Before you start down the road to value-added agriculture, you should understand where the road will lead you.  Value-added agriculture is a movement that has created a life of its own.  It is an idea that has the potential to change production agriculture and rural America.  However, we need to define What is Value-Added Agriculture?  Generally there are five ways farmers have of Adding Value.  For a more specific definition, we define value-added agriculture using USDA Definition.

However, to be successful in this movement we must look further into this concept of adding value.  For example, there is a difference between Capturing Value and Creating Value.  Regardless of whether you capture value or create value, the bottom line is that you get paid for providing value. If your business venture does not provide value to the system, there is no reason to expect a return. So the process of creating a successful business involves the search for providing value.  Providing value can be in the form of marketing a unique product, filling a market niche, simplifying the supply chain, providing a service, lowering costs, and many other ways.  The more value you provide, the more return you can extract from the marketplace.

For more information on this topic, see the links listed below of articles posted on related Web sites.

• Adding Value to Agricultural Products – Texas A & M University Extension – The economic impact of adding value past the farm gate usually adds many times the value of the original commodities.
• Farmers Won’t Survive Unless they become Food Merchants – Quentin Burdick Center for Cooperatives, North Dakota State University -- Anyone who knows any history knows that most wars result from bureaucratic control of productive land and the vitally important things it produces, i.e., food and energy.