You may not normally think of your local dairy farmer, the nursery operator in the next town, or a commercial fisherman as world travelers.

So you may be surprised to learn that the owners of many Northeast agricultural businesses travel the globe every year for a variety of reasons.

For some, world travel offers rich potential for discovering new production techniques, observing new efficiencies and evaluating new technologies. For these business owners, the objective is to improve their competitiveness by expanding their knowledge of their particular business niche.

Others are interested in new opportunities for business growth beyond their own farm gate — either to seek new markets, new suppliers or new business partners.

Still others travel the globe to find ways to improve their competitive position in response to crowded markets, price pressures and changing consumer tastes.

This article explores a few examples of Northeast entrepreneurs who have recently taken advantage of overseas opportunities.

LEAD New York

One way in which farmers and other ag business owners achieve these objectives is to travel with the various leadership programs throughout the United States. Leadership programs are often state-based, and the mission of most programs is to inspire and develop leaders in the home state’s food and agricultural industries.

Take, for example, LEAD New York, which is part of Cornell University’s education department. LEAD New York is a two-year program that features approximately 50 days of enlightening seminars, workshops and educational travel within the state, across the country and around the world.

According to Larry Van De Valk, director of the LEAD New York Program, “LEAD New York’s classes travel for many reasons. The trips give New York’s future agricultural leaders an opportunity to experience new ways of doing business and to compare similarities and differences between agricultural industries in different countries.” He says, “I often say that you can learn something anywhere if you go with the right attitude and an open mind.While every individual takes something different from a study trip, most return home with a renewed appreciation for America and the realization that American agriculture’s challenges, such as trade issues, high taxes and government bureaucracy, aren’t unique to American agriculture.”

LEAD Goes to the Netherlands A recent LEAD New York class traveled to the Netherlands in March of 2003. Van De Valk noted that the Netherlands is an attractive destination for New York ag travelers since the two countries face similar challenges. On that trip, participants took note of some of the strengths of Dutch agriculture. For example, Van De Valk observed, “The Dutch are masters at adding value to products and selling at high margins. Holland is one of the biggest coffee exporters in the world, even though the country grows no coffee at all! Instead, they purchase coffee beans from all over the world, blend and roast them, then do a heck of a good job marketing them. It’s remarkable that coffee is actually one of the country’s primary ag exports.”

“The Dutch are masters at adding value to products and selling at high margins.”

A Connecticut Nurseryman Travels to Russia

LEAD (other leadership programs exist in New Jersey, and 28 other states) is not the only program that beckons Northeast farmers overseas. Some trips are generated spontaneously.

Paul Larson is owner/manager of Sprucedale Gardens, a thriving nursery and greenhouse operation in Woodstock, Conn. Larson became involved in an exchange program that hosted a group of Russian mayors and other dignitaries in southeastern Connecticut.

While in Connecticut, the visitors asked to meet some Connecticut farmers. From that gathering, an exchange trip evolved that allowed Larson and several other Connecticut farmers and business people to spend a week visiting the Ivanovo and Vladimir regions in Central Russia.

Upon his return to the States, Larson commented, “I have a renewed appreciation for opportunities in America that we so often take for granted, and freedoms to make our own choices. They have many of the same freedoms as we do, but it is so much more difficult for them to build a successful business.”

Larson expressed a high degree of admiration for the progress that many Russian farmers have made in recent years. For example, he said, “I was amazed at the achievements of two dairy farmers who achieved so much in the years since perestroika [Russia’s shift to a free market system] despite enormous obstacles.”

Larson went on to explain, “These farmers actually own their own farms instead of working on cooperative farms. They struggle to achieve a reasonable price for their milk from the region’s only milk processor, and face stiff regulations imposed by multiple layers of bureaucracy. They have very limited access to equipment and parts. And their tax structure appears to be more than 20 percent higher than we pay in the United States, with little or no return for that added burden.

“Although we saw few dairy production practices that American dairy farmers could apply, we were inspired by the resourcefulness and hope that many farmers, and even bureaucrats, demonstrated. We came home from a country, that used to be our enemy, with new friends who face the same challenges that we do in American agriculture.”

New Production Techniques in Massachusetts

For Arjen Vriend and Jaap Molenaar, foreign travel is no novelty. They are both Dutch who have chosen to live and work in the United States.

