New ag marketing tool in Louisiana
Nov 11, 2009 10:14 AM, From the LSU AgCenter
MarketMaker will be a central clearinghouse for any agricultural commodity in Louisiana, including seafood products and specialty crops. The national site is at Farm Industry MarketMaker.
Louisiana’s agricultural and seafood industries will have a new marketing tool in early 2010 when MarketMaker, a national Internet-driven service, is inaugurated in the state, according to officials with the LSU AgCenter.
“Louisiana MarketMaker will serve as a central clearinghouse for any agricultural commodity in the state, including seafood products and specialty crops,” said Paul Coreil, LSU AgCenter vice chancellor and director of the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service.
“The service will help producers find a market anywhere in the country for their products. This raises our agricultural marketing efforts to the next level. This will be a huge boost for our rural economy.”
Louisiana MarketMaker will be possible because of Community Development Block Grant funding from the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA), the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) and the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF), which have committed $125,000 in startup and operations funding to keep the program going for three years.
In addition, the program will be sustained after the initial three years with support from LDWF, LDAF and the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation.
“We want to help simplify the direct marketing concept for our producers,” said Mike Strain, Agriculture and Forestry commissioner. “A Louisiana grower produces a value-added product in the form and place the consumer wants, and the consumer buys the product. The consumer gets the freshest quality product at a fair price directly from the producer, while the farmer receives a larger percentage of the consumers’ dollars because the middleman function has been eliminated.”
“The acquisition of this marketing tool is a great example of how a relatively small amount of funding can have vast, positive effects on multiple industries,” said Robert Barham, LDWF secretary. “Our strong partnerships with the LRA, LDAF and the LSU AgCenter will continue to grow and strengthen as we all find various ways to work together to utilize this software.”
MarketMaker was developed by the University of Illinois and is managed and maintained at that university. The program is expected to be adopted by every state, Coreil said.
“MarketMaker serves all businesses in the food supply chain as well as consumers looking for locally grown foods,” said John Westra, LSU AgCenter economist, who along with Roger Hinson, another LSU AgCenter economist, will set up the program in Louisiana and train Extension agents in the state to help producers put their information into the database.
