Farmers Market Metrics

Counting public gatherings in 2017-Washington Post article

The point of this post is to show how complex and grassroots public gatherings can be counted and measured. The two main researchers quoted in these Washington Post articles are Erika Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman, both respected analysts of the details of large-scale civil movements and gatherings. As a data junkie, I have followed this effort with a great deal of interest (and have even counted some of these gatherings in my own town to check others’ counts) and look forward to more of the analysis of both the methodology and the actual count data. The analysis included not just the number who gathered but who and what was being protested or being supported, where these events were held, what symbols were used, how many arrests were made.

For March 2017, we tallied 585 protests, demonstrations, marches, sit-ins and rallies in the United States, with at least one in every state and the District. Our conservative guess is that 79,389 to 89,585 people showed up at these political gatherings, although it is likely that there were far more participants.

Certainly, food and farming systems should note some of the systems used for collection and analysis. For example, the Crowd-Counting Consortium may be something that national entities involved in any grassroots data collection systems like food systems should discuss creating for their own use.

Here is their counting method:

We arrived at these figures by relying on publicly reported estimates of march locations and the number of participants involved in each. We started a spreadsheet and called for crowdsourced information about the location and number of participants in marches. Before long, we had received thousands of reports, allowing us to derive low and high estimates for each event. We carefully validated each estimate by consulting local news sources, law enforcement statements, event pages on social media, and, in some cases, photos of the marchers. When reports were imprecise, we aimed for conservative counts; for example, if observers reported “hundreds” of participants, we reported a value of 200 (“thousands” was 2,000, “tens of thousands” was 20,000, etc).

An example of their public data set.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/04/24/in-trumps-america-whos-protesting-and-why-heres-our-march-report/?utm_term=.ce99baecf0b6

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Visitor count article

Farmers markets across the U.S. use many different methods of counting their visitors. Some of these methods are best used for planning programmatic activities at different points of the day, while others are more reliable ways to estimate an average number per market day. The current methods most researchers accept as accurate use strategically placed staff (paid or volunteer) to count those entering or everyone within the market at a set time. These methods require defining entrances, the time span to count and who should be counted or not, such as children or groups of people. The entry count method may be difficult at those markets that stretch for blocks or have many entrances; for those there are also new methods such as capturing the number of mobile phone “pings” within a market space or using drones to snap overhead photos to count quadrants that may offer accurate data.  In order to satisfy researchers who need credible data while still acknowledging the collection capability of low-capacity markets, Farmers Market Coalition’s materials currently recommend the 20-minute timed entry count offered by the Rapid Market Assessment (RMA) toolkit.

 

Link to full article in FMC Resource Library

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Communicating community

Hopefully, all of you who read this blog are okay with my use of Vermont as one of this blog’s recurring examples of food system work. I will caution my readers to refrain from assuming that the Vermonters think they have it all figured out just because their residents are rightly proud of its glorious revival of small-acreage farming and its rep as an organic stronghold. I’d say the state food and farming leaders are very honest about the issues that they continue to face and their assessment of what remains to do. For example, there are still no full-time market managers at all and the average market manager makes less than 10,000 per year (really, it’s likely much less but I am trying to not overstate it here) and, in a state with only 625,000 residents (the most rural state in the union with 82.6 percent of its population living in either rural areas or small cities, and many of them poor*), the 80 or so markets are always struggling with maintaining attendance and sales amid strong competition from co-ops and other well-regarded outlets. And of course, like everywhere else, the state’s farmers are pulled in so many directions trying to serve every outlet at once while dealing with weather and regulatory woes and the typical small business challenges that many are not profitable.

What is exciting is that they all try to work collaboratively at the network level to seek appealing ways to showcase producers and organizers’ hard work. The pictures below are an example of that. My home team there (NOFA-VT) has an artist who does lovely work that hang on their walls and whose art is used by NOFA in many other ways. During my last visit, Erin Buckwalter showed me this bowl in their office of farming “affirmations” from that artist some of which also include actual data. She encouraged me to take a handful and so I have been asking people at markets to reach in to my bag of cutouts and take one. What a simple way to display the difference in our system from the one that reduces everything in a store to a place for purchased advertising. So if you see me, ask to dip in and see what you get…

IMG_4714.JPGIMG_4855.jpg

IMG_4854.jpg

This one, from NOFA-VT’s imaginative and thoughtful Executive Director, will remain on my board to inspire me.

 

 

• Income and Poverty in Vermont

iMedian household income (in 2015 dollars), 2011-2015 $55,176 (US $53,889)
iPer capita income in past 12 months (in 2015 dollars), 2011-2015 $29,894 (US $28,930)
iPersons in poverty, percent Warning Sign 10.2% (US 13.5%)
Fifteen states have more than half their populations living in rural areas or in towns under 50,000 population.
0 CommentsLeave a comment

July Market Data Collection: Athens (OH) Chillicothe (OH) and New Orleans

Since 2002 or so, my public market focus has really been two-fold: designing grassroots markets and creating replicable ways to measure and share their success. Both are necessary in order for markets to remain at the fulcrum of viable and equitable food systems. And THAT means that the desire for programs and funding to create long-term stability and build professional skills must be integral to the field (which includes markets partners), which is far from the case as of yet.

