BUILDING MARKET
FOUNDATIONS FOR
SUSTAINABLE VEGETABLE
PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING
A USDA-SCRI Proposal Re-Submission
Paul Mitchell, Project Director
Office: 608-265-6514 Cell: 608-320-1162
pdmitchell@wisc.edu
Ag and Applied Economics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Overview
• Vision for SCRI project proposal
• Where you fit in
• What we need from you
• Project Goal: Build market foundations for a more
sustainable processing vegetable industry
• Focus on sweet corn and snap beans (at first)
Sustainable Processing Vegetables
Clarify
Consumer
Demand
Create
Assessment
Tools and
Metrics
Integrate
Project
Findings
Transformed Processing
Vegetable Industry
Validate &
Improve
Production
Practices
Project Objectives
Clarify consumer demand for sustainable processing
vegetables
2. Create and test sustainability assessment tools and
metrics for commercial vegetable growers
3. Validate and improve production practices for
sustainable commercial vegetable growers
4. Integrate project findings to foster transformation of the
processing vegetable industry
1.
Objective 1: Clarify consumer demand for
sustainable processing vegetables
• What consumers specifically want is not clear
• Does the label matter or is it something else?
• Lots of ecolabels exist, but no clear value in the market place
• Sustainability is not organic
• Is it the reputation of the product or the company?
• What specific aspects of sustainability do
consumers value?
• Energy efficiency? Carbon footprint? Greenhouse gases?
• Water efficiency? Water quality impacts? Chemical use?
• Packaging? Recycling?
• Where does local fit in?
Objective 1: Clarify consumer demand for
sustainable processing vegetables
• Conduct experiments to identify specific attributes
of sustainable processing vegetables of value to
consumers
• Changyen Yue, U of MN, Applied Economics and Horticulture
• Conduct a national mail survey to quantify
consumer demand for certified sustainable
processing vegetables
• Changyen Yue, U of MN, Applied Economics and Horticulture
Objective 2: Create and test sustainability
assessment tools and metrics
• How do you measure sustainability?
• Focus on practice-based assessment: What practices are
growers using?
• Some already exist, not here to discuss/criticize, except to say:
Generally little or no input from growers and processors
• Assessment tool drafts already started for WI
• Assessment tools tell us grower practices, but still the
question remains: How do you measure sustainability?
• Assessment gives adoption of hundreds of practices
• “Do you use practices to limit compaction on the farm?” etc…
• Data Envelope Analysis with principal components
Data Envelope Analysis with Principal
Components
• Principal Components (PC)
• Many questions are closely related and highly correlated
• Use the principal components to reduce the number of variables
• Collapse the 50 pest management questions down to a few PC’s
• The data itself gives the weight for each question
• Data Envelope Analysis (DEA)
• Defines the “frontier” of the PC’s – the “best of the best”
• Distance from the frontier measures how much less sustainable a
set of practices is relative to the “best of the best”
• Use this distance from the frontier as a measure of sustainability
• Gives a numerical measure of sustainability that ranks each farmer
relative to peers
DEAPC and Sustainability
• Farmer adoption of
PC2
•
•
•
Room to Improve
Sustainability Metric
PC1
•
practices gives two PC’s:
PC1 and PC2
Plot these points: Each
farmer is a point
DEA frontier: outer
envelope of points
Radial distance from
origin to point measures
how sustainable a
farmer’s practices are
relative to best of the best
Distance from frontier is
room to improve
Sustainability Comparisons
2012
• Can calculate the
average, median, min
and max of the
sustainability metrics
for grower population
at different times
• Estimate distribution of
sustainability metrics
for grower population
at different times
• Measure improvement
over time by the shift in
sustainability metrics
and/or shifts in the
sustainability frontier
2007
PC2
2012
2007
PC1
Objective 2: Create and test sustainability
assessment tools and metrics
• Organize regional working groups of growers,
processors, and academics to develop regionallyappropriate sustainability assessment tools
• AJ Bussan, UW Madison Horticulture
• Fran Pierce, Washington St. U and AgInfomatics, Crop/Soil Sci
• Julie Kikkert, Cornell University Extension
• Refine data envelopment analysis with principle
components as sustainability metric for individual
growers and the grower population
• Paul Mitchell, UW Madison Ag and Applied Economics
• Fengxia Dong, UW Madison Ag and Applied Economics
Vegetable Acres Harvested for Sale, 2007
Objective 3: Validate and improve
production practices for sustainability
• Why would a grower adopt these practices unless they
improved his life (made him more money)?
