One day this week another ag-type government retiree and I were chatting up some of the bygone “new” farm products we’ve seen go by. Quite a few folks took part in or witnessed the concept of raising emus for the meat and therapeutic oil markets. Before that there was the push for Mississippians to earn part time income with five acres of Mississippi muscadines for Mississippi wine and Mississippi grape juice. There are still some Christmas tree farms and meat goat farms in the state, but not at the level once forecast. Lesser known but painfully recalled by a few farmers was kenaf. It’s a superfast-growing African plant kin to okra that was said to become a rival to pulpwood for making paper.
One thing most of these “new” farm crop ideas have or had in common is the lack of an existing market, the exception being the Christmas trees. It’s one thing to promote low fat or high antioxidant content, but quite another to expect consumers to abandon what I call “cultural taste buds.” Some of us, including yours truly, have backed way off the fat and cholesterol. But regularly eating emu roast and cabrito just doesn’t appeal to most of us raised on hamburger meat and round steak. Even in its homeland South, muscadine wine merely does not garner enough of the vino market to create a big demand for the berries. And the attempt at muscadine juice as an alternative to Welch’s grape juice was essentially a no go from the get go. Kenaf loyalists hoped to overcome too much. For one, pulpwood is cheap enough. Plus existing paper mills cannot run kenaf pulp through their equipment. It would take building new very costly mills to utilize kenaf instead of wood.
Growing and selling local Christmas trees has been around for decades. You would think it would be profitable since there is no shipping cost and each tree is only harvested after a sure sale. Thankfully, there are still Christmas tree farms for folks to walk and shop and finally say “that one.” But statewide, I bet the majority of people who planted acres of Christmas trees dropped out early on at a financial loss. One reason was they had way underestimated the amount of manual labor involved, especially the twice-a-year pruning. And in our hot, wet climate, the prevention of fungal diseases that render trees worthless is tedious and time-consuming. For many, those two chores took all the fun out of it. And the profits.
Something else I witnessed was the quest for tax dollar support for marketing some of the new would-be farm products. One big ticket item was the failed kenaf processing plant in Tallahatchie County with its federal grant. Lesser public funded projects included the small but shuttered emu processing place near McComb and the former goat receiving and shipping facility in Jasper County. Remember this: the government can do research and can educate, but the government cannot create a real market for farm products.
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Terry Rector writes for the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District, 601-636-7679 ext. 3.