produce placement

Listening to Bob Edwards on NPR this morning interviewing Morgan Spurlock of "Supersize Me" fame it occurred to me that produce placement is the next frontier of marketing.   Spurlock recently completed "Pom Wonderful, the Greatest Movie Ever Sold", which investigates tongue in cheek the wonderful world of product placement in television and the movies.  He told Edwards that even the supposed educational Channel 1 which is used in many schools sells advertising.  They have a captive audience of children who are being forced to watch advertisements as their teachers stand by helplessly.  At least they could be advertising carrots or kale.  Of course, the Pom Wonderful pomegranite drink is the focus of the movie, as well as Spurlock's #1 sponsor.  It makes all sorts of wild claims of enhancing sexual potency to reversing age related maladies and on and on.  However, on the eve of the movie's release, they were cited for misleading advertising.  Go figure.

wild weather

As we continue to deal with flooding here in upstate NY, it seems a little churlish to complain when the weather channel keeps showing scenes of utter devastation in the South.  I don't know what the crazy weather will do to agriculture in Alabama and Georgia, but I doubt the effects will be as lasting as the damage to the psyches of the people who were living the American dream one second and now are experiencing a nightmare of Dickensien proportions as they look for loved ones who died in the storms.

After the deluge

Every river in the North Country of upstate New York is at or above flood stage, and Lake Champlain is reclaiming low lying areas along its shoreline.  And still the rains come.  Most of the cropland visible from Rte. 87 on a recent drive to the Canadian border from Plattsburgh was either underwater or so saturated it made no difference.  It will be May next week and the long range forecast is for showers through the middle of next week.  Farmers need the heavy soils here in the Champlain valley to begin drying before the middle of May, or many crops will be delayed.  My own gardens which are reasonably well drained are barely workable, and constant rain and cool temperatures will rot most seed before it germinates.  Even the trees are holding back, waiting for a real taste of spring before releasing their tightly held buds.  In farming, as in life, timing is everything.  I hope Mother Nature gets in sync with the season shortly, or the local veg deal will get very interesting.

oil and veg inflation

A commentator on  NPR allowed that he did not feel the effects of inflation were being measured accurately because the so called "volatile" indexes for food and fuel were not being taken into account...duh!   We live in a society addicted to cheap oil and we take it for granted, until the price shoots up and all the expenses cheap oil holds down come to light.  As a produce broker, and a tiny farmer, I can tell you petroleum is intimately involved in every aspect of farming.  From the oil required to deliver the seed, heat the greenhouse, run the tractor, produce the fertilizer, harvest and cool the crop, produce the packaging for the crop, move the crop to market, and on and on.  The cost of sending a tractor trailer load of produce from California to Boston has gone from $5000. to $8,000. in the last three months and some experts are predicting the price will rise to $10,000 or more this summer.  At that point the transport cost will exceed the cost of most of the produce being transported! These are  stuff of nightmares for politicians.

Driving into spring

360 miles is all it takes to drive from a dreary post winter imitation spring to the real thing.  I got up a 3 am on Tuesday and drove from Peru, NY to Cream Ridge, NJ to see a supplier and a customer.  It was raining and 50 degrees when I left and 80 and sunny on my arrival.  The trees were leafed out or blooming, the spring crop of spinach looks outstanding and summer feels like a promise, not a mirage.  Unfortunately, I had to get back into the car, drive 360 miles north to more rain and 50 degrees.  At least I have first hand observations to back up the calendar's promise.

Peas, Parsley and perserverance

Planted peas and parsley on Easter Sunday.  I probably should have planted them two weeks ago, but I doubt it would have done much good, since the weather has been so brutal.  The local crows were sitting in the trees bordering the garden, doubtlessly applauding my efforts at increasing their food supply, but I disappointed them by covering the completed efforts with remay cloth.  They will have to look elswhere for a snack.  Which leads to the third p in the title of this post.  Anyone involved in agriculture, from a modest micro farmer like myself to the largest corn and soybean growers in the midwest knows they will be tested from the moment they put seeds in the ground until the last bushel or tote is harvested.  Staying vigilant and perservering will not guarantee a bountiful harvest, but not doing so ensures failure.

