This amazing list is from The New Rules Project which is:
A program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, the New Rules Project started back in 1998 and continues to bring fresh new policy solutions to communities and states to ensure that they are “designing rules as if community matters”.
Localism Index
A version of this appeared in the April 25, 2011 issue of The Nation.
Number of new independent bookstores that have opened since 2005: 437
Increase since 2002 in the number of small specialty food stores: 1,414
Increase since 2002 in the number of small farms: 111,839
Number of farmers markets active in 2010: 6,132
Percentage of active farmers markets started since 2000: 53
Average percentage of shoppers at a large supermarket who have a conversation with another customer: 9
Average percentage of shoppers at a farmers market who have a conversation with another customer: 63
There are some good numbers in there for our work, but I say we need more!
I can tell you the impact that the 3 Crescent City Farmers Markets (the markets that are run by my organization marketumbrella.org) has on our city of New Orleans and its region by using numbers from our 2010 SEED report. This was done with our web-based tool called SEED which stands for Sticky Economic Evaluation Device and uses the government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis multiplier for our region.
The multiplier is a term for tracking how money is spent and re-spent in a regional economy in any one sector. Obviously, when local businesses make money (like our market vendors), they re-spend that locally. How long it stays here before “leaking out” depends on what businesses they have available to them, whether its only Walmart (where the money is sent to their home base of Arkansas more quickly) or Joe’s Nursery, which spends that money locally again.
2010 SEED
Market impact: $6,717,630.32 Sales in the market, and the amount of money generated by those vendors spending it again. The BEA multiplier we used was for our region was 1.9% and was for the retail sector.
The impact the market has on its surrounding areas: $3,217,727.94 Again, this is shoppers telling us if they were going to spend money in the businesses around the market while there. That number multiplied by the regional BEA number.
Sales tax from sales at nearby businesses to the market: $151,620.69 Those who grow their own food and then sell it directly in Louisiana do not collect sales tax. However, the market does add sales tax to the city and state’s coffers because of the sales at nearby businesses that happen when our shoppers go there.
Overall economic impact $9,935,358
From three 4-hour markets each week.
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 