Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
(N/A)
FAYETTEVILLE,AR 72703
Performing Department
Horticulture
Non Technical Summary
The most recent comprehensive survey of blackberry production and practices was conducted 15 years ago. Since then, the U.S. blackberry industry has experienced rapid change due to the expansion of the international blackberry industry, the adoption of new primocane-fruiting cultivars that extend the marketing season, and increased interest in local foods and nutraceuticals. Production statistics and assessments of stakeholder priorities are fragmented and out of date, not reflecting new challenges (e.g., emerging biotic and abiotic stresses and labor shortages) and opportunities (e.g., new production techniques and markets) for the blackberry industry. Therefore, an updated survey and needs assessment of the U.S. blackberry industry is desperately needed. In this project we will develop and implement a comprehensive stakeholder survey of the U.S. blackberry industry.Stakeholders surveyed will include growers and production managers, commodity commissions, nurseries, and processors and packers. Our project team will distribute the survey online, at grower meetings, through trade publications, through growers' cooperatives and marketers, and farm visits in some instances. Following the survey, we will conduct a planning meeting with researchers, extension personnel and key stakeholders to discuss survey results and develop a full SREP or CAP proposal for SCRI that addresses the highest priority issues identified by growers and other stakeholders across the U.S.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The U.S. blackberry industry has experienced rapid growth and change during the past 15 years driven by increased consumer demand, new cultivars, advanced production methods, and year-round product availability. While the Pacific Northwest and CA account for most processing and fresh-market wholesale production, respectively, other regions including the southeastern U.S. have thriving fresh-market wholesale and direct market industries. Emerging pests and diseases, including spotted wing drosophila (SWD), broad mites, and viruses are challenges for the U.S. blackberry industry. Plant heat stress related issues including poor berry set, incomplete drupelet development, sunscald, red drupelet reversion, white drupelet disorder, and loss of vigor also affect production and marketability of blackberries across multiple regions. There is also a strong need for cultural, engineering, and genetic strategies to optimize harvest efficiency as labor challenges present a growing threat to the blackberry industry.The objectives of this project are to 1) assess national blackberry production, identify challenges, and predict future trends, 2) engage stakeholders from diverse production regions to identify priorities for breeding, research, and extension, and 3) develop objectives for a full SCRI SREP or CAP proposal that integrates research and extension in the U.S. blackberry industryThe long-term goals of this initiative are to 1) accelerate breeding of blackberry cultivars that meet the changing and region-specific needs of the industry, 2) develop new horticultural production and pest and disease management practices that increase fruit quality and reduce losses to biotic and abiotic stress, and 3) increase stakeholder profitability and sustainability.
Project Methods
Pre-planning and stakeholder engagement. Immediately upon award receipt, the organizing committee will work with project consultant Coe to review previous production surveys and commodity group research priority lists. We will determine which of these data elements should be replicated in a new survey to better understand trends over time and develop new topics and questions that are relevant to emerging issues and opportunities. The survey will include sections on production quantities and methods, target markets, threats to the industry that can be addressed through new research and development (e.g., pests, disease, climate and weather issues, changing consumer demands, input costs), and opportunities (e.g., new markets, changing consumer demands, new technologies and methods for production, distribution, and breeding). We will obtain all appropriate institutional review board approvals for the survey.Stakeholders surveyed will include growers and production managers, commodity commissions, nurseries, and processors and packers. Our project team will distribute the survey online, at grower meetings, through trade publications, through growers' cooperatives and marketers, and farm visits in some instances. Responses will be tracked from each of these dissemination methods. The survey will be made widely available in Spanish, and translation into other languages as needed will also be available. Industry representatives from production and marketing organizations (e.g., Gutierrez, Driscoll's) and UCCE extension specialist Bolda have agreed to support and participate in the survey dissemination to ensure good participation from producers in CA who might not otherwise be reached by our team. The survey will be open from Oct 1, 2019 to Feb 1, 2020. We intend to raffle three gift cards with $500, $250, and $100 value to incentivize survey completion before February 1, 2020. This will insure that we are able to analyze and summarize survey results before the planning meeting.There is no comprehensive list of blackberry growers across the U.S.; the true size of this population is unknown (whether by number of individuals, number of companies, or number of acres in production). While 122 growers and 126 affiliated stakeholders are listed in the NARBA membership directory and over 800 stakeholders receive emails from the NARBA listserv, the list is not comprehensive. We will use this list as a starting point and supplement with information on grower numbers from marketing and shipping companies (e.g., North Bay Produce Inc., Sun Belle, Driscoll's, Wish Farms, Naturipe Farms, RainSweet Inc., Townsend Farms, Willamette Valley Fruit Co., Oregon Fruit Products), growers' associations (e.g., AR Blackberry Growers' Assoc., NC Commercial Blackberry and Raspberry Growers Assoc., OR Raspberry and Blackberry Commission), and extension personnel in states with no growers' associations or commodity boards to estimate the total size of the population. Given the uncertain size and structure of the grower population, we intend to solicit participation from the entire grower population and to obtain survey responses from as many potential respondents as possible, including at least 100 growers and industry stakeholders and at least 50% of the estimated number of growers in each major production region: CA, Pacific Northwest, and Southeast. This sampling strategy has some unavoidable limitations (neither a perfectly random sample nor an exhaustive coverage of the entire population), but will yield a large, informative and reasonably representative snapshot of the status of the U.S. blackberry industry. This will be a dramatic improvement over existing information and the results will inform the planning meeting. Sensitivity of survey findings to variations in sample composition will be tested during analysis, for example by conducting parallel sensitivity analyses while weighting the sample by region, subgroup, or number of acres of production, in order to determine the extent to which the findings are robustly representative of the entire industry.Proposed agenda for the planning meeting. We propose to organize a two-day planning meeting to take place immediately following the annual North American Raspberry and Blackberry conference in St. Louis, MO during March 2020. This annual conference is organized by NARBA, the primary national industry organization for raspberries and blackberries. A wide range of participants including small and local-market growers, large growers, processing and fresh-market producers, representatives of shipping and marketing organizations, and research and extension personnel attend the annual NARBA conference. Organizing the meeting to coincide with NARBA ensures that a wide range of growers and private-sector stakeholders can participate in the meeting and minimal additional travel funds will be needed to facilitate participation of key stakeholders. We will invite growers from each region, growers' association or commodity board representatives, propagators, shippers, marketers, and private-sector horticulturists and breeders to participate. This planning meeting will bring together a diverse group of researchers, industry leaders, and growers in the same room to engage in a focused discussion on the needs of the blackberry industry to increase and promote domestic production.Most meeting participants are expected to also attend NARBA (March 3-6) and many of the proposal collaborators will give presentations on their research results in the larger meeting. Therefore, we will be able to forego research presentations and dedicate more time to soliciting input from industry stakeholders and discussing future proposals. The first afternoon will be dedicated to discussion of survey results and presentations by growers and industry stakeholders from all major production regions, other industry stakeholders, and project collaborators on major challenges and opportunities for blackberry production. On the second day, we will identify common strategic priorities for fresh market and processing blackberry industries across the US and begin planning for potential SREP or CAP proposals. We anticipate that the meeting will have about 35 participants including project collaborators, growers, and other industry stakeholders. Travel and accommodation costs for this large group can be mitigated by the fact that many project collaborators attend NARBA each year as invited speakers and have some portion of their travel covered in their meeting budget.