case studies/research

Summer Dive into Data

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am on my way to Oregon to join the FSLN National Gathering Monday – Thursday this week. While there, I’ll be meeting up with inspiring leaders who can share ideas for how I can better serve the front-line direct marketing producers, market and CSA organizers, and my own FMC team.

On the first leg of this many-phased trip, I read two recent research papers, 1 on farmers markets and 1 on consumer interest in local food, and immediately found some very interesting information I can use in various projects. I’ll share some here in the hope it is also helpful to others.

The first was a research paper by John Metz and Sarah Scherer published in 2021 titled “The Rise and Decline of Farmers Markets in Cincinnati.” This is a great, well-researched paper for anyone wanting to understand the history of that region’s markets, and also for those interested in data on market closure factors in the area.

Methodology

They did site visits, interviewed managers, and recorded data on products sold, businesses location and gathered other information from informal conversations with vendors. They also consulted another unpublished local survey. (Twiss. Green Umbrella 2016)

Market organization

For this study, the researchers defined farmers markets as having 2 or more farmers selling their own goods (using the USDA’s loose definition) and added the stipulations that farmers at these markets must have ¼ acre or more in production for local sale. They also excluded sites that were the actual production site, defining those as farm stands. They defined Saturday markets as different markets than those that had weekday markets operating at the same site, resulting in 37 sites operating 42 different markets.

Numbers

The Greater Cincinnati market grew from 21 in 2004 to 41 in 2012 with a “25 increase in 2005 and a 35% jump between 2009-2010.” The number peaked in 2012 and then fell 17% (n34) by 2018.

From 2005-2018, 42 new markets opened but 25 closed in same period for a 60% reduction.

During the 2005-2018 era, 71% of the closed markets operated 3 or fewer years. In contrast, 1975-1989 era, 32% (n7) of the 22 closed in the first 3 years.

Vendor-Led and Community-Led

The authors classify markets by its decision-makers, with “Farmer-Focused” and “Consumer-Focused” (or, in the language of a report they cite by Gantla/Lev from 2015, Vendor-Led (VL) and Community-Led (CL)*. I prefer the Gantla/Lev language so I’ll use that here).

Metz and Scherer concluded that the founders’ vision for the market created and continued the market’s decision-making structure. That is in line with the Market Eras Research that I have shared and continue to refine.

Among the Vendor Led markets, 11 of 13 were begun by farmers or Extension. The authors define this type as existing to primarily provide farmers with venues to sell produce. The VL markets had fewer vendors than CL markets (a mean of 6.8 vs 19.4) and the only items that were not produce tended to be jams, jellies, relishes, and baked goods prepared by the farmer vendors. Market managers had fewer responsibilities since these markets tended to offer fewer activities and rarely to conduct data collection (sales, visitor counts, or shopper surveys.) None of the VL markets had a website during the period studied.

12 of the 13 were managed by volunteers, often running more than one. So of the 13 markets, there were only 7 managers. Most were over 60.

Among the Community-Led markets, only 2 of the 24 were started by farmers. These markets had slightly varying goals for their existence including providing healthy food to neighbors, helping farmers make a better living, but also included community development goals as well.

These markets had many types of prepared foods and usually had music, and other activities. Half of these markets also had crafts but allowing crafts is also definitely a subcategory among CL markets as the other half did not allow them at all.

Many of these markets did collect sales (7), shopper counts (12), and shoppers surveys (10) at some point in the time period studied although few did it consistently: only 3-5 of the 37 did consistent data collection in the period studied. And only 3 managers reported collecting daily sales data with another 4 estimating sales annually.

13 of 24 of the CL markets were managed by volunteers although 2 of these volunteers did receive a (small) stipend or the market waived the manager’s vendor fee. Of the 11 that received some sort of serious compensation, only 4 were full-time and had other responsibilities besides managing the market. The researchers analyzed that 6 of those 11 received between $17-$23 hour.

20 of the 24 managers were under 60.

All managers for both types identified as white and 31 of 37 as female.

