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  • From: "Peg Cook" <pegcook AT northnet.org>
  • To: "market farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: [market farming] Marketing a Farm
  • Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 07:21:48 -0400


Dori,
I think your idea has a solid foundation in which you can develop a loyal
clientele base, which is the rock of any type of business. This way you get
committment vs. just lip service, which will not only keep you in business,
but, be able to expand your business as well.

Peg Cook
Cook's Consuting

pegcook AT northnet.org

----- Original Message -----
From: Dori Green <dorigreen00 AT hotmail.com>
To: market farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2000 9:13 PM
Subject: [market farming] Marketing a Farm


> I'm having some very interesting reactions to my recent decision and
> announcement that from now on I'm goign to sell only to people who take
out
> an annual $25 "Farm Membership".
>
> At first people are taken aback, but when I remind them that this is the
way
> Sam's Club works and the way the Country Club works, it isn't a new idea
> with me and I can't live on lip-service support, I need to have people
start
> putting their money where their mouth is if I'm going to stay in business,
> they're signing right up!!!!
>
> Now, not everybody is taking on the $100 commitment for my subscription
> garden (CSA). That's okay, it was never my intention to try to feed the
> whole world even with bio-intnsive techniques. My job is to improve this
> hardscrabble played-out soil -- any harvest that comes off it is a nice
side
> benefit. Not a typical farm plan, I admit, but it works for me.
>
> I can schlep my surplus produce to the farmers market and spend the whole
> day getting sunstroke, or I can donate my surplus produce to the Food Bank
> and receive tax-deductible donation receipts that I can apply against the
> income from my full-time job maintained to support the farm, I can compost
> it, I can put a few feeder pigs to work tilling up new garden areas and
> getting fat on the extra good food. If I'm going to cast my pearls before
> swine I should at least get proscuitto.
>
> A farm, especially an organic farm with maintained hiking trails and
> educational programs, provides more to a community than just the food it
> grows. And the connection to a real farm is something that many people --
> not all, but many -- are willing to pay for.
>
> Just thought I'd toss this in as a side note to the discussion, especially
> since it relates so clearly to the idea of "competing" with the
superstores
> -- whenever we're farm marketing, we're marketing our farms and we
shouldn't
> see that so much as a challenge but as a golden opportunity!
>
> It's all in the numbers. There are a million people within 50 miles of
me.
> If just one out of every thousand families becomes a member of my farm,
> that's $25 x .001 x 1,000,000 = $25,000 before I've ever sold a single
> zucchini. If one out of a hundred joins, we'll have Knott's Berry Farm
here
> before we know it and I'll have to move because that's too civilized for
my
> simple tastes. <G>
>
> Hey, a girl can dream. My point is, we have more to offer -- and more to
> sell -- than just produce.
>
> Dori Green
> Ash Grove Community Farm
> Corning, NY
> http://www.ic.org/agrove
>
>
>
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