of its
consumer visibility that the Vegetable Marketing and Research Program has worked hard to earn. Don’t be
I fooled into thinking that individual growers can do it best themselves. There is strength and economy in
I I numbers. The vegetable industry can prosper much better by working together as one unit under the
I | Pennsylvania Vegetable Marketing and Research Program in promoting vegetables and
* funding vegetable research. Remember, this is not a government controlled program t
| The Program is governed by a Board consisting of 12 growers, one sales agent
|PC representative plus the Secretary of Agriculture. They do what is best for you as a
ft grower.
This advei tisement is paid for solely by the Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association, a voluntary association of commercial vegetable and berry growers No grower
assessment monies paid to the Pennsylvania Vegetable Marketing and Research Program were used to pay for this advertisement. The Association is entirely separate from
the Pennsylvania Vegetable Marketing and Research Program
If you are a grower of one or more acres of vegetables (or 1,000 sq. ft. of greenhouse vegetables) and did not receive a
ballot, please call 717-787-2376.
Attention
Vegetable
Growers
PENNSYLVANIA
k(!i
PVGAI