This research’s conclusions as to why the Cincinnati markets closed:

  1. Farmers markets exceeded current consumer demand
  2. The unexamined assumptions and unconscious biases of market operators who were white reduced the markets appeal to Black, Indigenous/Native people, and communities of Color.
  3. New technology in food retailing that encouraged payment options and online shopping was (is) still difficult in farmers markets
  4. Shortage of farmers
  5. Poor management of market

One thing they did NOT find as a cause for closures among this area’s markets was internal competition from other markets. Their analysis suggests that of the markets that they studied, few of those that closed were within the competition range of other markets. They also note that the number of “Tailgate Markets” closing from 1985-2004 was matched by the number of “Non-Tailgate” new markets opening.

Such a valuable report! I appreciate how it was organized and the core data it offers. They cite our Pittsburgh market report from 2019 which is not surprising as the analysis is presented in a similar fashion. Their conclusions also reflect many reports that rely on historic data from farmers market eras and the characteristics of market types –  including the VT report from my colleague Jean Hamilton that they also cite.

Essentially: markets struggle if they are not organized collectively, if they do not fight for farmers to remain at their center, if they cannot keep a consistent, paid management team, and if they do not employ realistic methods to analyze the external and internal factors that impact their existence.

All of that shows the type of deep support we need funders to start to offer market organizations – which means beyond program $$. The program partnerships are extremely welcome but they come with the expectation of a lot of added work that is not always supported. We need funders and policymakers to understand the underlying mission and operations of each organization and form long term partnerships to maintain and expand those. To make that happen, market operators need to share these reports, collect their own and stop hiding the hard work they and their vendors do.

Footnote *Institution-Led is Gantla/Lev’s 3rd category and defined as markets run by larger orgs that do more than operate farmers markets.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Monica White receives two awards for her research on Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement

January 16, 2020 | by BEKAH MCBRIDE

Nelson Institute professor of Environmental Justice, Monica White has been awarded both the 2019 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity (REI) Fellowship for her research relating to Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement.

White received the 2019 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award for her book, Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement, which was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2018. The award is presented by the Division of Race and Ethnic Minorities Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, which includes a committee of academics and professionals. In selecting White for this award, the 2019 committee said, “[White] deftly blends the past and present through her methodological techniques of archive work, semi structured interviews, informal meetings, and more to provide a strong picture of how the resistance of black farmers in the past is being channeled in the present in contemporary black agriculture and food justice and sovereignty movements in places like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New Orleans, and New York City.”

As a part of the award, White also received a monetary donation, which she gifted to the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives. This organization, which “provides assistance and advocates for the needs of its members in the areas of cooperative development and networking, sustainable production, marketing and community food security,” provided White with editorial support and feedback.

“I’m very grateful to have been selected for this award,” said White.

In addition to the 2019 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award, White has also been selected for the Institute for Research in the Humanities University of Wisconsin-Madison Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity (REI) Fellowship. This award allows tenure or tenure-track faculty to be released from teaching and service duties for up to two semesters so that they can focus full-time on their research. In this case, White will be working on her next book which will focus on the individuals who stayed in the south and did not participate in the Great Migration.

“There is a lot of material on the Great Migration from the south to the north but nothing concentrates on those Black families who stayed,” said White. “I want to concentrate on the cost of the migration in terms of fractured families, and for those who stayed, how they held onto institutions, land, and how they created survival strategies. Millions stayed and those stories have been overlooked, so I’m beside myself with excitement to have the opportunity to dive into my new book.”

As a part of the fellowship, White will participate in weekly meetings with other fellows where they will present their work and share their ideas.

“This is one of the many gifts I’ve had working here at UW-Madison,” said White. “My work is better because of the collaborative intelligence and the way colleagues freely give and share here. I feel fortunate to have a chance to collaborate with other fellows.”

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Veg variety expands acceptance with kids

Australia: Increased acceptance for multiple vegetables was noted during the five weeks of one study and sustained at the three-month followup. Following the study, parents reported that offering the vegetables was “very easy” or “quite easy” with the majority following the instructions provided by the study.

This study recruited 32 families with children between the ages of four and six where low consumption of vegetables was reported. Parents completed an online survey and attended an information meeting prior to participating.

Study data was collected in several ways: two dinner meals served at the research facility during which children could eat as much of the broccoli, cauliflower and green beans as they wished; changes to actual vegetables consumed at home, childcare or school recorded through food diaries; and parents reporting on usual vegetable consumption. Families introduced one vegetable served broccoli, other families tried multiple vegetables. Parents were provided with a voucher to purchase the vegetables and given instructions on portion size and cooking instructions along with tips on how to offer the vegetables. Children were served a small piece of vegetable three times a week for five weeks. A sticker was given as a reward to children trying a vegetable.

