Tennessee farmers diversify to survive

PORTLAND, Tenn. (AP)--These days, Ralph Cook's farm survives thanks mostly to busloads of school kids and out-of-towners wanting to pick peaches and berries.

The farmer, now 69, would have found that idea laughable two decades ago. Back then, he made his money milking cows and raising tobacco on 400 acres in rural Sumner County.

But as changes in the market and labor costs made those enterprises less profitable year after year, he came to a stark realization: If he didn't evolve quickly, his dream of being a full-time farmer would evaporate right in front of him.

Cook is one of a growing number of farmers in Tennessee and across the country who are branching out into new farming ventures to lessen the financial blow when a single crop or animal crumbles under the strain of bad weather or a fickle market.

Cash receipts for Tennessee farms totaled $2.74 billion last year--11 percent more than the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But the rising cost of fuel, fertilizer and other farm necessities took a toll, especially on small farmers. Overall, net farming income fell by 42 percent over the same period.

"We are in a very uncertain time in agriculture," said Daryll Ray, director of the University of Tennessee's Agricultural Policy Analysis Center.

"In some ways, diversification is an insurance policy," Ray said. When farmers have a wider array of products, they feel less of a hit when one falters because of bad weather or hiccups in the market.

"I think farmers are warming up to that idea," Ray said. "They are seeing the need to at least consider other options."

In the Volunteer State, many farmers are moving toward goats, organics, honey, fruits and agritourism--the idea that a farm can make as much from ticket sales and souvenirs as it can from selling its produce and meats at market.

The new movements often replace crops like tobacco and cotton, once fixtures in the state's farming landscape. They've become risky for many small farmers in recent years: tobacco because of the end of federal price supports, cotton because of volatile prices and rising production costs.

But jumping to a new crop or animal can be worrisome to some farmers who have produced the same goods for years.

"It's hard to get away from tradition," said Cook, who has farmed full time since 1968. "I didn't think I could survive without the dairy. It was a regular income."

Government money sometimes fuels those farm transitions. Tennessee is one of several states that offer grants and matching funds to farmers willing to take a chance on something new.

Through the state's Ag Growth Initiative, the state will reimburse qualifying farmers for new ventures--up to $15,000 in some cases.

Last year, 312 farmers received almost $1.7 million through the initiative, a cost-sharing program established in 2005. This year, the program is expected to dole out more than $1 million, said Jan Keyser, a marketing specialist with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.

Given the state's bleak budget climate, there is a degree of uncertainty about the project, state Agriculture Commissioner Ken Givens said.

"We value this program so much, we are not going to trim it back much," Givens said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture 's budget was cut by $8 million this year, but the Ag Growth Initiative does have a few things working in its favor. A 42-cent increase in Tennessee's cigarette tax last year will pump about $21 million annually into the program that funds the Ag Growth Initiative.

On top of that, the commissioner said, comes the program's popularity, especially in rural communities where it has allocated money.

"That certainly gives you some political pull in those counties," Givens said.

For years, the Corbin family has been involved in traditional farming ventures--tobacco, cattle, row crops. But a few years ago, a new idea caught matriarch Jane Corbin's eye: prawns.

The family is now in its eighth season raising the shrimplike crustaceans in three freshwater ponds on the outskirts of Springfield. The Corbins built the operation without government money.

"When we first started this, there was nobody in this area that had heard of freshwater prawns. People kind of looked at us with tongue in cheek," said Corbin, an officer with the U.S. Freshwater Prawn and Shrimp Growers Association. The experiment earned her husband, who has since died, the nickname "Bubba Gump," a reference to the shrimp-loving character Bubba in the movie Forrest Gump.

The family stuck with it, Corbin said, and the prawns are showing promise. Last year, the Corbins sold 2,100 pounds. It was the first time they sold all the prawns they had raised. The family counts upscale hotels and restaurants in Nashville among its customer base.

Though they are trying new things, the Corbins remain grounded in traditional crops--something that is easier because their operation is so large. Smaller farms like Cook's have more riding on any new experiments.

Like many Portland farmers, Cook is banking on strawberries to provide his main income.

"I was really scared the first year that it wasn't going to work out," he said. But they did well, and since then he's branched out into blackberries, blueberries, peaches and apples. All that comes on top of his agritourism operation, which greets about 6,000 schoolchildren a year since it began six years ago.

"It's as much work now as it was then," when he raised tobacco and dairy cattle, Cook said. "It's just a different kind of work."

This spring, he's going to try a new venture: onions. His menagerie of crops and his handmade tourism attraction aren't as profitable as his old farm was, but he hopes they will be eventually.

Still, he said, the ventures have kept his operation afloat. If he hadn't made them, the old farmer said, "I'd be broke."

"The farm business is an ever-changing thing," he said. "You've got to be willing to change with it."

9/29/08
4 Star NE\7-B

Date: 9/24/08

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