| DECEMBER 14, 2010 -- Connecticut is the third smallest state in the country and the fourth most-densely populated. There's a lot of people living on a very limited amount of land, and every year, land that could be used for crops gets sold to grow houses.
That's why it's heartening to learn the state's agricultural sector generates $3.5 billion a year. That's far more than anyone had reckoned.
"The number everyone had always used in the past was $2 billion," said Rigoberto Lopez, a professor of agriculture and resources economics at the University of Connecticut and lead author of the report on the state of the state's agriculture. "But it's actually $3.5 billion."
The report looked at the entire cross-section of what people grow in the state -- nursery plants, orchards, berry farms, dairy production.
But it also looks at the people who sell farmers equipment and building materials, or who wire their nurseries for electricity, or sell them diesel for their tractors.
"It's a comprehensive study," Lopez said. "There's a lot of value added."
And it's producing this value with a lot fewer employees than once thought.
Lopez said that in the past, the state has said there are about 50,000 agricultural workers in the state. Lopez's study said that number is actually only about 20,000.
"I think the state's been including landscaping workers," he said. "We didn't."
The study doesn't make the case for Connecticut being an agricultural powerhouse.
"It's not Kansas," Lopez said. "It's not Iowa."
But it does show that Connecticut still has a strong base of people who are still growing things.
With the interest in locally grown, organic produce, with farmers markets and community-supported agriculture on the rise, there's room for growth.
Part of this is for environmental reasons -- a head of lettuce grown a town away costs less to transport than one grown in California's Salinas Valley. It also tastes better.
And there's the food safety issue that will not go away. For every salmonella scare, there's probably 100 people who start finding places to buy farm-fresh eggs.
Finding land can be hard, but groups like the Weantinoge Heritage Trust are now actively trying to keep farmland undeveloped and in production.
This report is the second of three UConn's Agriculture Department has produced. The first, on the state's dairy farms, helped convince legislators to offer more support to the state's waning dairy industry.
The next issue Lopez will study is the connection between growers and consumers.
"We want to look at the economics of food," Lopez said. "From field to table." |