Families that offered multiple vegetables recorded an increase in consumption from .6 to 1.2 servings, while no change in consumption was observed in families serving a single vegetable or families that did not change their eating habits.

 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190909123713.htm

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Farmers Markets Need Support to Collect and Use Data

For the past year and a half, I have been attempting to wrangle the last seven years of FMC’s technical assistance around market evaluation (and the last 18 for me) into some sort of timeline and “lessons learned” to present to researchers and partners interested in farmers markets and data.

The process of writing a peer-reviewed paper was new to me and my fellow authors and the entire FMC team soldiered on with me as best they could, cheering me on and adding much needed perspective and edits at different points of the process. After a year and a half of drafting and reviewing, we released the article linked below through the skill of the JAFSCD team, but also because of the support of the USDA/AMS team. I think it should be said as often as possible that the AMS team is firmly dedicated to assisting farmers markets with whatever trends that arise, and in developing programs at USDA that reflect the current conditions of markets in order to increase their ability to support family farmers and harvesters. The evaluation work is just one example of how they have watched developments and offered support where they thought applicable.
The reason for FMC to put effort into this type of academic article is to make sure that researchers see the opportunity to have market operators be part of the process around what data is collected via markets and market vendors, and how it is used. It certainly doesn’t mean that we think that all of the work to collect and clean the data should be shouldered by the markets only or that using the data is their work alone. I hope that is clear in this paper. But we DO think that market work is increasingly focused around managers and vendors making data-driven decisions, and so the way the market team spends its time and how well it analyzes and shares data also has to evolve. That isn’t our choice; that is the result of the world taking a larger interest in regional food and farming, as well as the constant pressure from the retail food sector. Many in that latter group want to cash in on the trust and authenticity we value without holding the same accountability to producers that we have. We have to fight that, and doing it with data is the best way.

Finally, we think there is still much to know about the barriers to embedding data systems for grassroots markets; this paper only covers what we have learned since 2011 and up to the beginning of 2018. Much more is constantly being learned and will be reflected in the TA we offer markets and their partners.

Please email me with comments and questions about the paper and its findings.

Dar

—————————————————————————–

FMC press release: December 18, 2018 – Collecting data at farmers markets is not a new endeavor. But until recently, the data was largely collected and used by researchers, often to understand the role farmers markets play in the broader food system. Over the last seven years, the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) – a national nonprofit dedicated to strengthening farmers markets – has partnered with research institutions and market organizations to better understand how market organizations have begun to collect and use data.

While until recently it was rare for market organizations to participate in the collection of their own market-level data, more and more markets have reached out to FMC over the last decade for data collection technical assistance. In 2011, the organization began to identify common characteristics and impacts of market programs, and realized more research into evaluation resources and tools that could be used easily by understaffed market operators was needed.

In a new article published in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD), FMC outlines the industry need behind creating the Farmers Market Metrics (Metrics) program, and a timeline of the steps and partnerships that led to the creation of the tool, as well as best practices uncovered during its development.

Key recommendations include:

Create assigned roles for the market’s data collection team, and choose training materials that set expectations for seasonal staff, volunteers, and interns to maximize time and efficiency.
Prioritize staff support to allow market leaders more time to oversee data collection.
Gain vendors’ trust in the program for sharing and storing sensitive data.
Patience and support from funders and network leaders for each market’s level of capacity and comfort with data collection.
More assistance from funders and network leaders in helping markets select metrics to collect, as well as advancing data collection training for market staff.
The use of tools such as the USDA’s Local Foods Economic Toolkit, coupled with consistent support from academic partners, will encourage market leaders to delve more deeply into economic data and to feel more confident sharing results.

“FMC’s efforts to craft a suitable set of resources and a data management system for high-functioning but low-capacity market organizations has helped many stakeholders understand and share the many positive impacts their partner markets are making,” said FMC Senior Advisor and article author Darlene Wolnik. “But our analysis concludes that there is still foundational work to be done by those stakeholders to aid these organizations in collecting and using data.”

Wolnik continued, “The good news is that market-level data collection yields important information that markets can use to improve operations, share with researchers, communicate impacts to stakeholders, advocate for and promote vendors, and more.”

