farmers/farming information

Using mp3s to make the case

I own two very simple recording devices that I use in interviews and sometimes just to get a recording of the sounds of a market when visiting. In my own work, here are the two that I use:

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They are both very useful and not that expensive, but sometimes just using a site that records short mp3s is all that is needed. This came up again this week, as we are hoping to use this technology in reporting to a funder on a project that I am working on and wanted project partners from across the country to record short sound bites. As an example, check out my recording which took 4 minutes to record and upload to my website:
HPMG mp3

And here is the link to the free mp3 site that I used

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Farmers Market Legal Toolkit Project

As a member of this team, I’m pleased to share the news of this project being funded:
The Vermont Law School’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems received funding to develop a Farmers Market Legal Toolkit (FMLT) and educate market leaders on various legal topics that affect them. The project will be conducted in partnership with NOFA- VT, who will assist them in collecting data on area farmer’s markets. The legal toolkit will include resources in three major areas: governance structure of farmer’s markets, liabilities related to use of EBT/SNAP systems, and general risk management.

Research Awards to Support Rural Communities | National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

(USDA Editor’s Note: The USDA press release mistakenly identified this project as the University of Vermont and the USDA research summary system mistakenly identified it as the University of Arizona, but it is in fact Vermont Law School.)

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2012 Agriculture Census Released | National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

“In releasing the Census, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack called particular attention to beginning farmer highlights, including that 22 percent of all farmers are beginning farmers who have operated a farm for less than ten years and that the number of younger beginning farmers (35 and under) who report farming as their principal occupation has increased by 11 percent since the 2007 Census, to 40,499.

The Secretary also noted that 30 percent of all farm operators are women and that Latino farm operators have increased 21 percent since the last Census to 99,734. He also noted that organic sales from farms increased by 82 percent since 2007 to $3.1 billion in 2012.

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, the agency which conducts the Census, highlighted in their release that 2012 set records for both the value of farm sales and the costs of production, with farmers and ranchers selling $395 billion worth of products at a cost of $329 billion, such that an average less than 17 percent of sales became actual income.

.. .They also pointed out the 144,530 farms sold directly to consumers, with total direct sales of $1.3 billion, up 8 percent from 2007.
2012 Ag Census
Census home page

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Turkey Creek

In case some of us forget from time to time that what we are fighting for is local sovereignty in order to save, rebuild or create our own healthy systems, and that environmental justice MUST be included into our scope of work, this may help:

COME HELL OR HIGH WATER: The Battle for Turkey Creek – TRAILER (1 MIN.) from Leah on Vimeo.

Derrick often recites a warning that his mother gave him when he began fighting to protect his community of Turkey Creek: “There might not be any bottom to this.” A dozen years later, her words hold special meaning for both of us. My film documents what seems like an unrelenting assault on this historic African American community on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, and it continues to this day. When I began filming, the precious place of Derrick’s childhood memories and family oral history was being overrun by urban sprawl, and then came Hurricane Katrina, and then the BP oil disaster.

SIGN UP to host a screening on April 29th or within 30 days following the premiere broadcast.
ACCESS THE FILM by finding your broadcast on a local station, or watch when it streams for free online through American ReFramed. If you are streaming it online, be sure to test your connection.

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Let’s be clear: Independent Contractor or Employee?

One of the projects on which I will be working (TBA soon) may help to address some of the employment issues that I see within food systems, especially markets. Here is one of those issues, how markets employ their market staff.
This is from the IRS website:

“You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer (what will be done and how it will be done). This applies even if you are given freedom of action. What matters is that the employer has the legal right to control the details of how the services are performed.”
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The decision is based on three areas:

Behavioral: Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job?
Financial: Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? (these include things like how worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.)
Type of Relationship: Are there written contracts or employee type benefits (i.e. pension plan, insurance, vacation pay, etc.)? Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?

Independent Contractor (Self-Employed) or Employee?.

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Eating seven or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day reduces your risk of death by 42 percent — ScienceDaily

Eating seven or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day reduces your risk of death by 42 percent — ScienceDaily.

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Four young farmers start Stone Soup Farm Co-op, on front of worker-owned farm trend | GazetteNet.com

As a supporter of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, I hope that the expansion of worker cooperatives is as wide as the marketing cooperatives were in an earlier time among farmers. I would like to see market organizations spend some of their time searching for funding to add new farmers and especially encourage new cooperatives. Cooperatives might be especially useful within certain types of markets, like food security markets.

