Archive

August 2007

Hitting the Road to Hear Producers Concerns and Opportunities

Over the past week, I have visited 10 Missouri counties and logged nearly 2000 miles as part of a tour of Missouri agriculture. Opportunities like this allow me to meet with many innovative producers around the state and discuss their needs and concerns. We saw farms that produced everything from rice, beef and grapes to a biomass energy plant, meat processing facility and wood processor. Despite all of this travel, we hardly scratched the surface of the state’s leading industry.

Gov. Matt Blunt asked that we hit the road and begin a dialog with producers around the state to better understand the challenges that they are facing. Additionally, the tour was a great opportunity to hear concerns as well as see first hand what opportunities Missouri farmers are pursuing.

We began our agriculture tour at a beef farm in Saline County – a great place to kick off the four-day event. This region has truly embraced agriculture and county leaders and elected officials in this area are encouraging livestock operations to grow and expand because they see the positive impacts it has on the regional economy.

From there, we visited a meat processor in Alma where we met a progressive group of producers who have created a branded premium product that chefs from fine restaurants are asking to include on their menus. Their leadership and vision is an example to us all of the promise of value-added agriculture and its impact on the future of our agricultural industry.

A stop in Bates and Vernon counties showed us how Mother Nature can truly devastate agriculture land. Many acres of row crops were washed away in the flood waters that hit the area. We were able to discuss options with these producers and offer ways that our department could be helpful in their recovery process.

The second day of the tour began with a breakfast and discussion with students from the Cassville, Purdy and Wheaton FFA Chapters and an important opportunity to visit with these young leaders. The future of our agriculture industry is within their hands and we need students like these to stay engaged and committed to agriculture as they continue in their education and upcoming careers.

We visited a grass fed dairy in Purdy, Missouri, an operation where they have an intensive grazing rotation to feed 250 head. Most impressively, we were there on a warm July morning and there was no odor. This represents a fairly new approach to dairy in Missouri and it takes advantage of our pastures. I look forward to continuing to work with these industry leaders in furthering Missouri dairy operations.

A trip to Cuba showed us the wood products manufacturing sector of Missouri’s agricultural industry and allowed us to tour one of the state’s top ten largest manufacturing sectors – the forest products industry.

We ended the first two day of our tour at a winery in Hermann where we visited the vineyard to see a follow-up to the freeze damage that occurred in the spring. Although the freeze didn’t impact the grape growers as badly as we once thought, we gained a better understanding as the long road ahead to vineyard recovery.

The last two days of our agriculture tour were held in Southeast Missouri where Gov. Blunt and I sat down in Sikeston at a roundtable discussion with producers and agriculture leaders and discussed their unique needs as well as their concerns facing the industry. Our final stop took us to a rice farm in Steele where we met with area producers about crop production.

Missouri ’s farm families have a good story to tell and it’s a story of innovation and entrepreneurship. This agriculture tour gave producers an opportunity for their voices to be heard. I came back to my office with lots of ideas and renewed enthusiasm and will continue to work with the department’s divisions to enhance and promote production agriculture in Missouri.

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