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Sustainability while Shopping

The Hartman Group’s research has found that 87% of consumers are inside what we refer to as the World of Sustainability. Those inside the world are impacted in their attitudes and behaviors by sustainability in some way. Most consumers are aware of sustainability as a term. However, attitudes, depth of knowledge, and engagement differ according to where they are within (or outside of) the World of Sustainability. Here are three key factors consumers consider when making purchase

unnamed.png

Resources:
Click to view full infographic
Report: Sustainability 2017

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Legal help for markets

 

Over the last 4 years, different students under the leadership of Jamie Renner at Vermont Law School’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems took the questions and issues that NOFA-VT and FMC had collected over the years in order to research what markets had done in that situation and what the legal ramifications would be for each issue. Dozens of market leaders offered input and a few even let us go through their files or be interviewed to find case studies or to offer expert advice.

Now in 2018, we have a resource that we are all rightly proud to share with markets and vendors. The site is well laid out and offers enough detail to steer folks in the right direction and to assist their legal team in understanding what is available already and what are possible issues.

I hope that we can continue to build this toolkit in future iterations and expand on other questions raised since we began this project in 2014. Please let us all know how the toolkit is useful to you and how we might best increase its use if new funding comes our way.

 

https://farmersmarketlegaltoolkit.org/

 

 

 

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Grocery and farmers markets

I just finished a blog post for FMC co-written with Alex Canepa about Amazon and Whole Foods. Our short answer in our rather long piece was we don’t know how this merger will affect food generally and local food specifically, but it doesn’t look promising.

Because of that post, I have spent even more time recently reading about grocery stores and food purchasing in reports from trade papers, some general books, and articles, all of which are sure of only a few things:

  1. Current storefront retail sales are sluggish.
  2. Consolidation of stores or of chains doesn’t help the consumer.
  3. Online sales of food is one of the few growth patterns in food but if anyone has figured out how to use this method to actually make a profit it’s still unknown.

One of the reasons why the media is obsessed with stories about the big chains is because the story is simpler: success only means profit which means either increasing the number of stores or same-store sales and no matter where you are in the US, it’s the exact same story. There is no need to worry about seasonal interruptions, cultural uniqueness or local factors or find other measures of success.

All of this means that in this age, the farmers market story has to be powerful, exciting and positive. The days of flyers in the coffeehouses and yard signs on market days as the only way to let folks know about the market are basically done.

The stories we tell need to encapsulate what our marvelous markets of the modern era actually do:

Offer civic space to all citizens, with no purchase necessary;

Introduce people to good food produced by their neighbors;

Increase access to healthy foods for our at-risk neighbors;

Encourage wise stewardship of land;

Champion the innovators of our good food system;

Support the larger food and farming system as leaders;

Advocate for better policies at the city, state, and national level.

All of that goes back to one of my action phrases for market leaders for 2017 which was laid out in this blog earlier this year:

Don’t Hide the Hard Work.

In order for the community you live in to understand how their markets do all of these things, the market organization needs to be constantly visible and engaged. The staff, board, advisors and anchor vendors need to let people know their role at the market, invite feedback and then share what they learn with the market community.

Language that defines those things markets do has to be put into metric form and shared regularly with the larger community. That is because anecdotes and stories are not enough for those who do not know us. They need simple and directed assertions as to why shopping directly for their food matters. They need it in 140 characters or less or in a single picture on Instagram or even told them by an influencer whose blog they follow.

Now, you may find those ideas ridiculous; I can understand that thinking as someone who gave up her smartphone a few years back (after being one of the first with a Blackberry, and then an iPhone and then an iPad), but the reality is mass communication has changed forever. And not just for young people: most studies of social media show that some channels – like Facebook – are increasingly used by older people. And not just how, but what they are looking for has changed. That is why the sector that is most sensitive to any change in people’s lives – grocery shopping – has become a free-for-all.

We need to face it head on and decide how the farmers market and larger good food system will flourish in spite of this chaos. Each market needs to check in on all of these areas above and ask itself how is it doing on each and then act upon the findings.

This is the best chance we have to not be submerged by the mess that is retail right now. By aligning ourselves and our farmers as community leaders and our markets not simply as sales outlets, we can continue our revolution even as the storefronts around us change names and focus and even in some cases, disappear from view.