Vriend is the marketing manager of Pioneer Gardens, Inc., of Deerfield, Mass. Molenaar is the production manager. Their primary business is the wholesale propagation of perennials, including propagation by tissue cultures. Their product mix includes hosta, astilbe, irises, bleeding hearts, coreopsis, veronica, salvia, etc.

Pioneer Gardens sells its perennials to wholesale growers throughout the United States and Canada. Their Canadian sales represent more than 20 percent of their total revenue, with their volume equally divided between field-grown bare-root perennials and greenhouse-grown plugs.

Vriend and Molenaar created a production system based on their observations of Dutch technology.

“The system features a warmwater treatment boiler for perennials,” Vriend explains. “We put field plants in approximately 115-degree water in the system’s 800-gallon boiler. It is a tricky process because we will kill the plants if the water is too warm. But if you do it just long enough, the system kills parasites, particularly nematodes, thereby improving the health of the plant and eliminating the costly expense of fumigation with its unwanted side effects. To my knowledge, the system is not used in the United States, but is widely used in the Netherlands because it is quite effective.”

Vriend travels overseas for marketing reasons, too.

He says, “We do business in a global market. I travel to Europe two or three times a year on business to look for new opportunities, such as one that we recently found in Poland.We contract with a tissue culture lab in Poland to produce certain perennials for us.

“We chose Poland because tissue culture propagation is very labor intensive and Poland is a lower-wage country, so this contract helped us cut labor costs significantly. The typical wage is $1.00 to $1.50 an hour in Poland compared to much higher hourly American wages.”

Fresh Cut Flowers — From Long Island to Latin America

Bill Manker Jr. operates South Country Floral, a family business in East Patchogue, Long Island, N.Y. that distributes fresh cut flowers.

“I don’t see borders in my business,” Bill says. “Instead, the world is my marketplace.”

And Manker travels the world — for a variety of reasons — to achieve his business objectives.

“I can’t figure out the best growing markets or who the players are sitting here in Long Island,”

Manker says. “To do that, I need to travel and see firsthand what is going on.” And the Manker family has been traveling the globe for a good long time — for more than 25 years. It’s absolutely necessary to remain competitive, Manker says.

Manker’s father, Bill Sr., was a pioneer in globetrotting on behalf of the family business.When the oil crisis hit in 1979, Manker Sr. looked for new ways to compete given the high oil prices required to heat his greenhouses. After a trip to South America, he eventually began growing roses in the Dominican Republic, known for quality rose production at affordable production costs. This operation was highly successful through the 1980s thanks to continued high demand for roses.

In the late 1980s, Ecuador emerged as a market force in rose production thanks to its ideal climate for growing large-head roses. Business in Mankers’ Dominican roses, with their smaller heads, started to suffer. In response to customer demand, the Mankers journeyed to Ecuador to assess the situation.

“As wholesalers,” explained Bill Jr., “we wanted to buy direct for better quality control. After many trips, intensive study and several local contacts, we established direct links from the farms in Ecuador. Later, in 1995, we started our own rose farm there.We believed that Ecuador grew the world’s premier rose, so we committed our resources and sales power to selling a rose that satisfied customer demand.”

Manker went on to describe the economics of growing his product thousands of miles from home base.

“The climate is ideal and labor is very affordable,” he says. “In 1995, we paid $6.50 for greenhouse labor on Long Island and $1 to $1.50 an hour in Ecuador. In addition, we didn’t need to heat the greenhouses and Ecuador had no property taxes.”

Since then the Mankers sold their shares in the Ecuador operation, and today they are direct distributors of fresh cut flowers that they buy and sell from many distant points around the world including Columbia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Holland, Italy, New Zealand and Australia.

Like any business venture, offshore business comes with its lessons. Bill Manker says, “To do business offshore, you need to live in the country to understand the business environment. I wouldn’t do it again unless I was going to commit myself to live in the country for a good part of the year.”

• Communication quiz
• Who needs a consultant?
• Are you getting all you can from your loan officer?
• Business management advice

Contact us at info@farmcreditwny.com for more information.

© 1999-2005 Farm Credit of Western New York, ACA. All rights reserved.