MSU Extension Offers Crop Marketing Alternatives for Deer Bait Products
9/19/08
Contact: Laura Probyn
517-432-1555 ext., 175
EAST LANSING, Mich. -- The recently instituted Michigan Department of Natural Resources ban on feeding and baiting white-tailed deer in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula carries implications not only for hunters and casual wildlife enthusiasts but also for farmers who market crops such as sugar beets, carrots, corn and apples as deer feed.
Michigan State University (MSU) Extension staff members say farmers who planned to sell sugar beets, carrots, corn or apples to hunters or to homeowners who enjoy watching deer have several marketing alternatives.
One possibility is selling crops to beef cattle producers, who have been feeling the sting of higher feed grain prices. To help beef producers determine the nutritional values of these crops for their stock and to help the crop growers price their commodities, MSU professor of animal science Steve Rust and associate professor Dan Buskirk have developed a fact sheet. Farmers can find it online by visiting the MSU Beef Team Web page or by contacting any MSU Extension county office.
Farmers can also market their cull crops by using Michigan Market Maker, a new tool from the MSU Product Center. An interactive Web tool that connects buyers and sellers of food and fiber products, Market Maker allows farmers to list the crops they have available for sale or to search for potential buyers in their geographic area.
“The great thing about the Market Maker program is its versatility,” says Bill Knudson, the Product Center’s product marketing economist. “It has been geared for the human food market, but it’s readily adaptable for the feed market as well.”
Apple growers whose cull apples will no longer fill bait bags may find marketing opportunities with juice processors, says Mark Longstroth, MSU Extension district horticulture educator based in Van Buren County. In some instances, even apples that have dropped from trees may be marketable for juice.
“We don’t have near the options that we used to, but there are a few juice processors still out there,” he says. “You really have to look for somebody that pasteurizes juice and would be willing to take drops. It’s a short apple year, so the market for juice would be better than in a long apple year.”
Dealing with the deer bait and feeding ban will require that growers take a long-term look at their operations and plan accordingly, not just for this season but into the future as well.
“Growers need to think about producing for markets other than the bait market,” Knudson says. “They’ll need to meet the demands in the human food market and the livestock market. They should start looking for processors that want to contract with them, consider joining cooperatives, and consider growing alternative crops.”
For more information about marketing crops, contact any MSU Extension county office.
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