 

Update: check out this story about the new NEW players in food: (and yes the first is “related” through the Albrecht family to Trader Joe’s): Aldi and Lidl.

 

 

 

0 CommentsLeave a comment

SNAP Update:  “Twinkies can no longer be considered bread”

      “I’m disappointed that the rules don’t go as far as what was proposed early this year,” said Danielle Nierenberg, president of Food Tank, a nutrition advocacy group. “USDA has missed an opportunity to increase the availability of and access to healthier foods for low-income Americans.”

The earlier proposals also recommended leaving food with multiple ingredients like frozen pizza or canned soup off the staple list. The outcome is a win for the makers of such products, like General Mills Inc. and Campbell Soup Co., which feared they would lose shelf space as retailers added new items to meet the requirements.

But retailers still criticized the new guidelines as too restrictive. Stores must now stock seven varieties of staples in each food category: meat, bread, dairy, and fruits and vegetables….

…More changes to the food-stamp program may lie ahead. The new rules were published a day after the House Committee on Agriculture released a report* calling for major changes to the program, which Republicans on the committee say discourages recipients from finding better-paid work.

Source: Regulators Tweak SNAP Rules for Grocers – WSJ

*Some of the findings from the 2016 Committee on Agriculture Report “Past, Present, and Future of SNAP” are below.

    • Program participation nearly doubled (up 81 percent from FY 2007 to FY 2013) as a result of the recent recession. In an average month in FY 2007, 26.3 million people (or about 9 percent of the U.S. population) were enrolled in SNAP. That increased to 47.6 million people (or about 15 percent of the U.S. population) in FY 2013, owing to the fact that the economy was slow to recover and many families remained reliant on SNAP. Even now, with a 4.6 percent unemployment rate (compared to a 9.6 percent unemployment rate for 2010), there were still 43.4 million SNAP participants as of July 2016.
    • SNAP is now a catchall for individuals and families who receive no or lower benefits from other welfare programs, largely because the eligibility criteria in SNAP are relatively more relaxed. As a result, the net effect has been to increase SNAP enrollment. For example, in the welfare reforms of 1996, the cash welfare program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was converted into a block grant known as TANF, which has rather rigorous work and activity requirements and includes a time limit. Another program available to those who are laid off from work is Unemployment Insurance (UI). These benefits require individuals to have a work history and to be fired through no fault of their own to be eligible for assistance. UI benefits are also time-limited, typically lasting six months. A third program, Federal disability benefits, requires individuals to prove they are unable to work. For many families who have not collected SNAP in the past, SNAP is now a default option for filling in the gaps.
    • USDA data shows that spending on SNAP remains three times what it was prior to the recession ($23.09 billion pre-recession average compared to $73.99 billion post-recession in FY 2015). However, SNAP spending is now projected to be significantly lower than it was estimated at passage of the 2014 Farm Bill.
    • For FY 2017, the maximum monthly benefit in the 48 contiguous states and DC is $194 for a one-person household, $357 for a two-person household, and $649 for a four-person household.17 In determining a household’s benefit, the net monthly income of the household is multiplied by 30 percent (because SNAP households are expected to spend 30 percent of their income on food), and the result is subtracted from the maximum benefit to determine the household’s benefit.
    • Seniors have the lowest rates of SNAP participation among eligible households of any demographic. While the low participation rate has a variety of causes, a prominent explanation is the stigma associated with SNAP and welfare in general. Many factors contribute to a lack of access to food among seniors, including a lack of a substantial income, the gap between Medicaid and the cost of living, limited income with specialized diets, and mental and physical illnesses.  The issues facing these populations must be viewed holistically, with SNAP as one piece of a larger solution to solving hunger for seniors.


According to research by the AARP Foundation—a charitable affiliate of AARP—over 17 percent of adults over the age of 40 are food-insecure. Among age cohorts over age 50, food insecurity was worse for the 50-59 age group, with over 10 percent experiencing either low or very low food security. Among the 60-69 age cohort, over 9 percent experienced similar levels of food insecurity, and over 6 percent among the 70+ population.

