Survey participants were asked to write in a response to the following question: "If more Ohio State University resources were allocated to marketing, what research or information would be helpful to your marketing needs?"
Table 14 provides a summary of these comments by several categories of responses. Comments fell into five broad categories:
Table 14. Frequency of Suggestions for Allocating University Resources in Marketing Research. |
|
|---|---|
| Understanding the Market | |
| Determining product demand | 11 |
| Determining prices people and brokers are willing to pay for organic food | 4 |
| Training on pricing for direct and wholesale markets | 3 |
| Knowing how to grow, schedule, and sell for direct market | 3 |
| Growing for restaurants | 1 |
| Researching benefits of farmers markets to local economy 1Training in marketing to public institutions, e.g., hospitals, universities | 1 |
| Connecting Buyers and Sellers | |
| Developing local food and grain buying and selling networks | 14 |
| Developing clearinghouse of sellers and buyers | 9 |
| Increasing public awareness of CSAs | 4 |
| Providing CSA marketing information to local Extension offices | 1 |
| Developing Markets in State | |
| Developing cooperative markets | 4 |
| Developing new products to use organically grown crops | 3 |
| Attracting more food processing to Ohio | 1 |
| Developing organic milk market | 1 |
| Developing organic wheat milling within Ohio | 1 |
| Developing soft red winter wheat market | 1 |
| Increasing organic grain consumption for animal and human use | 1 |
| Locating trade shows to sell our goods | 1 |
| Developing more markets in Ohio | 1 |
| Developing One’s Own Market | |
| Obtaining information on home product processing and sales | 3 |
| Developing own label and marketing a new product | 2 |
| Learning how to sell direct to foreign markets | 1 |
| Learning how to protect one’s niche market from large agricultural processing interests | 1 |
| Educating Consumers | |
| Researching the nutritional value of organic food vs. conventionally grown and inform consumers | 8 |
| Preparing nutritious meals with unprocessed, non-packaged food | 2 |
| Providing information on nutritional advantages of grass-raised meat vs. grain-fed and hormone-raised livestock | 2 |
| Educating consumers to accept blemished or less than perfect food | 1 |
| Providing information on health benefits of eating lamb (cancer fighting) | 1 |
| Providing consumers with clear definition of "organic" | 1 |
The most frequent suggestion or request was assistance in connecting buyers and sellers of organic commodities. Clearinghouses or networks to provide producers contact with reliable buyers appears to be a very high priority. Assistance in being able to monitor product demand and how to price product for marketing are among the most frequent responses.
There was also a general concern to increase farm-based or local processing and marketing opportunities within the boundaries of the state.
In terms of university research related to consumers, emphasis was placed on investigating claims of nutritional benefits of organically produced food and informing consumers of those results. Producers are confident such results will be positive and that such information needs to be publicized.