“Each person manages a specific part of the farm. Barnett is in charge of the harvest and what gets included in the CSA shares, as well as some aspects of crop production such as irrigation. DiLorenzo does the bookkeeping, office work, and creates daily and weekly plans to make sure production is on track. Harro oversees the greenhouse production and seeding, and Man takes care of the chickens, maintains the equipment and oversees the apprentices.The four worker-owners, who all live in Hadley, receive equal monthly stipends as pay and if there are any profits at the end of the year, they will get dividends. They declined to say how much their stipends are.”

Four young farmers start Stone Soup Farm Co-op, on front of worker-owned farm trend | GazetteNet.com.

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CFA study of direct sales and agritourism shows some ups and downs

From FoodTank: “On-farm enterprises that focused their business plans on local communities were labeled community-focused agriculture (CFA). This included farms that sell their produce directly to consumers and generate farm income through agritourism. According to the report, only 6.2 percent of all farms deal in direct sales, and around one percent report income from agritourism (all study figures are based on USDA statistics from 2007, the most recent year available).

Studying CFA influence on a national and county-by-county level, researchers found some surprising results. In New England and Mideast counties, regions with well-developed urban centers in proximity to CFA, direct sales increases were associated with increases in total farm sales, as well as personal income growth. Agritourism, on the other hand, was found to have a negative effect on total farm sales.

In the Southeast, increases in direct sales were associated with overall reductions in total farm sales. However, the reverse was true for the effect of agritourism on total farm sales, which was found to be positive in this region and in the Great Lakes.”

“Linkages Between Community-Focused Agriculture, Farm Sales, and Regional Growth”
Economic Development Quarterly 0891242413506610, first published on October 18, 2013

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The Crunchy Cities Index – Support Farmers Markets

This is an exciting piece on the explosion of farmers markets, but I must confess that based on my own knowledge, I find the data to be less than precise. The USDA list of markets is not checked for accuracy and as it is up to market organizers to list and to de-list their own markets, most estimations believe that the list is far from accurate, even though the USDA does everything within its (limited) time to make it right. Even the definition of what can be listed as a market is loose; this may seem like nitpicking (after all more “markets” is good news isn’t it?) but since we know how the capacity of markets remains low partly because of low support among funders and policy makers, the lack of clarity may hurt chances to expand well-managed farmers markets or public markets that support local entrepreneurs.
What is also true is that many retail operations masquerade as farmers markets without directly supporting farmers or managing those involved in direct sales; regular operation, transparent governance and some direct sales for regional producers should at least be the minimum to being listed on this list. Don’t get me wrong; I like the idea of auxiliary and ancillary food initiatives that get regional food into more communities being listed somewhere and to be tied to efforts at flagship or sister market organizations, but we should get better at describing each of them with their own type so we can allow more to flourish.

The Crunchy Cities Index – Buy Local by I Support Farmers Markets.

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Experience helps restaurant managers stick with local foods

In a study of the cost and benefits of purchasing local foods in restaurants, managers and chefs indicated that certain actions of local food producers stand out as reasons why they continue to buy local foods. For instance, managers said that a local farmer’s or producer’s response time — the time it took a business to respond and process an order — was more important than delivery time — how long it takes to actually receive the goods — as a factor when they considered buying local food products.
Managers did not seem to think food safety was an issue with handling local food.
Clear labeling is another selling point for restaurant managers who are purchasing foods in grocery stores and markets. The labels should be accurate and easy to read, containing specifications including weight, date and product details, for example, according to Sharma, who worked with Joonho Moon, doctoral student in hospitality management, Penn State, and Catherine Strohbehn, state extension specialist and adjunct professor in apparel, events and hospitality management, Iowa State University.

Amit Sharma, Joonho Moon, Catherine Strohbehn. Restaurant’s decision to purchase local foods: Influence of value chain activities. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 2014; 39: 130 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2014.01.009

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You Get What You Measure

I look forward to this measurement workshop, which I plan on attending. It is open to the public and the cost is very reasonable, so anyone in the Baltimore area might want to join or look at their other opportunities. I am currently involved in a few evaluation projects, at implementation (market) level and at the creation level-at least one with the Farmers Market Coalition. I hope to announce another of those projects soon on this blog (meaning as soon as the funder is ready to announce!). In the meantime, I hope many of you saw the announcement we made about the FMC/Knight Foundation Farmers Market Metrics Prototype project which is rolling merrily along:

Knight Foundation Prototype Grant

Yellow WoodYou Get What You Measure

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