Vegetable Farm Tour Coming- In Your Region!
By James Quinn

The Missouri Department of Agriculture is funding a project submitted by MVGA to host a series of vegetable farm tours throughout the state this growing season. The project title is ‘Growing Missouri’s Vegetable Industry Using Statewide On Farm Education’ and expenses are predicted at slightly under $4500. They include, in order of $$ amount, meals (free, as enticement), MVGA officer mileage reimbursement, and cost to mail and print fliers.

MU Extension will be assisting with the tours of which 8 are expected, one for each of MU Extension’s regions, as follows: EC- Nathan Brant; SE- Kate Kammler & Donna Aufdenberg; SC- Andy Read; SW- Pat Byers; C- James Quinn; WC- Marlin Bates; NW- Tim Baker; and NE- Jennifer Schutter. A MVGA officer or regional director corresponding to that region will work with a Regional MU Extension Specialist to choose a tour date, time, location and route. The State Vegetable Specialist at Lincoln University (Sanjun Gu) has also stated his support of the project and said he would attend the tours as his schedule allows.

These tours will be quite similar to the series of farm tours sponsored by MU’s Plant Protection Program in the summer of 2007 featuring best management practices. Did you know the two main benefits of those tours?

• For growers to become more successful. We know tours are effective in assisting growers through comments they have made on farm tour evaluations, but cannot quantify these comments. However, we can provide some example comments from 2007: ‘I’ll start to make more use of (plastic) mulch.’ ‘Will consider trapping moths to monitor when to spray corn.’ ‘I’ll start to rotate fungicides to prevent disease resistance.’ ‘I learned what does and does not work for both marketing and growing.’ ‘We should use bumblebees for pollination instead of honeybees.’ ‘I’ll change how I pick tomatoes.’ ‘I will install drip tape lines, use ash in soil amending, and store tomatoes differently.’ ‘These events are extremely important in spreading the word about local establishments.’ ‘Planting wheat to till for green manure.’ ‘Better spacing for weed control.’ ‘Will alter my planting schedules.’ ‘Will use more row cover.’ And lastly (from one tour) ‘Fifteen people indicated that events like this do assist them with long-term decisions. Four people responded maybe or not really.’
• To assist MVGA in its membership growth and foster leadership within the organization- MVGA was formed in 1991 and from 1991 through 2006 MVGA bumped along with membership between 30 and 60. While in 2006 it started a quarterly newsletter, it took the farm tours conducted in partnership with MU Extension to spur membership growth. We had a representative at each of the 5 farm tours to make a personal pitch for growers to join. MVGA membership has surged beginning in 2007, from 60 to over 160. The good news is we held onto those gains during 2008, even growing some.

Could MVGA grow more? Yes it can! And farms growing vegetables are on the increase. Take a minute to review the 2007 Census of Ag article by Sanjun Gu. There were more than 1300 vegetable growers in ’07. When you hear where and when a tour will be in your region, please help spread the word and bring a fellow grower or two. Thanks to MDA, you should have a tour reasonably close by, and I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll be offering a ‘membership deal’ to folks attending one.