NE IPM Center Partnership Proposal 2009
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Partnership 2009 Rozyne Proposal Northeastern IPM Center – IPM Partnership Grants – 2009 – Proposal Project Description PD: Michael Rozyne Project Title: Meeting New Challenges, Meeting our Consumer 1. Project Category: Eco Apple IPM Working Group (IWG): 2. Project Summary Red Tomato, a non-profit organization, will continue to convene and coordinate an IPM Working Group including apple growers, agricultural scientists and extension agents, and its own in-house team of salespeople, communications manager, and art director. The close working relationship among growers, scientists, and marketers adds unusual depth and practicality to this project. The Eco Apple program has grown at a prodigious pace, from $400,000 in sales in 2005 to over $1.9 Million in 2008. But we need to balance this rapid growth with a strengthening of the Eco Apple IPM Protocol and the program itself, to sustain this growth over the long term. In this project, the Eco Apple IPM Working Group will build on the success of the Eco Apple program by strengthening its development of best practices – specifically, addressing the growing problem of internal Lepidoptera - and by strengthening its educational outreach to consumers. We propose to accomplish this latter goal by collecting and disseminating comparative pesticide use data of Eco vs. conventional apples, and by utilizing new technologies (including website blogs & videos, social networking, and DVDs) to reach consumers directly. We also propose to expand the program by pursuing relationships with Midwest growers, by researching value-added Eco Apple products, and researching extending this model to other crops. This program can continue to grow rapidly, even expanding to other regions and other fruits, but we must minimize the associated risks to ensure that this growth is sustainable. We’re on the fast track, but the research we are proposing will help to keep this project also on the right track. 3. Background and Justification Problem and Context. Apples represent a significant part of the Northeast’s agricultural economy, generating over $525 million annually. Some apple connoisseurs argue that the Northeast’s particular soil, climate, and diversity of varieties make our region’s apples the best tasting in the country. But apple growers in this region have been struggling for the last fifteen years. From 1997 to 2002 alone New England lost 542 fruit farms, a 15% decrease. This is due, in large part, to an increase in competition from growers outside the region, and the rising costs of production in the Northeast. Northeast apple growers have not been participants in the rapid growth of the organic market, due to the unique distinction of having intense insect and disease pressures that are not common to other regions. An eight-year, multi-institution project evaluated the potential for organic apple production of disease resistant apple cultivars, and found that it is, practically speaking, impossible to grow organic apples in wholesale quantities in the Northeast (Merwin et al., 1994). However, widespread adoption of advanced IPM practices in Northeast apple production has yet to occur. These IPM practices are generally more expensive than conventional practices. Growers are hesitant to adopt practices that make them less competitive, reduce financial returns, or that may cause crop loss or reduction in crop quality. Yet there is a rapidly growing demand for locally grown produce that is accessible, great tasting, and less harmful to the environment. There is also an established demand for Northeast apples in-season, even when organic apples from other regions are available. Some of Red Tomato’s buyers willingly pay $1-$3 more per Partnership 2009 Rozyne Proposal case above market prices for high quality, locally and ecologically grown produce, when there are tangible, objective differences in the product. We see this project as building on earlier efforts, including the 2006 and 2007 projects funded by the Northeastern IPM Center to educate supermarket trade buyers and retail consumers about IPM. We will also build on the Center’s 2008 Minigrant to help Red Tomato produce a video about the Eco Apple program. Our ongoing efforts to communicate IPM benefits have succeeded in raising awareness of IPM and of the “eco” position as somewhere between conventional and organic. As a result, many more questions now come from customers about Eco Apples, such as: What does “low-spray” mean? How much less than conventional apples? How is this evaluated, and by whom? Background on Red Tomato. Red Tomato (RT) is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization that works in the marketplace. RT works closely with farmers and scientists as it creates supply chains of locally-grown products to satisfy the needs of its customers (mostly supermarket chains) and their customers (the ultimate consumers). Twelve years after co-founding the fair trade coffee company Equal Exchange, Michael Rozyne started Red Tomato in 1997 to translate the fair trade experience to produce grown by