New face for Texas ag: commissioner Todd Staples interviewed

Wines & Vines, August, 2007 by Wes Marshall

For the last eight years, Texas grapegrowers and winemakers have had the luxury of knowing they have some back-up at the state level. Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs was a powerful advocate for the people involved in creating Texas wine. Many considered her the best friend they'd ever had in state government, for her constant support and thoughtful implementation of legislation, policy-making and use of tax dollars.

The numbers speak for themselves. Texas Tech University's wine marketing research shows that in 1998, Texas had 27 wineries with 2,179 acres planted, producing 1.3 million gallons of wine. Today, the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association reports there are more than 130 wineries and 220 family-owned vineyards, with 3,700 acres planted and 1.5 million gallons produced.

During the past election, Combs decided to run for the State Comptrollers office, a move that caused a great deal of consternation on the part of farmers and winemakers. Would the new commissioner be as positive and as helpful?

Republican Todd Staples, a cattle rancher from East Texas, won the election. He feels that his years of working cattle give him a unique perspective on the pressures faced by farmers. He was in Future Farmers of America and went to Texas A & M, where he graduated in 1984 with a degree in agricultural economics. Staples spent three terms as a state representative and one as a state senator before he was elected agriculture commissioner.

Staples was something of an unknown to the grapegrowers and winemakers. Then the rumor mill went into overdrive. So we decided to go straight to the man and get his take on the future of Texas wine and the Agriculture Department's role. He called from the car, sounding busy, but as if he really wanted to let the Wines & Vines readers know where he stands on the issues and what he plans for the future.

I mentioned that he has a hard act to follow in Susan Combs. "I've been very impressed with the progress we've made, and I will continue to ensure that TDA continues that work," he said. "If it's working, we need to keep doing those things that made us successful. But I think we must measure our efforts. I plan to continue to keep raising the bar. I'm going to continue to work hard to improve the wine efforts."

More specifically, Staples said he wants to keep doing everything that has worked, and introduce a few new ideas that should help grapegrowers and winemakers even more. The way he will determine whether a program is successful is by feedback from the farmers and winemakers, along with measuring the results of money spent.

"The lure that the legislature saw, and the reason we were able to get some funding, was the economics," he said. "We believe that $1 invested by the department into the wine sector generates $6 of agricultural pay-off. That measurement shows what we are doing is working. But in the future, we want to reach out to everyone involved, and have consensus and make sure everyone is on the same page about the increased impact from our wine spending."

Staples' first initiative will be to take a market-driven approach to getting the word out about Texas wines. The department will work with restaurants and retailers to try to get Texas wines into more venues. It is currently in the brainstorming part of strategy development, aiming at ways to match specific wineries with specific restaurants and retailers.

Staples talked about measurable results throughout our discussion. This is central to his core beliefs, going back to his degree in agricultural economics. "There have been substantial dollars allocated to Texas wine, and I think we really have to keep our results and be able to communicate those results," he said. "That way, more resources will become available."

Staples is also a big fan of cross-pollination, in a business sense. For instance, good wine attracts people to the wineries. When they visit, they stop at restaurants, spend the night at hotels, shop in local stores, buy gas and generally leave a substantial number of dollars in the community. When customers buy the wine, they keep family farms rolling, local ag supply houses selling and people employed. Agro-tourism is what the economists call it, and Staples is anxious to be able to show the dramatic impact Texas wine is having on the state's bottom line.

One trend that is tough to measure, but one that winery owners know is true from talking to customers, is that people may come to Texas to hunt or play golf or go to a water-park. But they may stay a little longer, or decide to come back sooner, if they visit a winery and have a good experience. "People come to our state for all sorts of tourism," Staples said. "Well, Texas wine is another arrow in our quiver. Plus, if we can have multiple options of things for the tourist to do all over the state, and at multiple outlets, then the wine industry can really help tourism. And tourism is a priority for everyone in Texas government."

Sometimes the synergy shows up in unexpected places. For instance, Texas universities seem to have finally gotten interested in fighting Pierce's disease. Part of that came from the leadership of the Agriculture Department. As they worked on finding the causes of Pierce's, they made a helpful discovery about insect vectors causing Zebra Chip disease in potatoes.