The New Agriculture Network's on-line newsletter with seasonal advice for field crop and vegetable growers interested in organic agriculture.
Vol. 2, No. 8 - August 11, 2005
In this issue
Understanding today’s organic consumer
Jennifer Dennis, Departments of Horticulture & Landscape Architecture and Agricultural Economics, Purdue University
Whether a grower sells directly to consumers or chooses to use an intermediary, knowing something about the end consumer is important. Marketers use the principle of target marketing to help separate common characteristics and traits about groups of consumers or segments. Traditionally, there are three ways to segment a consumer: 1) demographics, 2) psychographics and 3) behavior. This article uses the three segmentation variables to create a profile of the average organic consumer.
Demographics are comprised of information such as age, gender, income, geography, race and ethnicity. In the past, the organic consumer had been characterized as a married suburban housewife in her 30s or 40s with children, a college degree, liberal leanings and above average spending power (Kitty, 2004). Today, the produce organic consumer can be defined demographically as 18-39, Caucasian, male, college-educated, parent of young children, and predominately a resident of the Western half of the United States (The Packer, 2005). Reports have also shown H ispanic consumers are significantly more interested in natural and organic products (National Marketing Institute, 2003). Although demographics are one way to identify potential customers, recent reports suggest demographics are less of a factor in segmenting and targeting organic consumers than psychographics and behavior variables. The accompanying table serves as an example of a demographic profile of selected organic consumers.
Psychographics refer to the attitudes, interests or opinions of the customer in question. In other words, psychographics show consumer motivation or drivers of behavior such as why people buy brand names such as Coke verses private label such as Kroger Cola. Values comprise an important part of the decision-making process within organic consumption. Some researchers think increasing values and opinions from sources such as Consumer Reports help frame opinions and attitudes about organic products. The Consumer Reports’ findings of pesticide contamination in conventionally grown produce, a growing concern about the use of rBGH (growth hormone) in milk production and an increasing awareness of genetically modified crops may have contributed to attitudes toward organic and may help to differentiate why some consumers choose organics over conventional food (Food Processing Center, 2001). For example, a University of California – Davis study showed there were significant differences in the attitudes and opinions of organic consumers. Purchasers of organic products highly value attributes such as safety, the environmental impacts of agricultural production practices, general health and nutrition impacts, freshness and flavor. This means as a grower or business positions their products to consumers, advertising or conversational points that help to draw consumers to organic products should focus on safety, nutrition and sustainability.
Other sources have also confirmed values and attitudes are important to organic consumption. According to Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), values of the organic consumer are focused on concerns about food products and agriculture methods and individuals concerned around personal health of themselves and their families. Key phrases for the motivated organic consumer include nutritionally savvy, environmentally conscious and health-focused. The Harman Group, a marketing research firm based out of Washington, states the motivations for organic purchases include health and nutrition, taste, and food safety.
Behavior is the last segmentation variable that refers to frequency of use of a particular product. The National Marketing Institute states there are approximately 43% of Americans that can be classified into organic users (Organic Trade Association, 2001). Of these, 6.3% are core users and have used organic products for more than three years and at least once per week. Heavy users comprise 4.7% and use organic products once or more a day. (To gather the demographics of behavioral core and heavy organic users, please refer to the Organic Consumer Trends Report. Approximate costs are $1,000.) Although little information is available on usage, growers that use direct marketing can ask customers directly how often their customers use organic products or can count how many times consumers come back for organic products. Growers that use intermediaries can talk to retailers or read articles that may provide this information.
References:
Food Processing Center, University of Nebraska – Lincoln. 2001. “Attracting Consumers with Locally Grown Foods” http://www.foodmap.unl.edu/report_files/Locally_Grown_Consumer_Survey_Report.pdf
Jolly, Desmond A. 1987. Consumer Profiles of Buyers and Non-Buyers
of Organic Produce” http://www.sfc.ucdavis.edu/research/profiles.html
Kitty, Kevin. 2004. “Desperately Seeking: Organic Consumer” http://www.fmi.org/advantage/issues/052004/pdfs/pub/organicconsumer.pdf
Organic Trade Association, Consumer Profile Facts, http://www.ota.com/organic/mt/consumer.html
Organic Trade Association, Organic Consumer Trends 2001 http://www.nmisolutions.com/press052401.html
The Packer Fresh Trends 2005. “Whole Foods Organic Trend Tracker” http://www.thepacker.com/thePacker/Packer-about.asp
http://www.wholefoods.com/cgi-bin/print10pt.cgi?url=/company/pr_10-14-03.html
Natural Marketing Institute, 2003. “ Hispanic Health and Wellness Opportunities Report” http://www.nmisolutions.com/r_hispanic.html
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Michigan’s soybean rust sentinel plot scouting report: August 4–11
Sandy Perry, SBR Sentinel Plot Coordinator
Jan Byrne, MSU Diagnostic Services
No soybean rust has been found on soybeans or other plants in Michigan or anywhere in the region, including Ontario, Canada.
