The Instant Survey at the Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference

The Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference (GPVGC) takes place in the 2^nd weekend of January each year at St. Joseph, MO. It has been the largest vegetable conference in the Great Plains. At the 2010 conference, an instant survey was conducted the very first time to evaluate the conference and picture the attendees. Among the participants, 44% of them came from Missouri, 29% from Kansas and 10% from Nebraska; 60% of them were commercial vegetable growers, 14% were educators, 25% were home gardeners or community gardeners. It also indicates that the majority producers were in the 40-60 age group, about 70% of them were male, and 25% of them have been growing vegetables for over 10 years. Around 70% of producers grow less than 10 acres of vegetables and only 7% had more than 20 acres. Half of the growers sold their produce at Farmers’ markets and others sold them through CSAs or grocery stores. Most growers may have another job, as indicated by the percentage of income resulted from vegetable/fruit sales and by the fact most of sales were less than $25,000. About half of the participating farmers practiced organic production and half of them had one or more high tunnels. Most participants were optimistic about vegetable production in the future, a quarter them have been with the GPVGC for over 5 years and stated that they learn a lot from the conference. The overall response was very positive about the conference. The survey results will be valuable for the organizing committee, extension educators and producers.