The Agricultural Marketing and Management Program Work Team’s (PWT) mission is to give New York food and agriculturally related businesses a competitive advantage over the rest of the world by significantly improving marketing knowledge and general management capacities and skills. The PWT is committed to exploring new ways to improve communication and resource sharing between on-campus, off-campus, and external stakeholders to accomplish the mission of the team. As part of these efforts, the PWT sponsors the annual Cornell Strategic Marketing Conference each fall. The theme of this year`s conference was the Northeast Competitive Advantage: Increasing Producer Access to Markets. Conference attendees learned how to better integrate existing and new farm products into emerging markets. Producers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers networked and shared their insights on distribution, selling techniques, accessing markets, product development, expanding market opportunities, and ways producers can capitalize on them.

Determining how to better integrate existing and new farm products into emerging markets is often a challenge faced by many local and regional agricultural producers. Do you go it alone? Do you cooperate and combine activities with area producers? Do you contract with national and/or regional distributors? As the demand for local foods is increasing dramatically, these issues are particularly salient. Regional and local food market initiatives are becoming common. How can agricultural producers and agribusiness firms take advantage of this growing consumer demand segment? Small and medium-sized producers often lack the institutional capital or industry knowledge and experience to successfully venture into these growing markets. Understanding existing infrastructures and key factors for success are vital for improved agri-based industry development. Demand for local food commodities and value-added, convenient, and healthy processed food products is growing strong. As a producer, you have the product, but now how do you get it to market, what markets do you choose, and, ultimately, how do you effectively make the sale?

Different situations, different markets, different products will require different solutions. The 2007 Strategic Marketing Conference brought in successful agri-business executives at all levels of the food value chain, from a variety of markets, across a range of commodities and food products. This unique situation was instrumental in providing a broader base for understanding and to better educate existing and emerging small- and medium-sized agribusiness operations on improved management and marketing practices. Producers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers shared and discussed their insights on distribution, selling techniques, accessing markets, product development, expanding market opportunities, and ways producers can capitalize on them. Representatives from successful joint-producer ventures discussed partnerships and cooperative arrangements for improved product marketing. Producer and industry product marketing and innovation panels representing fruits and vegetables, dairy products, and livestock and meat products presented and shared their first-hand knowledge of issues surrounding food safety, post-harvest technology innovations, new marketing approaches, and new product, value-added, and quality opportunities to meet evolving market demands. This unique educational approach had something for everyone in attendance.

Over 60 people attended, including 49 registrants and 15 speakers for this educational forum. Conference attendees and speakers came from several states in the Northeast and elsewhere, including: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Missouri, and Kansas. Attendees represented all levels of the food value chain, and included both rural and urban/metro perspectives. The philosophy of this conference has been to present and discuss hands-on and usable information that participants can utilize immediately. Based on feedback received, the conference lived up to its philosophy once more. On a scale from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent), attendees rated the set of speakers a 4.2 average, with several averaging over 4.8. They rated the overall quality of the workshop a 4.4 average; and overall value of the workshop a 4.3 average. The conference improved the capacity of attendees to work on agricultural and food marketing issues, by providing new information and base strategies to build upon, improving sales and selling ideas for business and personal use, and providing outstanding networking opportunities.

Department of Applied Economics and Management, Warren Teaching Grant Funds