The following is a compilation of the scouting reports
Growth stage: Three plots are at R4 and seven plots are at R5.
Plant height: Two plots ranged from 20 to 30 inches, and eight plots ranged between 36 and 48 inches.
Degree of canopy closure: All plots ranged between 95 and 100 percent closure.
Soybean diseases present: Downy mildew is present in half the plots at low to moderate levels but the incidence is increasing. Brown spot remains at low levels in three plots.
Insects present: Two plots have recently been sprayed for soybean aphids, three plots have per plant populations of soybean aphids ranging from 250 to 420 with honeydew and sooty mold present, two plots have low incidence of soybean aphids and three plots report no soybean aphids. Spider mite damage was noted on 5 to 10 percent of the leaves in one plot.
There is no MSU Diagnostic Services report this week.
National soybean rust update
New reports of soybean rust in the Deep South are coming in almost daily. However, the disease does not seem to be spreading very far very fast considering the weather has been ideal for infection. The majority of findings are along or near the Gulf Coast in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Two counties in southern Georgia (bordering Florida) have reported infections. Within the last week, rust was discovered in two counties in mid-state Georgia and two counties in mid-state Alabama, which are now the most northerly confirmed infections. See http://www.sbrusa.net/ for more information.back to top
Try our new search engine
Joy N. Landis, MSU IPM Program
We recently added a Google search to the New Agriculture Network web site. Try it out by clicking on the search link on the site’s navigational bar. You can enter any keyword or topic or author’s name. Some examples of potential searches would be: thistle, or flamers, or oilseed radish.
Our search engine is provided free through collaboration with Google. The trade-off is that sponsored links also appear on the page that may not be of interest to you. Most searches will result in a list with links from the New Ag Network along the left and sponsored links along the right. A few searches that I’ve tested result in sponsored links also added to the top of the results. See the accompanying example where “Agricultural Crop Covers” appears at the top of the list and you must look to the right to see that it is a sponsored link. The rest of the links below “Agricultural Crop Covers” are New Ag Network articles related to cover crops. These sponsored links are web sites that have paid to have their site appear.
We hope the addition of this search engine will help readers more quickly locate information published by the New Ag Network. Feel free to send comments to newagnet@msu.edu.
An example of a search result on the New Ag web site.
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Program details now available for organic national stored grain workshop
Dirk Maier, Purdue University, Tom Phillips, OK State,Bh. Subi Subramanyam, KSU
The final program for the first National Workshop on Stored Product Protection of Organic Grains & End Productsto be held August 24-25, 2005 at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana with speakers and topics is now available (see pdf file).
Register on-line at: http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/qualitygrains/
The meeting site and lodging is:
University Inn Conference Center
3001 Northwestern Avenue
West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
http://www.uiccwl.com/
Please use this toll free number (800-777-9808) to make your lodging reservations. A room block is available under the caption Quality Grains Research Consortium. Room Rate: Single: $74 Double: $84. We hope to see you later this month!
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Michigan
Southwest Michigan – Matt Wiley
The weather has been hot and dry. Currently getting last cultivation of replanted soybeans finished. During the next two weeks will clip spelt stubble.
Indiana
South Central Indiana – Dale and Sandra Rhoads
We have actually been having our first really dry period of the year. All year long we have been hammered over and over with heavy rainfall. The woods and fields here still look the deep green of June. With dry weather we have started consistent, regular and heavy watering of our fields. Two weeks ago we were having hot and wet and disease cut salad greens production in half. Now it is recovering, but still not up to spring production volume, even using twice as much space as in spring.
At mid-summer we are already thinking and living fall. We know the rest of summer will go quick. We are planning things like when to pull tomatoes from the greenhouse to plant salad greens for fall, and asking questions about what are we going to put under row covers and what we’ll leave exposed, etc.
We are currently harvesting salad greens, tomatoes, curly kale, less lacinato kale, parsley and dandelion greens. We have finished planting and have germinated our long season fall plantings—the brassicas, more kale, chard etc.
We are continuing to keep up with weekly salad greens plantings. I am actually having some time to spend on farm maintenance and repairs. We just did our yearly certification inspection. The problems we had with marketing at one distributor have been cleared up. It took having to say a word to the overall produce manager, who incidentally is going to be doing the ordering for both of this store’s outlets to correct the problems and set up sane systems. The kid we were having problems with I’m sure got his feelings hurt, but he’ll get over it. We did it all right with tact, etc.
