California: the cull carrot market has kept growers in the retail business

Tag : carrot

 Michigans ban on feeding and baiting wild white-tailed deer came Aug. 26, the day after the first deer infected withchronic wasting disease (CWD) was found in the state. According toRebecca Humphries, the director of the states Department ofNatural Resources, policy had been laid down long in advance, andshe knew one of the first actions she would take, should CWD befound, was to ban feeding and baiting.

Baiting and feeding of deer has long been controversial. Huntersand deer watchers use bait to attract deer for viewing or forhunting, especially bow hunting. For bow hunters, the ban came alittle more than a month before hunting season opened.

Denise Donahue, executive director of the Michigan Apple Committee,said the timing was bad for apple growers.

Growers who have developed that niche market had absolutely notime to adjust. Had they known earlier, they might have madedifferent decisions on how to manage the crop, she said.

Some of Michigans apple crop had been damaged by hail in earlyJuly, and the deer feed market had long been considered a viableone for hail-damaged apples, as well as for scabby apples anddrops.

While one industry expert said apples intended for deer feed couldbe used for juice  including drops, if the juice was pasteurized Donahue wasnt pleased by that.

For food safety reasons, the industry has moved away from usingdropped apples for food, she said. Good management practices forcider include a recommendation against using drops.

Still, the apple crop in Michigan is short this year, and some ofit was damaged by hail and early freezes, so there will undoubtedlybe shifts in how the apples are used. One packer is putting out aspecial package of hail-dented Honeycrisp. Other apples will shiftfrom the fresh to the processed market, but processors makeprocurement plans early. It is a question how many deer-feed appleswill move into processing or juice markets, especially given theshort notice.

A big question remains over how drops will be marketed, now thatthe bait market is gone.

Across much of Michigan, deer feeding and baiting has madevirtually every gas station into a convenience store for bags ofapples and carrots.

While apple growers will be hurt, carrot growers face even gloomierprospects.

Ben Kudwa, executive director of the Michigan Potato and CarrotCommission, said that 20 percent to 30 percent of Michigans carrotcrop is sold as culls for deer feed. Thats 850 to 1,000 semi-truckloads, at 20 tons a load, worth anywhere from $25 to $150 a ton,depending upon how they are packaged and sold.

Since much of the carrot growing business shifted to California inthe 1970s, Michigan has been a small player, Kudwa said. Growershave cultivated the deer feed market as a good alternative for cullcarrots.

If we were in California, we would have carrot juice as analternative market, he said. Here, the cull carrot market haskept growers in the retail business.

Not only did the DNR baiting and feeding ban kill that market, itleft growers with a disposal problem. The Michigan Department ofAgriculture has been asked for its opinion on what carrot growersare to do with the cull carrots. Land-applying them at heavydensities could put growers at odds with DNR, which might see thefields as giant bait piles.

Livestock specialists at Michigan State University have releasedinformation on the value of carrots and sugar beets as feedstuffsfor cattle, either brood cows or cattle in feedlots. Carrots, at 12percent dry matter, have a lot more moisture than corn or hay, butthey are sweet and palatable to cattle and could make up as much as40 percent of a diet, replacing corn silage. Sugar beets aresimilar.

Carrots at $20 a ton would be more valuable than corn at $5.70 abushel, according to the experts.

Sugar beets are another popular deer bait. People who grow them forbait are usually not commercial growers, who contract their beetsfor processing into sugar. In theory, both sugar beet and corngrowers have flexible markets and are not tied to deer feed although beet growers might not have access to markets as readilyas would those growing corn for deer.

Michigan Farm Bureau, in an effort to help farmers find alternativemarkets for what might have become deer feed, set up the Web-basedMichigan Feed Exchange. The site can be found atwww.michfb.com/feed. Those without Internet access should callAndrena Reid at 800-292-2680 ext. 2022.

Farmers might also try to sell their culls using Michigan MarketMaker, a new interactive Web tool from the MSU Product Center thatconnects buyers and sellers of food and fiber products. It can befound at http://mimarketmaker.msu.edu.

For the last decade, debate has raged in Michigan over deer baitingand feeding, started by the discovery of bovine tuberculosis insome deer. It is believed that both TB and CWD are passed from deerto deer in saliva and nasal secretions, and that having deer eatinglike livestock at a trough was putting deer at risk.

While the TB case created controversy, there appears to be littleabout CWD. This disease is a transmissible spongiform encephalitis,a mysterious group of diseases caused by odd proteins about whichlittle is known. These diseases, while not known to betransmissible across species lines, do appear in cattle, sheep,deer and related animals, and humans.

The CWD-infected deer was found on a deer farm near Grand Rapids,Mich., and not in the wild population, but strict rules wereimposed to minimize the risk of spread.