Southern Heritage Crops: Developing Economic Potential In A Geographically And Culturally Unique Market Niche For Small And Medium - Sized Farms is a multi-year, grant project, funded by a USDA-NIFA-AFRI Foundational & Applied Science award. 

 

The long-term goals of this project are two-fold. One, to enhance profitability of small- and medium-sized farms through production and marketing of SHCs. Two, to increase planning for, and investment in the infrastructure that small and medium-sized farms require for success in the niche SHC market. This project builds upon existing efforts in South Carolina and surrounding states involving several successful examples of SHC production and marketing development. The development of a set of source-identified niche products under the “Southern Heritage Crops” moniker potentially lends itself to a regional branding strategy that could help provide the sophisticated marketing approaches necessary for SHCs to truly find their value in the marketplace.

 

In addition to the culinary appeal of SHCs to consumers and the associated profit potential for savvy small/medium farmers, this project presents a means for using market-driven approaches to sustain important dimensions of the plant genome. SHCs, by virtue of their being improved upon through careful selection over many generations of farmers, carry genetic traits resulting in superior flavor, nutrition, and wholesomeness. Preservation of the genome represented in SHCs might be of great benefit to future generations in their efforts to adapt to changes in environmental growing conditions while human populations continue to increase.

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The secondary goal of this project is to increase the amount of support for the associated “hard” and “soft” infrastructure and to integrate these strategies into regional development efforts. Hard infrastructure refers to tangible, built infrastructure like storage or processing facilities. Soft infrastructure refers to having organizations, a regulatory environment, and other necessary institutional components in place and trained people to effectively operate them for the benefit of small farmers. The SHC project will help to facilitate the infrastructure development process by making research-based recommendations for public and private strategic investments necessary to develop the SHC sector to its full potential. These investments are likely to positively influence non-SHC sector development for the benefit of small-medium scale farmers.

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Project Management Team

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R. David Lamie – Professor of Agribusiness and Rural Development, Department of Agricultural Sciences, Clemson University. PI and Project Director.  Dr. Lamie is responsible for the overall execution of project activities. He will lead the marketing research effort and oversee the development of the extension outreach effort.

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Diana Vossbrinck – Program Coordinator, Clemson University.  Serves as overall project manager, coordinating all project activities including serving as a central liaison to all project personnel and other stakeholders.

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Ben Boyles – Senior Extension Agent, Director, SC New and Beginning Farmer Program, Clemson University.