Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that they will be investing $400 million for the creation of 12 new regional food business centers. Oregon State University will co-lead a $30 million center with Colorado State University that will serve Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. The goal of these centers is to help ranchers, farmers and other food businesses break into new markets as well as guide them through potential federal, state and local resources. Lauren Gwin is the interim director of the Center for Small Farms and Community Food. She joins us to share more on the goals of the centers and the impact they will have on the industry.
The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The US Department of Agriculture is giving out $400 million to create 12 new regional food business centers. Oregon State University is going to get a chunk of that money, $30 million to help lead a center with Colorado State University. They’ll support ranchers, farmers, and other food creators in the Northwest and the Rocky Mountains. Lauren Gwin is OSU’s lead on this project. She is the interim director of the university’s Center for Small Farms and Community Food Systems. Lauren Gwin, welcome.
Lauren Gwin: Thank you very much, Dave.
Miller: How did you and the team in Colorado figure out what to focus on?
Gwin: Well, first of all, I think it’s really important to say that we were selected together to run this six state center because we’ve been doing this work for many, many years with farmers and ranchers, all the folks you mentioned, and many organizations and agencies, people who have actually been building the local food economy, the regional food economy. And so the themes that we chose for the center were really things that had been bubbling up in recent years where we knew that there was a lot of interest.
Miller: Let’s stick then with climate resiliency. What’s an example of something that you’ll be able to do more of, or maybe do for the first time because of this new federal money and this beefed up collaboration?
Gwin: What we have seen is that there have been some great innovations in terms of production practices for climate resilience, whether we’re talking about heat resilience, drought, really uncertain weather, for us in the west exacerbating fire, floods, all sorts of pieces. There’s a lot of great work being done on production oriented strategies. It’s gonna be important in the long term for farmers to be resilient to be able to continue farming by incorporating those practices.
But what our center is doing is really trying to coordinate efforts across this broader region to where are the markets for this? How do we actually build the supply chains for this? How do we get these crops to market? How do we get them turned into products that people want to buy? And how do we make sure that the markets are actually rewarding farmers for producing these things, for growing these things? It’s really about the supply chain and market development.
“Climate-Smart” is a term that USDA has started using. It’s not really a term that’s known in the marketplace, and I don’t know that it will become a brand, but I think there are a lot of great ways that we can support producers and all these supply chain partners and the end marketers in making sure that these products are in stores, available, et cetera. Does that help?
Miller: Yeah, but it just brings up many more questions in my mind. For example, let’s say there’s some new way to grow onions that require less water. Is the idea that you have to figure out a way to get consumers maybe to pay more for an onion that has the “Climate-Smart onion” sticker on it?
Gwin: I’ve been working with these different brands and certifications for a long time. For many years, I worked on what we might call alternative or niche meat and poultry brands, folks who would get different certifications and try to get a premium in the marketplace. And those are important. But I have really come to see over time that what really has to happen is that a new production practice really actually has to benefit the grower in terms of their ability to continue farming. I think that certifications are really important to signal how things are grown, what matters to those growers, and for consumers to know that that’s happening on the ground. And if the production practices themselves can’t actually make the farm more viable in the long run, I don’t think that farmers are likely to do it.
That said, it’s really not just about developing brands or certifications, it’s really about what kind of processing and distribution infrastructure do we have? What is the right scale for it, depending on the different crops that we’re talking about.
One of the other themes that we’re working on, one of the big pieces of it is the Western Meat School. That’s part of what we call resilient animal protein supply chains. I know that sounds kind of wonky. Basically what we’re trying to say is it’s not just meat, it’s poultry. We are looking to work with some really innovative seafood companies, and there’s just great work happening I know here in the Pacific Northwest Coast.
I think a lot of folks have said “ok, if we just build a processing facility, we are going to have a market.”
Miller: If there’s a new place to slaughter chickens, say-
Gwin: That somehow you’re going to have a market, right? And having the right size processing facility, having the right services, all those are crucial to get to market. But you as a producer or a group of producers needs to actually put a business together that can move a significant volume of animals and meat and poultry through the market. Rebecca Thistlethwaite is the director of the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network. She’s developed an excellent Western Meat School that really helps producers evaluate if they want to be in the meat business, what kind of meat business they wanna be in, and what are the tools they need to do that? So there’s an opportunity with this new regional food business center to expand the reach of that Western Meat School.
Miller: Embedded in so much of what you’re talking about here is you’re really focusing on the market aspect of sustainability, saying that none of this is going to work if the market won’t support it and if it doesn’t pencil out for producers. What role should government or academics play in this? Because I can imagine an argument saying that “the market” will itself figure this out, the messy business of capitalism. There will be winners and losers, and eventually the market will be sorted out. How much should academics or the USDA get involved?
Gwin: I guess I’d like to take you back to, where did these centers come from? The USDA has done a lot to support the conventional food and agriculture sector that we have today. And there has been a growing awareness over the years that small and mid scale growers play a really important role in that, that local food has a part to play. This is not just about “I want to know my farm or know my food,” this is about local businesses, this is about local economies. We have seen that there has been an increasing number of supports that have actually been made available to small and mid scale growers and businesses to these local and regional food sectors. And that is USDA’s evolution as an agency to serve all parts of agriculture.
Miller: As opposed to just Big Ag?
Gwin: Yeah. And I think there’s been a lot more than just “Big Ag” for a while. But this is really the agency dedicating more resources to supporting that. I wouldn’t say that we are going in trying to set prices, we certainly aren’t. What we are trying to do is provide support for these entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, and then participate in markets, and then get to create through their products and their outreach more demand. This is economic development, and this is business development.
So the opportunity to work at a six state region level is not that an individual grower in Oregon is necessarily gonna sell into a market in Montana or Idaho, but that we have a lot of producers and a lot of food businesses that are trying to address similar problems. They can learn from each other. We have a lot of folks who have been providing some great educational resources, whether it’s business planning or trying to design a supply chain process or coordination that meets the needs of the market and those growers. So we’re able to share those different innovations, practices, what works, what doesn’t. And in some cases, what we’re seeing is these different companies or organizations are learning what kind of infrastructure they can share...
Miller: Lauren Gwin, let’s talk again. Thanks very much.
Gwin: Thank you.
Miller: Lauren Gwin is the interim director of the Center for Small Farms and Community Food at Oregon State University.
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