We just harvested the second variety of Asian pears. These are mostly for home use but there are several bushels for sale. Fruit set was light this year and there are only 10 trees of this variety. An interesting side note on the A. pears is that after fruit set in the spring the trees received a light frost. This frost ‘cracked’ the small fruitlets, then about the size of a fingernail. I thought that would do them in, but the cracks healed. The round A. pears look like a pealed orange or some sort of segmented fruit where the frost cracks did not grow at the same rate as the rest of the fruit but have not harmed the fruit quality.
Another oddity of this year is that stink bug is not yet getting into the A. pears, whereas in past years their damage could ruin a harvest. I suspect it is the lack of dry, hot conditions and I am keeping my eye on the fruit still hanging in other trees.
In the next two weeks we’ll keep up on salad greens planting, do heavy weeding on the fall crops that have been planted and germinated, finish up some mowing, continue with some farm maintenance before fall overwhelms us to spit us out into winter, and will probably do some more herbicide trials.
Question
We are still trying to figure out growing Swiss chard disease-free in the hotter months. Our last experiment was to mow it all back and do regular copper hydroxide sprays. This seemed to help some compared to areas we did not treat, but still it did not control black spot enough for a harvest.
Illinois
Northeastern Illinois – Dave Campbell
We have had no rain in the past two weeks. Total rainfall received since May 19 has been 2.7 inches. Corn pollination is very spotty due to severe drought. Soybeans continue to look good despite the drought, although we are now into the second week of August, which is a critical time for soybeans in our location. The weatherperson tells us we have a good chance of rain each of the next five days. Oats yielded around 80 bushels per acre, with a test weight around 36# (a little below normal, although not bad considering the dry weather). Last week finished up the third and final time cultivating soybeans. I was barely able to get through beans due to the height of them. Will most likely finish hand-weeding soybeans this week. Presently I’m putting in a new floor, and doing some repairs on a shed that will house my straw. I hope to finish baling straw within the next few days and plan to have shed construction completed. Also plan to mow weeds along field borders.
East Central Illinois – Jon Cherniss
Rainfall has gotten back to normal and the ground has dried out some. This has allowed us to get caught up with ground preparation for fall covers and fall vegetable planting. The heat has caused the most problems lately. Lettuce and cilantro has had the hardest time. We also lost our first planting of carrots because of heavy rain and heat. Hoeing and mechanical cultivation has become a constant. We are done cultivating summer plantings, however, and have moved onto fall plantings. It looks like we will be able to keep our most important fields clean. These are the fields that will rotate into direct-seeded lettuce next year. We had to replant carrots last week. The plants are up now but they appear to be self-thinning. I am not sure if it is the heat, disease or insect damage. In the next two weeks we plan to plant spinach, field pea and get ready to plant hairy vetch the first of September.
Central Illinois – Dave Bishop
Continued heat and lack of rainfall is making 05 the worst year since 1988 here. Our garlic crop seems to be the only thing that will yield near normal. Response to watering seems to be minimal at this point. Normally we would be planting cover crops in August, but extremely dry soil conditions have that on hold. We are harvesting what vegetable crops remain. Our second planting of cool-season crops for fall harvest is also on hold due to lack of moisture. No farming operations are planned in the next two weeks unless we get rain.
Question: How is everyone else coping with the dry, hot weather?
Southern Illinois – Stan Schutte
It is still dry with no rain in the forecast. We are picking a lot of produce for the last time this week. Field crops look even worse, we are looking at one-quarter of a crop, and that’s if we get some rain in the next several weeks. Not doing much field work, it's too dry. We never even planted any fall produce. We are starting to clean up the farm to get ready for our customer appreciation day in September. We still need to bale some straw for the winter, and I plan to plant something for some quick hay for the beef this winter. Some of my spring clover cover crop died, so I will need to replace it with something else.
Iowa
Northwest Iowa – Paul Mugge
It has been very hot and humid. Fortunately, we have received timely rains. The corn and beans look excellent. The oats and triticale yields were a little disappointing – 95 for oats and 70 for triticale – about 20 percent under last year. Flax harvest is just finished; yield is surprisingly good considering the hot weather and serious weed pressure. It yielded 33 bushels – about the same as last year. It is 8.3 percent moisture and I don’t know about oil content yet. Aphids are here in the soybeans. Most conventional guys are spraying.
I still have straw to bale and flax to deliver.
In the next two weeks I have liquid manure to haul and a little disking to do on the triticale field where there is no cover crop.
