The word “maybe” is exciting for farmers who enjoy thinking outside the conventional field.

Keith and Brian Gelder, Jewell, IA, have invested four years honing a livestock venture concept using DDGS and improved feed conversion efficiency. But surprise, their “livestock” are shrimp.

“Starting a value-added business represents a different way of thinking for most farmers,” Keith Gelder says. “The university I attended in the 1970s was all about production. Most farmers like driving big equipment. By contrast, this venture starts with marketing and figuring out why consumers buy the shrimp they do.”

Gelder farms 400 acres of corn and soybeans in north-central Iowa. Since health concerns forced him to quit hog production, he emphasizes diversifying his farm operation with value-added enterprises.

This type of thinking outside the norm is a hallmark of value-added businesses launched through Ag Ventures Alliance, a Mason City, IA, ag business development incubator (www.AgVenturesAlliance.com).

Ag Ventures itself was a new idea 10 years ago. “A group of farmers and I wanted to start a business that launched value-added businesses,” explains Ag Ventures Executive Director Don Hofstrand. The group studied agricultural value-added businesses and noted what had helped to establish and nurture them.

AG VENTURES has helped shepherd many successful ag businesses from idea to production: Midwest Grain Processors ethanol cooperative, Golden Oval Eggs processing facility (5.5 million birds), a farmland investment business venture in Brazil and a microbial soil amendment business. Committees are also studying advanced biofuels ventures, a sustainably powered biofuel tourist attraction along I-35, a wind power farm and others.

“The leadership for starting a business has to come from farmers and not me to be successful,” Hofstrand says. “In a sense, Ag Ventures Alliance is an educational organization where farm entrepreneurs learn by doing.”
Ag Ventures members with new business ideas can use its initial financial assistance, large-scale fund-raising capabilities and business contacts. There is no full-time staff, but contracts for Hofstrand's time from the Iowa State University (ISU) Extension Service, where he is value-added ag specialist, co-director of the Iowa Ag Marketing Resource Center (www.agmrc.org) and the founder of the Ag Decision-Maker Web site (www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/).

“Ag Ventures locates expertise to help serial entrepreneurs overcome their lack of experience,” Hofstrand says. “People don't bring their ideas to Ag Ventures and have us ‘do it,’ but we can help them launch a new businesses themselves. They invest their time, and the eventual reward is ownership in a new company.