Easter renewal

Having done the Catholic school thing from grades 1-8, Easter is burned into my DNA.  From Sister Esther in first grade to Sister Therese Rosaire in 8th, my fellow sufferers and I were hammered with the crucifixion and the resurrection from the first Sunday in Advent, through the holy days until the glorious event.  Little did I know that almost every major religion has a hero who sacrifices his life for his people and is resurrected as an example of what prayer (and a little gelt for the religious authorities) can do for you.  And naturally, this rite takes place with spring as the backdrop.  The earth comes back to life after winter, etc.  I think the Jesus who actually lived, as opposed to the one who is forced upon us, would be horrified to see what the average evangelical megachurch is espousing in his name on this holiest of Sundays.

spingtime blues

As in you turn blue if you are outside for any considerable time.  Saturday and it's 38 degrees at 2 p.m.  I transplanted a number of flower seedlings (snaps, celosia, pincushion flowers) and some veg plants and let Mother Nature do the watering for me, but 30 MPH winds are not doing them any favors at this point.  Meanwhile, the cold frame sash is being blown all over the yard.  Usually by this time of the season we have had a couple of warm days to get everyone thinking about spring.  On the bright side, the fruit trees will not bud out early and get frostbite.   Still, when snow and sleet is slanting sideways across the yard it's hard to imagine spring, let alone summer.  At least the garlic is up and growing, a testimony to the coming season.

Easter in the produce and farming biz

Once again the Easter "rush" has failed to materialize in the produce world.  As one wag in the Hunt's Point market put it "we took Easter in the keister".  The traditional drivers of produce sales in the Northeast are Jews and Italians.  the Jewish passover holiday is usually not vegetable oriented and the Italian catholics are still fasting for Lent (at least the older ones).  One or two items are on sale and short, but in general, there is plenty of cheap produce to go around.   Meanwhile, the weather is acting more like March than April.  If the rains continue and the air and ground temperatures remain low, the farmers in the Northeast and Midwest are going to be late getting in their summer crops.  The fun never ends.

reflections on civic duty

Went to first ever town  hall meeting with Faith (my wife).  After seeing the horrific uncivil tea party mobs which overran town halls all over the country last year, I was braced for some drama.  Fortunately, I was disappointed.  Our local congressman is a moderate Democrat who played host to a small crowd of baby boomers who were just trying to make sense of the soap opera that D.C. has become.  Aside from a couple of harmless cranks, most of the questioners had parochial concerns, or suggestions for grand solutions to intractable problems.  He set a limit of one hour of questions and we felt that was probably a good amount of time.  More would have been repetitive, although the entertainment quotient was relatively high.  We left the meeting feeling that there is hope for representative democracy.

the east coast advantage

Ever since lettuce growers in Salinas blew tons of ice over railcars of lettuce and shipped to the population centers on the East Coast, more and more of the produce Americans eat has been grown in the West.  With the growth of suburbs and exurbs, the prime farmland surrounding the Megalopolis in the Northeast has been swallowed by development and many growers have changed from wholesale suppliers to ag entertainers.  This has accelerated the stampede to the west.  Even in the height of the summer growing season, more veggies come from Canadian suppliers than local east coast growers, at least in the Northeast.   Now comes the era of $5.00 diesel fuel and a growing scarcity of trucks to haul western produce.  When freight from the West to New York is $10,000 and the value of the load is $5,000, there is a disaster scenario for a western grower if there is any problems with his produce.  He could easily be billed for the freight and receive nothing for his produce.  Railcars are not a cheap alternative, especially for highly perishable items.   Is it time for eastern growers from Florida to Prince Edward Island and Georgia to Wisconsin to step up production and can they?

U.S. Government and the Ag World

This may be a stretch, but the current fuss about the long term U.S. debt looks a lot like the unsustainable agriculture practiced my many, if not most farms in the country today.  What both systems do is keep borrowing, the country from foreigners and the farms from the soil.  Both are depleting their credit and will have to deal with the consequences some day.  As I write this, farmers all over the midwest are bulldozing windbreaks and grassed waterways to plant the maximum amount of land in corn and soybeans.  Megatons of midwest soil will be washed into the Mississippi and wind up in the Gulf of Mexico and overall fertility of the cornbelt will continue to decline.   The government is doing the same thing with our credit in the world.  Both systems need to increase inputs and diversify; i.e. conserve the soil and take care of the citizens.  Unfortunately, the farmers are trapped in a soil eroding paradigm and the government in a people eroding, tax cutting scheme.  Neither system is sustainable.

Not so springy

Woke up to a little snow on the grass this morning.  The weather authorities have been saying this will be a slow starting spring and we will have below normal temps through May.  But farmers and gardeners are notorious for ignoring ambient conditions and doing things by the calendar, trusting mother nature to cover up our over anxious attempts to stay on schedule.  Unless things turn around in a hurry, we will be late starting this season for most vegetables.  I planted carrots and beets on Sat., but with soil temps hovering in the 40s, I'll be combing early season weeds to find the sprouting veggies in about 3 weeks.

Local Produce

The local paper (pardon the irony) has an article on local produce.  To those of us in the produce business, especially on the brokerage side, the term local has always been a sticky concept.  When my grandfather farmed on Long Island in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, all produce, like politics was local.  Then the farmers in Salinas, Ca. figured out how to ship lettuce across the county.  Since then, the consumer has had a tough time finding out how local their produce really is.   Even my "local" farmers market has a couple of carpetbaggers who buy wholesale produce in Albany and pass it off as local.   As a grower busting my back to pick, wash and trundle my produce to the market on Sat. morning it is somewhat disheartening to see these foreigner veggies get passed off as local when they were probably harvested 3-4 days previously.  Vermont seems to have the best handle on the situation, calling nothing local unless it was harvested within 30 miles of  the market, or within the state.

