Programs & Projects:
Project Profiles
New York City’s Ethnic Market Opportunities Focus of NYFVI-Funded Project for Specialty Crop Growers
New York City’s diverse demographics offer New York specialty crop growers
unique opportunities to sell to ethnic markets. A New York Farm Viability
Institute, Inc.-funded project has helped four growers with farmland in
Orange, Westchester, and Dutchess counties; on Staten Island; and with small
urban plots in Brooklyn and Westchester County to discover and expand their
potential for reaching the City’s niche markets.
Through the NYFVI-funded project, the growers worked with business planning,
production, and market development specialists with a focus on 12 crops (verdolaga,
epazote, papalo, pepicha, and a variety of squash, beans & spinach) of
particular interest to Latino producers and consumers.
Market
day sales of the specialty crops added $50 to $200 to farm income and helped
attract specialty crop buyers who also purchased other farm market vegetables
from the growers, who are all graduates of the “New Farmer Development
Program” sponsored by Greenmarkets and Cornell Cooperative Extension of New
York City. Seasonal sales ranged $250 from a 400 sq ft. plot and $1,100 from
1/4 and 1/2-acre plots to $10,000 from a two-acre site tended by a grower with
established specialty crop markets. The growers added to their direct market
sales by selling to bodegas and restaurants for $15 to $20/bushel. (Photo:
Rondi-Mex Farm’s farmer’s market booth in Brooklyn. Photo Credit: John Ameroso,
CCE-NYC.)
Project leader John M. Ameroso of Cornell Cooperative Extension of New York
City says, “This project was vital to proving the value of these crops when
direct marketed or wholesaled, particularly to specific audiences.”
The
New York Farm Viability Institute funding helped growers purchase the
specialty crop seeds. The cost of seed from $128 to $446/lb. and its
availability from only two U.S.-based sources are major start-up obstacles for
growers interested in testing the feasibility of growing and marketing these
crops. However, Ameroso says, even a small amount sold direct market can cover
the specialty crops’ market and transportation costs, allowing producers to
grow and sell more traditional, less labor-intensive crops. (Photo:
Michelle Hughes of the New Farmer Development Program and Martin Rodriquez of
Rondi-Mex Farm. Photographer: John Ameroso, CCE-NYC.)
Production records show potential for harvesting an acre of 13,068 lbs. of
greens sold at an average $4/lb. for a $52,272 value, assuming all produce is
marketed. Multiple harvests increase the return.
All four growers have increased their acreage of specialty crops and continue
to develop ways to cut costs and increase sales through seed harvesting,
season extension, growing additional “ethnic” crops, and increasing marketing
to bodegas and restaurants. One grower has now purchased his own farm.
For More Info:
John M. Ameroso
Cornell Cooperative
Extension, 212-340-2946
Urban Ag Blooms in Big Apple: click here for a profile on Crops for Ethnic Markets in NYC project