Producers unite

FarmConnect binds producers in a common goal: selling specific goods to specific end users for higher profit.

By Greg Booth

A year-old alliance of commodity groups and grower associations could potentially change the face of Minnesota agriculture. A new producer-owned organization, FarmConnect (formerly Minnesota Marketplace) will help farmers build a closer relationship with their customers and find market opportunities.

“We need to … grow specific things for specific end users,” says FarmConnect Chair Art Brandli, a Warroad farmer. Brandli and other producers say they need to move away from only producing bulk commodities and toward producing specific products that are in demand. FarmConnect will help build relationships “driven by market needs,” Brandli says.

As an example of FarmConnect’s potential, a similar organization in Kansas -- 21st Century Alliance -- procured a contract for several million bushels of identity-preserved wheat. Companies such as General Mills are interested in identity preservation because they are looking for specific qualities. For example, Wheaties settles less in the box when made with certain varieties. FarmConnect members could band together to sell specific crops to larger buyers at a better price. General Mills grain buyer Ron Olson told a Minnesota Marketplace seminar that in the next five years, half of the grain purchased by General Mills would be identity preserved.

With a majority of Minnesota commodity groups involved and nine groups represented on the advisory committee, the concept has received broad support. Now FarmConnect is actively recruiting members including livestock, dairy, corn, wheat, barley, soybean, canola and sugar beet producers as well as sustainable and organic farmers. Brandli says a critical mass of farmers is necessary to gain enough clout to deal with processors or to capitalize on processing opportunities for members.

“We producers have to learn to work interdependently,” Brandli adds. “We need to think differently about what we do because change is going to happen and we want to be the ones driving.”