Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 20, 1992 TAG: 9203200270
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: New River Valley bureau
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Farmers need to be open to growing a variety of commodities even if they don't like the idea of growing them, Clinton Turner told the Blacksburg Rotary Club on Thursday. "You have to produce what the consumer wants," he said.
The state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which he oversees, is working with Virginia Tech and Virginia State University to find ways to diversify farming in Virginia, Turner said.
For instance, Tech has developed a particular variety of soybean whose sole market is in Japan, Turner said.
Responding to a question, Turner talked about state efforts to get Southside tobacco farmers interested in growing broccoli. The effort was going well until the depressed price of tobacco recovered, he said.
Alluding to the assault on the state's top crop by anti-smoking forces, Turner talked about efforts to find new uses for tobacco. He noted that tobacco lends itself readily to genetic engineering and, ironically, may somday provide a cancer cure.
His department is working with schools to find ways to return profitability to farming, Turner said. He asked his audience to consider that farming is the only business in which you buy your supplies at retail prices and sell your goods at wholesale.
Turner, a former vice president at Virginia State University, was on the Rotary program to talk about the importance of Virginia agriculture on the occasion of Agriculture Day. He was invited by Jim Johnson, director of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service at Virginia Tech.
Virginia has 46,000 farms with total assets of roughly $20 billion.
by CNB