• The operation of the program is at the discretion of each state. For instance, in California, SNAP is a county-run program. In Texas, SNAP is administered by the state… Dr. Angela Rachidi of the American Enterprise Institute cited a specific example in New York City where SNAP, WIC, school food programs, and child and adult care programs are all administered by different agencies and the result is that each agency must determine eligibility and administer benefits separately.

K. Michael Conaway, Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture. Hearing of the House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture. Past, Present, and Future of SNAP. February 25, 2015. Washington, D.C.  Find report here

From CNN this week:

The number of people seeking emergency food assistance increased by an average of 2% in 2016, the United States Conference of Mayors said in its annual report Wednesday.

The majority, or 63%, of those seeking assistance were families, down from 67% a year ago, the survey found. However, the proportion of people who were employed and in need of food assistance rose sharply — increasing to 51% from 42%.

 

CNN Money report

 

CSAs/Mix and Matches, Mobile Markets/Pop Ups and Market Boxes..oh my…

I just chatted with a market rock star in Virginia (think of a very historic town with one of the oldest universities in the US)  about  their interest in exploring a market box program. Here is a snippet of their thinking:

Many farms do not accept SNAP. The reason I really want to do a multi-vendor market box is because we have the ability to accept SNAP. Our SNAP customers are unlikely to travel to a farm that does a CSA because transportation is a real problem. If we offered a CSA-like experience for those unable to travel, we could support our local farmers, and take the burden of having to staff a farm stand, advertise, etc. We would also be helping our lower-income neighbors increase the fruits and veggies in their diets.
The leaders in the community are considering a mobile market or pop up market in the areas identified as food deserts. The problem is, farmers won’t make enough money to make it worth their time, and the business model  brings little money to the farmer if they have a 3rd party selling. I know with the non-profit status and mission statement supporting small farmers, the farmers will keep a higher percentage of their money if it is managed by the market.

Couldn’t have said it better.

This led to a discussion on the difference between Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and a market box program and so I thought I’d expand on it here.

I am so glad to see markets testing different models of getting more local goods from their vendors to more people. If so, it is time for markets to clearly define their terms. This will avoid confusion, which might cause damage to the original and still thriving CSA movement.
From the USDA site (this definition is from 1993* but it is still in force at this point):
In basic terms, CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or “share-holders” of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer’s salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm’s bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests. By direct sales to community members, who have provided the farmer with working capital in advance, growers receive better prices for their crops, gain some financial security, and are relieved of much of the burden of marketing.

I think the distinction of pledging early and direct support to the farm(s) is key: to me, the term CSA means that money (or labor) is given directly to the farmer(s) as an investment made by the shopper in that farmer or that cooperative’s capacity for that year. It allows farmers to have the cash up front to invest in their crops and to have steady customers who do not have to be enticed back weekly with expensive or time-consuming marketing.
The other key characteristic is the shared risk: if the crop fails, the original share is not normally returned to the shopper, although many farmers offer credit for future years or just offer smaller amounts of products in the same year.

On a side note, I was lucky enough to tour and to hear the story of one of the very first CSAs in the U.S. started in 1985: Indian Line Farm in South Egremont, MA, created by farmer Robyn Van En and her community. When Robyn died tragically young only a few years later, the community (assisted by the EF Schumacher Society, now called the New Economics Institute) helped to convert it to a community land trust in order for farming to continue on the property. Through the land trust, the buildings to the farmers. The reason for that is in land trusts, any and all of the improvements can be owned and sold, including soil improvements, which is a fascinating idea. The land trust then put a 99-year lease in place for the use of the land for farming. Robyn was later honored by the same community when her image was used for the ten dollar bill for the beautiful Berkshare (Massachusetts) currency:

images.duckduckgo

CSA farms use a mix of direct marketing and farm-based services which create profound and deep relationships with their members as described in the example above. Many CSAs have even added ways for more shoppers to gain membership, including asking members to underwrite the costs of membership to low-income neighbors, or offering  shares in exchange for help in picking, boxing or delivering. In some other cases, volunteer hours are expected as a member requirement to assist the farmer and to expand the human capital (knowledge transferred, skills gained) benefits of seeing how a farm works.

Part of the issue may very well be that the term CSA is quite general. Truly, even a market could be construed as community supported agriculture if one expects the term to include its meaning, which we have conditioned farmers market shoppers to do! In response, it may be time for CSAs to define their own terms more closely and create a schematic to offer clarity among the versions used. I might suggest Farm Share Program or Farm Membership or even Community Farming…

• Of course, there are multiple farm CSAs that combine their efforts to offer one share and split the production and profits. In these cases, the money is still going directly to the producer.