One way we will get there is by capturing data that explains shared success measures while still illustrating innovative and unique approaches in each place. I am honored to be the eyes and ears for Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) and its partners on their Farmers Market Metrics work which we hope will serve those ends. I am in the middle of a summer of travel to sites to observe actual data collection at markets using the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s data collection protocols in the Indicators for Impacts AFRI-funded project shared with FMC and whenever possible, to stop at other markets to view their data collection too.

One of the big bugaboos seems to be in doing direct data collection with visitors or vendors; on a side note, it occurs to me as I write this how rarely I see Dot Surveys (or as we redefined them, Bean Polls!) any longer. Seemed to me that markets did them constantly in years past, but they may have began to decline for the same reasons I made the Bean Poll; vagaries of weather, managing blow-y pieces of paper and light-as-air easels outside, keeping track of previous hours responses etc. Let me stop for a minute to be clear: Bean Polls can only be used in very specific instances as described in the link above. Don’t think I mean that they can be used to collect sensitive data or replace intercept surveys-they cannot. But they can introduce the community to  regular data collection and offer a mood of the day response about possible trends. I wonder if the lack of Dot Survey I see is an indicator of something retreating in data collection at market level, or if I just show up at the wrong time…

And counting visitors- I don’t think I’ve ever suggested to a market that they should count their visitors regularly without them telling me it was near to or outright impossible. Okay, that maybe an overstatement, but I have heard that exact phrase quite often! I respect the low-capacity efficiency of markets, but I do think every market can do good Counting Days and I continue to dream up new ways that counting can be done without a slew of volunteers or paid staff. If anyone is up for trying them out, contact me at dar wolnik at gmail; but do know, it’ll require some planning…

In any case, what I see out there already are some very good systems for data collection that will probably work for small and large markets and everyone in between. As soon as those systems are tested and able to be replicated you’ll hear about it.

The Farmers Market Coalition website hosts the resources and updates  for all the Farmers Market Metrics work, so do check in there for more information.

And if you missed it, here is an account to my first market visit: Hernando Mississippi.

Next: Ruston LA, Williamsburg VA and Takoma Park MD (Crossroads)

Please click on the first photo to view the gallery. My apologies to my Facebook followers who have seen most if not all of these pictures.

The beautiful hills and early morning summer fog of Southeastern Ohio, where the Chillicothe and Athens markets are located.
The Athens OH market has 4 entrances. The vendors are set up in such a way as to minimize the “leaks” in between them and to create a flow at the entrances. Design is key to markets having successful and hassle-free Counting Days, even if a set of temporary barriers are created only on those days to get visitors to use less entrances in order to make the counting easier. Ample communication to visitors and vendors in the weeks beforehand also helps .
Athens OH market mid day.
Athens OH market manager Kip Parker demonstrates a great clicking attitude. The markets involved with the Indicators for Impact project are testing out 20-minute counting methods at the entrances of their markets this year: some are also doing full counts and so will be able to compare the two numbers to see the effectiveness.
Social capital (musician creating a gathering spot) and human capital (skills gained through demonstration) are part of the data gathered through this one photo at the Athens market.
The Athens OH data collection team for 2015. The market will collect data 4-5 times this year with a team of this size, and this for a market with 60-70 vendors and over 2000 visitors on a regular market day.
Athens OH data collector with market tshirt (in order to be easily seen by organizers and noted by visitors as volunteering) with water and gift certificate supplied by market as a thank you for working.
Athens OH gift certificate given to volunteers in mid morning to spend in their “off” time during the market day.
A view of a Chillicothe vendor checking off that his business submitted their sales data.
Close up of the vendor attendance worksheet at Chillicothe (double checked to ensure no personal data showing!)
Chillicothe doing their 20-minute counting sample at 20-minutes past each hour.
Chillicothe’s EBT tokens: obviously much data can be collected by the transactions at each market, but also can be gathered through comments made by shoppers at the market booth.
Crescent City Farmers Market’s SEED survey at their Thursday market 2015. I’d say that it was just luck that I was there on the week that SEED was being conducted, but the percentages were pretty good that I would see it in action, since I try to attend every market day that I am in town.
This is a shot of Crescent City Farmers Market’s SEED survey, which is done each summer at their 4 locations. It is managed by their Robertson Scholar from UNC/Duke, which is a 7-week internship in place for (at least) 12 years at CCFM. It takes some staff time to manage the student and their activities, but simple job descriptions and regular tasks have been built up over the years to make this flow well.
0 CommentsLeave a comment