Local-based, alternative-marketing strategy could help save more small farms

Rural Cooperatives, May-June, 2005 by Thomas W. Gray

The long, historic trend in U.S. agricultural development has been toward ever-fewer, larger farms--a process some have likened to being on a treadmill. Cycle after cycle, fewer farmers on larger farms account for increasing proportions of total production. The process has been fueled in-part by continued adoption of various mechanical and chemical innovations.

These innovations (including increasingly large tractors and machinery, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers) permit greater tracks of land to be farmed more intensively by fewer farmers.

The sheer volume of products produced from this system has been so large that, even in the face of population expansion and exports, prices have tended to remain level or decline.

Historically, farmers not able, or unwilling, to get on the "industrializing treadmill" have found survival difficult. Many of these farms go fallow, or are bought out by neighboring farmers.

As an aftermath of these processes, farm families displaced from their farms tend to leave the local community.

An alternative path

Many rural sociologists--including Thomas Lyson, Green and Hilchey of Cornell, Steve Stevenson and Fred Buttel of the University of Wisconsin, Larry. Yee and Gail Feenstra of the University of California-Davis, among others--say that an alternative to this technologically intensive path of farming began to emerge in the late 1970s, called "alternative agriculture."

This alternative farming path provides strategies linking local production to local and regional consumption, without employing technologies that require an increasing scale of production. Ultimately, these approaches seek to keep as many family farmers operating as possible by improving their economic returns.

Less emphasis is placed upon production of commodities (de-commodification) and on diversification (less specialization). It involves finding local and regional market niches, rather than national and global markets. This approach is often pursued with an emphasis on producing nutritious, safe food in a manner that is environmentally sound. Explicit consideration is given to the social, environmental and economic links to the local community.

This article has a twofold purpose: 1) to review some of the marketing strategies used in these alternative approaches, and 2) to draw implications for cooperative organization.

Following are some alternative farm marketing approaches being used successfully:

* Community supported agriculture--involves individual consumers in a local community who pay an annual membership fee to contract with a local farmer, or farmers, for a share of their harvest. Typically, this is for fruits and vegetables, but may also be for meat. This involves forging a direct market link from the farmer to the final consumer.

Supporters of this approach suggest products can be harvested at peak readiness (for flavor, texture, vitamin and mineral content) for consumption, and delivered within hours of being picked. Farmer and consumer come to know each other and can develop mutual trust (and a personal relationship) concerning product quality, quantity, consistency and predictability. Those consumers wanting special handling and organic production have much greater assurances they are getting what they pay for.

Ideally, the farmer reaps the greatest return of value from the consumer, not having to pay wholesalers or retail middlemen.

* Restaurant (or culinary) agriculture--refers to a food supply relationship between individual farmers and managers, owners and chefs of restaurants. The relationship is parallel to that described above between farmers and final consumers. This linking can be particularly lucrative for the farmer when restaurateurs are looking more for quality and are less concerned about price.

However, the farmer must be able to provide products of top quality, on short-notice and in a reliable manner. Produce, meat, baked goods and flowers are examples of local goods restaurants may want.

* Institutional food service & farm-school suppliers--Many communities across the nation have helped local agriculture and their citizenry by developing links between farms and schools, hospitals, prisons and nursing homes. Emphasis on nutritious food, and children's health, has been particularly useful in forging direct links between farm and school lunch programs.

* Farmers' markets--Less formally organized than farm stores, farmers' markets are generally held at designated locations within a community--such as a community building, village square or parking lot. Local farmers, processors, artisans and craftspeople bring their wares to sell at designated times. Farmers' markets have advantages over supermarkets in that food grown and harvested locally is likely to be at a peak for freshness and nutritional value.

Local farmers retain greater value by selling directly to the consumer. Farmers markets can also provide a test market for new products that, if successful locally, might be expanded to a larger market.