April 11, 2014
Contact:
Renee Threlfall, Ozark Food Processors Association
479-575-4607 / ofpa@uark.edu
Dave Edmark, Agricultural Communication Services
479-575-6940 / dedmark@uark.edu
Local foods highlight discussions at OFPA convention
SPRINGDALE, Ark. – An “Arkansas Grown” branding program has been
launched by the state to help consumers identify locally grown food, Arkansas
Agriculture Secretary Butch Calhoun told the Ozark Food Processors Association
convention on April 9.
“This program is going to grow,” Calhoun said during his address to the OFPA’s
108th Annual Convention and Exposition with the theme of “Farm to Fork: Going Local.”
Calhoun said the branding is being used by producers, retailers and restaurants
statewide. Starting in May the program will be featured both in a mobile app and a state
food and farm guide to be published.
The program’s website at http://arkansasgrown.org provides details on how
Arkansas residents may list their marketing information there and enable potential
buyers to locate producers in the state. It also has a form so producers may apply to use
the Arkansas Grown branding logo. The department also publishes an annual magazine,
Arkansas Grown, that highlights local producers’ efforts.
Calhoun said Arkansas agriculture is poised to help meet world agricultural
demands in coming decades as global population increases. The state’s climate, water,
infrastructure, research efforts and producers are all assets. “We’re in a great position,”
he said. “We just need to keep doing what we do.”
Mark Cochran, UA System Vice President for Agriculture, welcomed the audience
to the convention and noted the theme of local foods. Farm-to-fork agricultural issues
comprise an emerging area in which the Division of Agriculture is adjusting its programs,
he said. Cochran cited figures from the 2012 federal Census of Agriculture that showed
direct sales of product by Arkansas farmers had reached about $2 million.
“It’s a growing entity and an area with promise,” Cochran said. He also pointed to
the Food Innovation Center operated by the Division of Agriculture through the Food
Science Department as an example of providing services to small startup food
businesses.
Wal-Mart Stores defines “local” as a product grown and sold in the same state,
said Lea Jepson, the company’s senior director for temperate vegetables and floral.
Some farmers deliver their products directly to a particular store and others deal through
one or more of the 42 distribution centers across the nation. It’s a challenge for Wal-Mart
to buy from thousands of farmers but customers appreciate it, Jepson said.
Much of the agricultural product that Wal-Mart buys from farmers comes from
Washington, California, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Jepson said the company hopes to
get more products from farmers elsewhere in the nation who are closer to its distribution
centers and stores.
One such farmer who began that way was Dave Sargent, who grows produce at
Sargent Farms in Prairie Grove. He told the OFPA that he started 14 years ago by
selling to one Wal-Mart; then he got a request to sell to two more. The company
headquarters later asked him to sell to all 13 stores in the district. Then he expanded to
supply the Clarksville distribution center. “I just kept plowing more ground,” he said. Last
year he shipped his produce to one-fourth of Wal-Mart’s distribution centers.
Sargent said he hoped for further development of environmentally controlled
underground growing areas in which a one-acre plot with controlled lighting can produce
more than the output on multiple acres above ground. Such advancements will be
necessary to feed the world in the future. “We can do it larger, faster and safer,” he said.
The general public’s increasing distance from farms is partly responsible for
popular misconceptions about the role of animals in food production, said Yvonne
Thaxton, director of the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing at the University of Arkansas
System Division of Agriculture. “We have a growing disconnect with production
agriculture and people have less direct contact with farm animals,” she said.
Exercising proper animal welfare practices is not only the right thing to do but
also improves animal performance, Thaxton said. She urged people in agriculture to
explain the concept to those who are unfamiliar with the farm operations. “Get the story
out through small groups of people you associate with,” she said.
The OFPA convention opened April 8 with its annual golf tournament held at
Shadow Valley Country Club in Rogers. Forty-four golfers played in the event with
proceeds benefiting the OFPA scholarship fund. Scholarships sponsored by OFPA and
its members were awarded to five students from the University of Arkansas Food
Science Department. In addition, eight students participated in a scientific poster
competition. The convention had 57 exhibitors and 300 attendees.