Mark Powell is chief of marketing and agricultural development for the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA). Powell, who has been with MDA for eight years, leads a team of six professionals who are responsible for programs that link farmers with markets.
Those programs include Maryland’s Best “buy local” promotions, Farm-to-School, the Farmers Market Nutrition Program, the Specialty Crop grants program, and international marketing through the Southern U.S. Trade Association and United States Livestock Genetics Export Association. Powell also manages programs to provide Maryland farmers with risk management education and agriculture mediation services.
Prior to serving agriculture at MDA, Powell was editor of Easton, Md.-based newspapers The Delmarva Farmer, Mid-Atlantic Grower and the New Jersey Farmer for more than 13 years, where he was an award-winning agricultural writer and columnist.
Today, in addition to his duties with MDA, he serves on the boards of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy and the LEAD Maryland Foundation. He also has represented MDA on the Maryland Soybean Board, the Young Farmers Advisory Council, the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Wine & Grape Growing, the Governor’s Dairy Advisory Council and the Maryland Ag Council.
He also was a fellow in Class I of LEAD Maryland, an agricultural leadership development program. Other career stops for the graduate of the University of North Carolina have included media relations for The American University in Washington, D.C., and St. Andrews College in Laurinburg, N.C.
What is the economic impact of the agriculture industry on the state?
According to the National Ag Statistics Service of the USDA, the ag sector output in Maryland is $2.1 billion. That’s different from economic impact, which provides economic multipliers; the most current such measurement is from Salisbury University in 2008, which estimates that Maryland agriculture has an annual $7.96 billion economic impact.
What is the role of agriculture in the Maryland economy?
It’s essential. The poultry industry is the biggest part of our industry, with $640 million in receipts in 2009 (the most recent figures). It represents 39% of the total ag sector in the state; the second largest sector is corn or soy beans, with $343 million. Then we have the nursery industry, which grows ornamental plant and flowers and other adornments used to beautify lawns and gardens, with $217 million; then we have the 524 dairy farms in Maryland, with $145 million.
As we move down the list, we come to the fruit and vegetable producers and the products that you would get at a farmers’ market, with $73 million. That’s the snapshot. Then, there’s the equine industry, which a recent study puts at $5.6 billion in economic impact and expenditures of $513 million. The point here is that the agriculture industry in Maryland is very diverse and very significant.
Much of the poultry marketing is dictated by that industry, and much of what we do here is market the fruit and vegetable producers and niche producers. They tend to need our help because they compete with much larger farms in other states, like New York and California, to connect with the grocery store chains, farmers’ markets and restaurants. As an agency, we support all of agriculture with policy and other tools.
How do Maryland farms rate nationally?
That depends on the sector. We’re in the top 10 in poultry and watermelon, but in the other sectors we rate in the middle or lower third of the pack for various reasons: Maryland is a relatively small state in area, but the biggest factor is that it’s increasingly urbanized. And again, most of our business is poultry and related products.
How do you market the industry internally, regionally and nationally?
Various programs like Maryland’s Best, which promotes locally-grown products in Maryland within the state; nationally, we work with various sectors that extend beyond the state boundaries, notably the poultry and the watermelon industries, which are big on the Eastern Shore.
We also have one staffer who helps our ag industry connect to international markets. For example, we’ve promoted Perdue Farms, which not only sells chicken, but grain and oil seeds. Specifically, we’ve helped Perdue sell about $10 million in soybeans annually to Cuba during the last three years. We’ve also developed markets for livestock genetics for our dairy industry in Russia, and we’ve assisted processed food companies like Queen Anne’s County corn processor S.E.W. Friel (among many others) as it entered international markets via trade shows and direct connections. Clients include countries like the United Arab Emirates and Japan, which we bring here and introduce to processed food companies.
To think, Maryland was once mainly known for its corn and tobacco production … Corn is still a major crop, but very few farmers grow tobacco anymore. There are some in Cecil, St. Mary’s and Calvert counties.
Farms are disappearing from the state landscape. How are you addressing that issue?
The theory is that if we can help them stay profitable, we’ll build the industry overall. There are efforts to increase the number of young farmers. In fact, there’s almost a renaissance in agriculture because you don’t necessarily have to be born into the farming industry to participate in it anymore; you can buy a two-acre piece of property and grow vegetables, and then you can market directly at a farmers’ market. Or you can also grow grapes for wine or raise beef cows.
How do you work with/educate the farmers so they can produce and market their best products?
That role is primarily filled by the cooperative extension service of the University of Maryland. Each county has an extension office and each has trained university staff to assist established farmers, as well as people who are interested in getting into the business.
How do you interact with retail buyers to get farm products to market?
We stay in contact with about 400 of them and see many of them at our annual buyers-growers meeting. Chefs and grocery store buyers also attend that meeting, which has increased from 30 attendees in 2007 to about 400 this year. It was last held this past January at the BPOE Elks Lodge in Annapolis.
How many programs does your department have now?
Five: Domestic; international; farmers’ market nutrition; a fourth program to help farmers deal with conflicts with neighbors, government agencies, etc., that was inspired by financial difficulties and suicide rates (especially among farms in the Midwest); and another to promote risk management tools to farmers, specifically crop insurance.
What state programs do you want to implement in the future?
We anticipate growth in the Farm-To-School program, which connects farmers to schools so they can provide food to the cafeteria.
What do you see developing on the horizon for the industry?
Growth in the locally-grown food sector; labor is in short supply and costly to farmers so dealing with that issue will be a challenge, too. An international program, called H2A, is often used by farmers to help them locate foreign workers.
What’s your biggest challenge in your job?
Managing resources to achieve our goals. Our programs here are highly dependent upon federal funding, so I’m looking for ways to sustain the programs we have with a possible dearth of that very federal funding.
What’s Howard’s role in the grand scheme of the state industry? Anne Arundel’s?
Agriculture is big in both counties. Howard County has 355 farms and its ag sector produced $22.6 million in 2010. The top sector is nursery/greenhouse ornamental.
The county has 4,350 horses. And Howard, in particular, has done an outstanding job with agricultural tourism, and it’s also a center for the pick-your-own trend.
Anne Arundel has a tremendous history and quite a few farmers who are taking advantage of its farmers’ market campaign. It encompasses 377 farms and produced $19 million in ag products in 2010 according to Ag Statistics. The largest sector in the county is the nursery/greenhouse ornamental ag sector; and according to Ag Stats Equine Survey, it shows 4,500 horses in the county.
What’s the state of the industry?
Times are good for farmers right now and better than they have been in recent memory. The corn, soybean and wheat growers are making considerable profit because the price of their product is up. But the selling product is complex, given that prices are often based on the price of commodities in the various sectors. The poultry industry, for instance, is doing OK, but the cost of feed has risen; and we had somewhat of a drought this summer.