Mix and Match
•The market-style CSA is still member-based but allows shoppers to choose their products from among the bunches while attending a market. Here is how Local Harvest describes these:

..”increasingly common one is the “mix and match,” or “market-style” CSA. Here, rather than making up a standard box of vegetables for every member each week, the members load their own boxes with some degree of personal choice. The farmer lays out baskets of the week’s vegetables. Some farmers encourage members to take a prescribed amount of what’s available, leaving behind just what their families do not care for. Some CSA farmers donate this extra produce to a food bank. In other CSAs, the members have wider choice to fill their box with whatever appeals to them, within certain limitations. e.g. “Just one basket of strawberries per family, please…”

I see an excellent version of this when I return to my original hometown of Lakewood, Ohio. The farm that offers this service at this market (there are other vendors stalls as well) previously posted a share amount AND a dollar amount for each of the goods on display, but now that the farm has enough subscribers, they do not sell to non-subscribers at the market any longer. The market is used as a share pick up spot with their subscribers able to choose the bunch they would like and to barter away what they do not want in their share. It also ostensibly helps the other vendors by bringing traffic to the market. The market is managed by the entirely volunteer LEAf organization; the pics are from my last visit in July:

IMG_20150709_172017 IMG_20150709_173529
IMG_20150709_174740

• CSA farms may simply offer share pickup at a farmers market when the farm also sells directly to shoppers there. Some markets ask for an added fee or percentage of sales from vendors who also do CSA pickups, some do not.

Market Box Programs
•In the market box programs some third-party, whether a market organization or a distributor business, makes up a box of goods from local producers, adds a fee or a surcharge for one easy pickup at market, at a separate drop off site or even delivers in some cases. In the case of third-party market box or aggregate programs, some markets are asking for a fee for using the market for the staging and collection of goods.

I saw a version of this supporting a “food security” market some years back where a local corporation bought up to a dozen market bags each week. The market packed those up at the start of the market and so those guaranteed sales for the vendors meant they could stay profitable at this very small market and still serve the small community nearby.

Pop Up Market

Interestingly, this has become the new way to describe projects for getting food to many locations rather than using the term mobile market. I sense that the term shift is partly because of the lack of sustainability (both in program and in funding terms) reported by many organizations running mobile markets. I couldn’t find a definition on the USDA site for mobile markets but found this example on their site on the mobile markets page:

Beans & Greens, which operates in the Kansas City metropolitan area, was created specifically to address the issue of food insecurity and food deserts on the local level. The organization uses a truck to visit various areas in the region and sells fruits, vegetables, meats, and cheeses. Customers on the SNAP program are able to double their benefits on items purchased at the mobile market.

However, when you go to their site, Beans and Greens is now explained as an incentive program operating at area farmers markets. That very shift – if indeed they have stopped using the truck – may illustrate why the the term “pop up” is being used in the place of the old term of mobile market.

In my estimation, the market box and matching incentives are a better fit for small/family-farm market vendors than sales to a mobile market and certainly more cost-effective for the organization to manage. My old organization in New Orleans thought long about doing a mobile market in the months after Hurricane Katrina, but as described in the Greenpaper that I wrote, decided that it lacked a cohesive long-term strategy and was likely to pull our NGO into mission drift. And we felt strongly that we could stretch the farmers market mechanism much more than had been done so far: that we could serve low-income communities with a type of a farmers market that offered civic engagement and business sustainability to the vendors if we kept at it.

In some cases, the new version of mobility is along the lines of what we suggested in New Orleans at the end of our research: instead of using buses to bring some food to residents, with partnerships, we could use buses to bring residents to the food. This begins to build the relationships necessary for long term behavior change and with enough visits, may ultimately encourage those vendors and market organizers to invest the time and energy to build another market. An example of using buses to transport visitors is seen in Georgia at this market with a partnership of Wholesome Wave Georgia, Athens Transit, the Athens Farmers Market and the Office of Sustainability at the University of Georgia. It’s interesting; I remember an food assessment done years ago in Austin that came to the same conclusion and added a bus line for a neighborhood without close access to a grocery. The line took them to the next neighborhood every half hour with stops at the stores and markets. I thought then that public transportation in more places would come to the same conclusion:
 that working with public health advocates and entrepreneurs to add lines and stops is a win win, but it seems to have not happened. Maybe it’s finally time.