Grand theft t;omato

Who would have imagined thieves stealing produce.  It's almost a parody.  It seems a trucking company was set up in S. Florida specifically to pick up loads of tomatoes and at least one load of meat, all of which were worth at least $40,000 per load and disappear into the void.  Probably leased the trucks under assumed names and set up a shell company with forged documents to deceive the truck brokers who hired them to pick up the loads.   With truck supply being tight, and the company accepting the first offer from the brokers, they loaded at least 5 loads of meat and produce destined for locations several days travel from Florida and promptly disappeared.  Obviously they had buyers lined up ahead of time.  Still, it seems like a lot of effort and money expended up front for a quarter million dollars payoff.  Plus a lot of loose ends for the authorities to follow.  In the end, these thieves will find out what farmers already know...it's hard to get rich on produce!

Border security

As a broker and consultant, I am very familiar with the vagaries of crossing the U.S.-Canadian border at several posts.  For the most part, the guards on both sides are compentent and alert, however, I wonder how secure even this border between two of the friendliest nations of the world can be.   I recently read a document from U.S. customs directed at exporters from Canada to the U.S.  Everything contained in the text was unexceptionally thoughtful and intended to help the exporter tighten the security around his packing shed and associated buildings.  However, once the truck leaves the compound, it is totally independent until the driver makes delivery on the American side.  Literally thousands of tractor trailers cross the border each way every day.  Just saying.

The progressive vision thing

I haven't seen or heard it yet, but it looks like the President stepped up and decided to stand for something.  After the mean spirited budget proposed by Ayn Rand fanboy Paul Ryan it is refreshing to see someone who doesn't want to put granny and everyone else who needs help on an ice floe to nowhere! (especially with global warming)  We'll see if he follows through, but at least for now, someone is sticking up for those of us without a well paid lobbyist.

In the Shark Tank

Ah spring!  The smell of blood in the water.  Farmers in New York, Quebec and Ontario eagerly anticipate the coming of the planting season and hope for that perfect storm of customer demand, perfect weather and bumper crops.  Many will gather this week in Montreal for the Canadian Produce Marketing Association Trade Show.  And the sharks from the chain stores, the produce wholesalers in Boston, N.Y. and Philadelphia will attend also.  The usual promises will be made and the later broken.  Everyone will feel the anticipation.  The difference is the kind of anticipation each side feels.

Spring Fling

It was a wild Monday in the North Country.  Overnight thunderstorms turned the lazy creeks to rivers and the rivers to raging torrents.  I took a ride to see Ralph Child in Malone, N.Y. this afternoon and the Great Chazy river looked like a grade 5 rapid.  It was 75 degrees and a 30 MPH wind was rapidly melting the remaining snow, although Chazy and Chateaugay lakes still have some ice on the surface.  The rest of the week promises to remain mild, so young farmers  (and older ones also) turn to thoughts of planting.

Master's Sunday

   It was a great day for the Gs, gardening and golfing.  I got onions and shallots planted, trimmed most of the fruit trees and hit a bucket of balls at the local driving range.  We are in the mid to upper 50s here in beautiful Peru, N.Y.  Here's hoping tomorrow at the office will be as productive.  With Passover and Easter in the offing, the veg business should pick up, but it has been a tough slog for the past couple of weeks.  The spring mix deal in Florida has been brutal with high temps and tropical rainstorms impacting quality.  Of course, that means every chain store we deal with will want to put baby leaf salad on special for the next two weeks.  We live in interesting times.

Time to eat your veggies

What's happening out there in America?  The farm gate price of almost every vegetable in America is falling like Glenn Beck's ratings on Fox.  A month ago, 24 ct cello lettuce was $36.00/case FOB California.  Now it is $6.00/case and buyers are scarce on the ground.  Ditto celery, romaine, and broccoli.  Unfortunately, these prices are not reflected at the grocery store.  This drives customers away which leads to further price cuts and an unvirtuous circle is reinforced.  It is the type of downward spiral which makes a produce broker despair.  But enough of gloom;  the east coast savoy spinach deal is about to start.  Fresh, local and good for you.  It's  the trifecta of the produce world.  Coming soon to a store near you.

April in Paradise

Mother Nature is still not finished with her winter agenda.  We have snow showers in the forecast all week, but when the sun comes out it feels like spring.  Started some veg seedlings in the coldframe; broccoli, cabbage, lettuces, onions, etc.  At least it feels like I have faith in summer.