• Need to validate these sustainable practices
• Show that farmers can move towards the frontier and make the
same profit, or
• Determine how much profit is lost if you move to the frontier, then
be sure market compensates
• Field Trials to compare new systems to existing systems: how do
they perform in terms of costs, yield, risk, quality and recovery?
• Sustainability means working to do better
• Need research to develop new production practices to push the
frontier further outward
• Small Plot Research to improve production
Objective 3: Validate and improve
production practices for sustainability
• Conduct field-scale system-validation trials of
selected practices with collaborating growers and
processors in each region
• AJ Bussan, UW Madison Horticulture
• Fran Pierce, Washington St. U and AgInfomatics, Crop/Soil Sci
• Julie Kikkert, Cornell University Extension
• Looking for Processors and Farms that doing on farm
trials to evaluate new production systems to collaborate
• Track costs (inputs, additional harvest)
• Track yield, quality and recovery, and variability
• Demonstrate that growers can move closer to the frontier and that
we can push the frontier further outward
Objective 3: Validate and improve
production practices for sustainability
• Coordinate small plot studies with growers and
processors to identify practices appropriate to
each region
Pesticide delivery: Amanda Gevens and Russ Groves
Nutrient use efficiency: Matt Ruark
Water use efficiency: ???
• Looking for Processors and Farms that are doing
small plot research to improve production to
collaborate on this project
Objective 4: Integrate project findings to
foster transformation of industry
• Need to put the pieces together
• Specifics of consumer demand, sustainability assessment &
metrics, and optimized production practices
• Need an integrated research and outreach strategy to
address barriers to sustainably grown processing
vegetables in each region
• Not all regions are equal: lots of variation in institutional
capacity at universities, USDA, extension, processors,
farmers
Objective 4: Integrate project findings to
foster transformation of industry
• Assess institutional capacities to deliver technical assistance
and education to growers and processors
• Pete Nowak, UW Madison Nelson Institute and AgInfomatics
• Create strategic recommendations and outreach activities by
region to address barriers to sustainable processing vegetables
• Pete Nowak, UW Madison Nelson Institute and AgInfomatics
• “Market Foundations for Sustainable Vegetables” conference to
link growers, processors, wholesalers and retailers
• Jed Colquhuon, UW Madison Horticulture and WISA
• Assess impact of sustainable processing vegetable production
on the rural economy and employment
• Paul Mitchell, UW Madison Ag and Applied Economics
What we need from you! SCRI Match
• Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) has a matching
requirement: for each dollar of federal money received,
must have a dollar of non-federal match
• Gets academics and industry working tougher doing research
• Match generated by taking credit for the work you are
already doing
• Some of you did this last time around
• Serve on project advisory board
• Time spent at a couple meetings a year, plus travel costs
• Time outside meetings preparing and following-up afterward
SCRI Match
• On-Farm Trials: Processors and Farms doing on farm
trials to evaluate new production systems for sweet corn,
snap beans, or other processing vegetables
• Time and additional input costs to differentially managing fields
• Time to track costs, yield, quality and recovery
• Time to organize and analyze the data
• Small-Plot Research: Processors and Farms running
research plots to improve production systems for sweet
corn, snap beans, or other processing vegetables
• Time and costs of running research trials
• UW wants very specific letters, spelling out all the details
• Templates and spreadsheets to help
Summary
• If you are interested, what we need from you is
• Letter of Matching Support, or
• Letter of Support (if no match)
• Questions/Comments?
• Paul Mitchell
• Office: 608-265-6514
• Cell: 608-320-1162
• pdmitchell@wisc.edu