I am sure that examples of successful** truck mobile markets exist and i hope to hear of them as well in response to this post. I did recently hear of one in Oregon run by Gorge Grown that was discussed with other markets at the Washington Farmers Market Association 2015 meeting.  If my memory serves me well (and I will expect to be corrected by them if necessary), the focus for the truck was in anchoring small rural markets with goods bought by regional farmers, but with other vendors in attendance. The truck reduces its offering or leave entirely if enough goods were offered by those other vendors. The organization estimated the costs run in the thousands each year and relies on donations and sponsors.

So, I’d love to hear about examples of any and all kinds of purchasing programs done at or through markets. I think markets are just beginning to discover the power of the farmers market model by creating new models and I am glad to see so many new strategies being tested at them.It has long been a goal of mine to find the funding to study all of these kinds of programs used in direct marketing channels and publish their unique and shared characteristics. Maybe with enough examples from the field, that research can begin.

•This description or definition of Community Supported Agriculture is excerpted from 1993 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): An Annotated Bibliography and Resource Guide (DeMuth, Suzanne. Agri-topics no. 93-01. Alternative Farming Systems Information Center, September 1993).

**The definition of success in any food system initiative is, of course, fascinating to me as someone who is deeply involved in the creation of the FMC-led Farmers Market Metrics Program. Like any farmers market, I’d hope for mobile and market box programs to adopt the same multiple impact set of metrics that we are developing for markets. Certainly, the FMM work can be easily applied to these efforts with only slight tweaking.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

We Eat Our Veggies — When We’re Eating Out

If we want to change our diets, maybe we need to think about why the food we buy at the store has so much sugar and so few vegetables. The committee recommended we eat more meals at home, but while that will get us more fruit and less sodium, it’s not going to increase our vegetable intake unless we change our habits.

We Eat Our Veggies — When We’re Eating Out | FiveThirtyEight.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Still time to register for the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group meeting in Mobile AL, January 14 – 17 2015

unnamedEarly bird registration for the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group is still open for a little bit longer (2 more days) through December 21st. Register online, or download a registration form and get it postmarked no later than Dec 21st for the lowest conference rates. They accept, via mail, checks made payable to Southern SAWG. They accept, via mail and online, VISA, Master Card, American Express and Discover credit cards. Pre-registration continues through midnight on January 7th. After that, registration will be on location in Mobile.

I will be leading two workshops and also moderating an open discussion (information exchange) this year. Find me here:

Information Exchange:
Friday, 10:45 a.m. – Noon

Using EBT, “Double Coupon” and Other Programs at Farmers Markets – Does your market employ the EBT, FMNP, Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive Program (FINIP) or WIC programs? Do you have a double coupon incentive program for SNAP, WIC or SFNMP? Discuss technology issues and share best practices for implementing these programs at markets.

Workshops:

Saturday, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 noon
Why Farmers Markets? Learn to Communicate Their Value to Your Community – Making the case for farmers markets to farmers, shoppers and community leaders is crucial for continued community support, yet most markets struggle with this task. Learn how to capture and communicate meaningful measures of your market’s success. Using exercises and worksheets from the Farmers Market Metrics project, this session will give you practical examples of simple and effective data collection techniques that you can use for your market. Darlene Wolnik, Helping Public Markets Grow (LA) and Sarah Blacklin, NC Choices (NC).

Saturday 3:30-5:00 pm
Farmers Markets as Business Incubators: How Market Managers Can Help Improve Their Vendors’ Businesses – Increasingly competitive market outlets for local food means that the top farmers often jump from market to market. This session will offer practical strategies for market managers and board members on identifying and understanding their anchor vendors and their needs, as well as addressing the challenges of retaining new vendors. Darlene Wolnik, Helping Public Markets Grow (LA) and Sarah Blacklin, NC Choices (NC).

2015 Conference Program — Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

General Search – Policy Database | Growing Food Connections

A well-designed database that every market and food system needs to bookmark and credit in their research.
General Search – Policy Database | Growing Food Connections.

0 CommentsLeave a comment