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  • From: "Dave Bennett" <dbennett AT micoks.net>
  • To: "market farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: re: [market farming] Marketing a Farm
  • Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 8:44:00 -0500


Very nice. And a good idea. We've discussed the "member" idea as well, but
haven't decided on that yet.

"Dori Green" <dorigreen00 AT hotmail.com> wrote:
__________
>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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Dave




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