Just a glance at the application form for the Missouri Department of Agriculture's "AgriMissouri" marketing program reveals the wide selection of Missouri-grown and processed products; categories range from fresh fruits and vegetables to sauces, jellies and honey, meat and dairy products, agritourism ventures and even non-food items like cleaning supplies.
The director of the program, Sarah Gehring, said AgriMissouri is up to 285 members, over half of which are farmers and ranchers. For a lot of them, she said, "this is serving as kind of a second income or value-added, enhancing the farm income."
A $50 fee – $30 for farmers' market participants, waived if they belong to the state association – gets you in the door; a business also has to be based in Missouri and make a majority of its marketing decisions there. The entrepreneur also has to either manufacture a Missouri food product, or use ingredients derived from Missouri agricultural products. Gehring said her members police themselves: "If someone is not using Missouri products, or not getting their product produced here in the state, we will find out about it."
Lane McConnell, who handles farmers markets, agritourism and organic foods promotion for MDA, said there's been a "huge increase" in alternative meat and poultry production in Missouri, as well as in marketing outlets for those farmers. "A lot of producers are turning to things like grass-fed beef or pasture poultry," she said, "and finding niche markets to sell them at, whether that be at their local farmers' market, whether that be to local chefs in larger cities, or even to schools in some cases."
McConnell said many producers with registered or commercial cattle herds are turning to specialty markets like grass-fed and organic beef, the latter primarily here in southwest Missouri.
They're getting more money for the product, she said, and there's consumer demand; for many producers, it's become their primary enterprise. "Some of these folks are younger, too, that are getting into this," she said. "A lot of younger folks are wanting to get into agriculture, and this is a way that they can enter into agriculture."
Producers of organic or grass-fed beef will typically take the cattle to a certified processor; their customers can pick up their orders there. McConnell said a few producers, who sell both on the Internet and at farmers' markets, take orders on the Web and have their customers pick up the beef at the market. There are also a few AgriMissouri members who sell further processed meats, like jerky or sausage; those vendors have to comply with state Department of Health requirements and go through training.
The membership fees, plus state funding, pay for some promotional materials; MDA provides stickers and computer graphics bearing the logo, and sells items like banners and signs at cost. This year, Gehring said, they also have canvas bags, as a salute to the Green movement. Members also get a page on the AgriMissouri Web site's On-Line Buyers' Guide, where they can describe their company and products, list where their products are sold or the hours of their retail operation, and link to their own Web sites.
And, Gehring said, she advises members who market beef to combine the AgriMissouri logo with a second slogan: Buy Local. She said, "I think part of the attributes of buying grass-fed beef are that it is a local product, you know where that product's come from, and by using our logo you're showing that it's from Missouri."