U.S. family farmers. The culture of Red Tomato is experimental, entrepreneurial, and devoted to learning and continuous improvement. We spent the first six years finding the right organizational model. In the process, RT won a hard-earned reputation among farmers and retailers as a reliable, fair supplier of high-quality locally-grown fruits and vegetables. Today RT has trading relationships with over 40 farmers in the Northeastern states. Since 1998 RT has brokered over $9 million [wholesale] dollars of family farm produce (over $3 million in 2008 alone). RT products reach hundreds of thousands of consumers through numerous stores and distributors, including: Whole Foods Dole & Bailey Trader Joe’s City Fresh Foods Donelan’s Albert’s Organics Stop & Shop Shapiro Produce Co. Roche Brothers Associated Grocers of New England Background on Eco Apples. “An important priority is the development and implementation of economical and effective IPM systems for crops and commodities consumed by humans.” - National IPM Road Map goals - RT participated in the Core Values Northeast eco certification program for years, and then later in the Food Alliance program. But these efforts failed to build marketing programs that delivered tangible economic benefits to growers, and thus ceased to operate in the Northeast. In 2005, with funding from the EPA and private foundations, RT decided to launch its own eco certification for advanced-IPM apples. RT hired Thomas Green of the IPM Institute of North America to write the “Eco Apple Protocol and Grower Self-Assessment,” and to manage third- party certification of farms. RT then assembled a multi-state team of veteran apple growers, plus scientists from U.Mass. and Cornell, to serve as an advisory board over the standards. The aims Partnership 2009 Rozyne Proposal of this group were to provide economic rewards and incentives that lead directly, and indirectly, to more widespread adoption of advanced IPM practices for apples. Red Tomato introduced Eco Apples to the market in late August 2005. Six farms, approximately 475 acres total in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, earned Eco Apple certification for 2005. The apples reached approximately 200 supermarkets and food co-ops, mostly in New England. Some participating farmers also sold Eco-Apples directly, reaching 25 additional supermarkets in Vermont and New York. For the 2007 season, Red Tomato doubled the number of certified Eco Apple growers from six to twelve, extending the program into Pennsylvania and Maine, and increased the certified acreage from 475 to 711 acres. RT began the 2008 season at 13 growers, but four growers suffered such extensive hail damage that they were unable to continue. Thus we had 9 growers and 635 acres in the program for 2008. In 2005, the number of Eco-Apple cases sold for the year was at 16,000. Sales in 2006 were over 23,300 cases, not including direct sales from farms. Sales in wholesale dollars of Eco Apples in 2006 were $643,149, 68% over the previous year. Sales for 2007 were $1,470,000 – 228% of 2006, and for 2008 are projected at $1,939,000, 32% over last year. Impact of IPM Protocol: Eco Apple growers applied 42% less insecticide in 2005 compared with 2004 (as measured in dollars of insecticide applied). This figure has dropped further as the protocol has been refined and tightened annually. In the 2006 annual meeting, the group agreed on numerous further changes to the IPM protocol, including tightening rules for application of fungicides and reducing the allowable amount of Phosmet, the last allowable organophosphate insecticide. In 2007, primarily in recognition of conditions in Pennsylvania, new pests were added to the protocol, namely, codling moth, tufted apple budmoth, and rosy apple aphid. Best practices for these insects were identified. Further pesticide restrictions, quality control standards and conservation measures were also added, and the minimum score required on the point-based part of the protocol rating system was raised from 16 to 20, thereby raising the bar. Importantly, the protocol now has no organophosphate insecticide allowed. Applicability to other regions. The Eco Apple program and protocol are applicable to other regions in the eastern US, especially the upper Midwest. RT has already begun discussions with participants in a similar project in Wisconsin about the prospect for cooperation, even for the possible adoption of Eco Apple marketing materials and approaches to the Midwest. A number of self-called “Eco Apple growers” in WI are interested in marketing them that way with our assistance. There’s also a grower/packer in Rochester, MN who would like to develop an Eco Apple program for the growers in his network. Conversations are underway. Uniquely poised for success. There are several historical and circumstantial factors that point this project toward success: Organic apples are next to impossible to raise in the northeastern United States at a wholesale/supermarket volume and quality standard—this due to scab, curculio, apple Partnership 2009 Rozyne Proposal maggot, fly speck, sooty blotch, and a few other voracious pests.