By Repps Hudson, quotes Mary Hendrickson
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
July 10, 2005
Three years ago, Chris and Traci Canby wanted to realize their dream of growing organic tomato plants.
The parents of three small boys applied for a $3,000 grant from the Missouri Department of Agriculture.
When department officials approved the application, the Canbys used the money to build a small greenhouse next to their home on 3 acres near Union.
Today, the Canby family is among the steady vendors at the Clayton Farmers Market, where they sell tomatoes, eggplant and other certified organic vegetables.
"I could not have afforded (the greenhouse) without the grant," Chris Canby said.
One innovation they tried: In the winter, they run their clothes dryer at night so the exhaust heats the greenhouse. The Canbys are among more than 200 farmers and growers around the state who have benefited since 1995 from the state's sustainable ag program.
But as of July 1, the state is no longer providing money for such creative ideas for small family-owned farms. On June 23, Gov. Matt Blunt used his line-item veto power to cut $44,955 for the sustainable agriculture demonstration award program from the department's budget.
For the current fiscal year that began July 1, the department's discretionary budget was cut nearly 14 percent, to $8.5 million from $9.8 million. The organic certification program also was eliminated.
"This veto eliminates a program that appears to have resulted in very few viable sustainable agriculture operations, and is necessary to ensure a balanced budget," said Blunt's veto message.
Those are troubling words for some of the state's small farmers.
"It's sad, because as you look at Missouri, there are two thoughts," said Barb Buchmayer, who with her husband, Kerry, has an organic dairy with 65 cows near Purdin in the north central part of the state. "You can get bigger. You can add acres. Or you can try to add value. A lot of those grants went to people who want to add value to their farm products."
The Buchmayers got a $3,000 grant to help set up their dairy and $4,500 to buy a 250-gallon churn for their mail-order butter business.
"It certainly feels like the governor is trying to dismantle the whole program that has helped family farms," said Mary Hendrickson, a rural sociologist with the University of Missouri Extension.
Joan Benjamin, director of the sustainable ag grant program until earlier this year, disputed Blunt's idea that the program had few viable results. She now runs a similar program from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a 12-state region.
"They aren't large," Benjamin said of the farm projects the Missouri agency funded. "But they have a large impact. You get three to four times return on investment. Farmers typically invest large amounts of their own time and labor. We have found that even with projects that didn't work out, the producers learn so much," she added.
Fred Ferrell, agriculture department director, urged farmers who have gained from the program to "get engaged in politics.
"Lobby us. Show us how valuable your projects are for agriculture," said Ferrell, a grain and livestock farmer from Charleston, in the Bootheel.
Like many other farmers and observers, he noted that sustainable and organic farming are a growing trend nationwide.
"I can say that timing is everything," he said. "It doesn't mean those cuts will be for next (fiscal) year."
Leslie Holloway, the Jefferson City lobbyist for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state's mainline farm group with 100,000 member families, said her organization has a growing number of members who use sustainable or organic farm practices.
"We think about it more than we used to," she said, adding that the farm bureau's lobbying positions originate at the county level, where members propose and debate positions before adopting them.
Agriculture brings in more than $5 billion to the state each year.
With nearly 107,000 farms in 2002, according to the latest Census of Agriculture, Missouri has the second-largest number of farms in the United States, after Texas. Gene Danekas, state statistician for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said 98 percent of those farms are family-owned.
Over the last decade, the state handed out more than $700,000 to small farmers who wanted to try out their ideas. Some turned into successful businesses, including Mark and Julie Price's A Taste of the Kingdom venture near Kingdom City.
The Prices, formerly corporate lawyers, use several varieties of Missouri-grown hot peppers in a wide selection of condiments they developed in their test kitchen. They sell nationally through Bass Pro Shops and Whole Foods.
At first glance, other ventures, like the penned pheasants Linus Hoffmeister raised between rows of wine grapes for his Ste. Genevieve Winery, were less successful.
Hoffmeister's idea, for which he received a $3,000 grant, was to use the penned up pheasants to keep the weeds and insects down between his vines. He ran into problems when he tried to slaughter and process such a small number of birds, though.
Yet, he said, the experience taught him how to raise chickens in moveable pens.
His hens now produce eggs, which he gives to his family, neighbors and friends.
Not all farmers who got the grants say they were essential to their success.
Buchmayer, for instance, said she and her husband invested "hundreds of thousands of dollars anyway" in setting up their organic dairy.
"It was great to have people behind you," she said. "It was money you didn't have to pay."
Benjamin and program officials monitored each grant recipient, who had to account for all expenses and then write a report on the project, as well as speak to other farmers and farm groups about what they had learned. The department published the project results.
A leading advocate of the small-farm movement in Missouri is John E. Ikerd, professor emeritus of ag economics at the University of Missouri. He's critical of Blunt's cuts for sustainable and organic programs.
"I think he's basically catering to the agribusiness interests in the state," Ikerd said. "He's ignoring the needs of small farmers."
Ikerd said public funds should be used to further the interests of all people, which he believes lie with promoting the welfare of small family farmers.
"I think (the state's agriculture budget) should provide money to do things that are in the public interest," he said. "Now they're using the government to subsidize things for which there is already plenty of money."
Grants under Missouri's Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Award Program
(1995-2005)
1995 - 2000
23 grants of up to $3,000 each a year
Total each year: $69,000
2001
30 grants of up to $4,500 each
Total for 2001: $135,000, plus $10,000 to compile and publish reports on individual projects
2002-2003
23 grants of up to $3,000 each a year
2004
11 grants of up to $3,000 each
2005
11 grants of up to $3,000 each
2006
Gov. Matt Blunt vetoed $44,955 for the program, which would have included 11 grants and administrative costs.