Georgia Sustainable Agriculture Consortium

SAVANNAH, Georgia – Farmers and farmer groups who face the challenge of direct marketing their products to local consumers may find a solution in food hubs, and a newly created sustainable agriculture consortium is leading the way in Georgia to bring those infrastructures to the state.

During the recent Southeast Regional Fruit & Vegetable Conference in Savannah, Georgia, University of Georgia sustainable ag coordinator Julia Gaskin and UGA economist Tommie Shepherd discussed food hub models and what the Georgia Sustainable Agriculture Consortium hopes to achieve in establishing food hubs in Georgia.

A food hub is an infrastructure that helps connect small-to-mid-size farmers with area businesses by acting as an aggregator, distributor, and sometimes processor of local and regional foods.

The food hub, said Shepherd, may be the answer to the challenges local farmers face in direct marketing their products.

“Direct to consumer marketing is up 117 percent based on the USDA 2007 Census, the numbers of farmers markets have increased, and there are more than 2,000 Farm-to-School programs across the U.S.,” said Shepherd. “But many farmers have trouble reaching their clientele because of limited direct access, insuffic ient product volume to deal with major distributors, a lack of capital, and high marketing and distribution costs.”

He said the food hub may be the answer in connecting farmers to restaurants, grocery stores and local schools, among other outlets, and for Georgia, the potential is there for the development of food hubs.

Julia Gaskin said the Georgia Sustainable Agriculture Consortium has plans to establish at least two food hubs in the state over the next five years in response to farmer needs and consumer demand for local foods.

“There is a lot of premium in the market right now for local foods. Consumers love buying directly from farmers,” said Gaskin. “But farmers keep telling us that they don’t have the infrastructure and the means to get out the products consumers want. The food hub is a way of providing that missing link.”

The Georgia Sustainable Agriculture Consortium is holding its first major meeting this week in Macon to begin identifying areas in Georgia that would be suitable for a food hub, and what existing markets could qualify as a potential food hub.

Shepherd said that when it comes to food hubs, there is no one definitive model and a food hub can take on several variations: a virtual website model, such as MarketMaker; an aggregation/distribution facility that serves as a drop-off and pick-up point for producers; a traditional cooperative; a coordination/management hub that actively manages what its members produce, handles supply chain logistics; manages product delivery; and actively seeks out customers for the farmers; and a value-added hub with processing and storage functions and brand recognition.

Food hubs can take on several variations from virtual websites to value-added infrastructures. White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, GA could qualify as a food hub based on its characteristics, says UGA sustainable ag coordinator Julia Gaskin.

Gaskin said some of those models may already exist in Georgia, and one of the goals of the Consortium is to build on those markets as well as identify new ones.

Food hubs are just one component of the Consortium’s efforts in furthering sustainable ag practices in Georgia. If you’d like to participate in the Georgia Sustainable Agriculture Consortium, contact Julia Gaskin at jgaskin@engr.uga.edu. Several working groups are being established to focus on specific issues, including the Vegetable Hub Development, Meat Hub Development, Co-Grazing Ruminants, Research on Vegetable Production, and Sustainability Metrics and Life-Cycle Research.

For more information on the Georgia Sustainable Agriculture Consortium, log on to http://www.sustainagga.org. The website provides information on the Consortium’s goals as well as a list of potential grant resources for food hub development.

The USDA has currently identified 116 food hub infrastructures across the U.S., and the number continues to grow. For more information on food hubs, log on to http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/foodhubs.