MINTO, Man. – John Cranfield looks at consumer attitudes about food and sees opportunity.
In Canada, the United States and Europe, chemicals used in crop production top the list of consumer concerns about food, said Cranfield, an agricultural economist at the University of Manitoba.
That is helping push demand for so-called environmental foods and is opening new markets for farmers.
“The consumer perception is that pesticide residues are bad,” Cranfield told producers last week. “You need to lever that. You need to take advantage of that.”
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Cranfield was speaking at a workshop organized by Pesticide Free Production Canada, a grassroots organization that wants to improve returns to farmers while reducing the use of crop pesticides.
He was one of several people who spoke at the Nov. 21 workshop attended by about 65 producers. Part of the workshop focused on production, but there was also an emphasis on marketing.
“Most products fail due to a lack of market research and a failure to understand what consumers want,” said Mavis McPhail, a home economist with Manitoba Agriculture’s marketing and farm business branch.
McPhail told workshop participants to “focus on the buyer. Focus on what you think are the benefits to the buyer.”
Cranfield is planning a survey to gauge consumers’ thoughts on the concept of pesticide-free production. The survey will be mailed in December and January to consumers in Winnipeg, Calgary and Toronto. An analysis of the results will be done next fall.
Cranfield’s work will help reveal what the market is for foods manufactured from crops with pesticide-free production. It should also tell whether consumers might pay a premium for those foods.
“My suspicion is that consumers will not be willing to pay more,” Cranfield said. “This is the kind of thing where time will tell.”
Interest in pesticide-free production is increasing among Manitoba’s farmers and is spreading across the Prairies. Rising input costs and low grain prices are forcing producers to look more closely at their bottom lines.
Robert Stevenson, a Kenton, Man., farmer, remembers a time 15 years ago when pesticides cost him as little as $10 per acre. Those costs now have risen to more than $25 an acre.
“It’s just climbing in a straight line,” he said of the rising costs. “When you look at the value of our crops, that isn’t sustainable.”
The idea of growing crops without pesticides is not new. What is new is that farmers and researchers see an opportunity to market the concept of pesticide-free production.
Proponents believe a market niche can be created somewhere between crops grown organically and those grown conventionally.
David Chapman, an independent broker who was formerly with United Grain Growers, said he is enthused.
“I think you’ve got the world by the tail,” he told the worksho-10-P. “I get so excited when I think about pesticide-free production I nearly have an orgasm.”
The pesticide-free group is working in association with federal, provincial and university researchers. Studies that support pesticide-free production have been ongoing for several years.
Last week’s workshop placed more emphasis on weeds than on insect and fungus control. Doug Derksen, a research scientist at Agriculture Canada’s Brandon research centre, said the emphasis on weeds is justified. Of the pesticides used in Western Canada, more than 80 percent of them are herbicides, he said.
The first goal for Pesticide Free Production Canada is to find ways for growers to produce crops with fewer inputs. One of the concerns for those involved is the continuing decline in the number of farmers.
There are 28,000 farmers in Manitoba, said Rene Van Acker, of the University of Manitoba. That number has been declining at an average rate of eight percent a year since the 1940s. If the trend continues, there will be few farmers left in Manitoba 20 years from now, Van Acker said.
“If we do not change anything, this is where we’re going and there isn’t a lot of time.”
