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market-farming - Re: Business Plans and Farmers' Market exclusivity

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  • From: Marcie Rosenzweig <fullcircle AT jps.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Business Plans and Farmers' Market exclusivity
  • Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 07:29:32 -0700


Hi Fellow Listees,

Many of you know my ability to farm has been all but wiped out by the results of my being a life-long, severe athmatic in a smog zone. That, coupled with my fibro, has the farm fallow for the first time in a dozen years. I've turned to writing and training to spread some of what I've learned, help others, and hopefully, make a living.

I've just written two chapters for a handbook on developing agriculture and nature tourism enterprises being developed by UC Small Farm Center's Agrotourism Task Force. The two chapters were The Business Plan and Marketing Your Enterprise.

I can post a basic business plan outline, if you'd like, or simply e-mail it individually. I teach business planning and management skills for agriculture through our local Small Business Development Center. SBDCs are partnerships between the SBA, your state department of commerce and an educational institution or economic development district. They provide free one-on-one business counseling for small businesses and free or low-cost classes and coursework in business planning and various business skills. In states where the educational institution is a land-grant college, your farm advisor can probably get materials for you if there's not an SBDC in your community.

I always recommend starting a business planning process with what I call "Visioning from Values" Looking at your values, whether you are a sole proprietor or a collaborative unit like co-ops or farmers' markets, does two very important things. One, it gets you crystal clear on what really matters and two it gives you a filter through which all your business decisions will pass. My experience is that if you skip this step, you may find yourself making decisions in conflict with your core values - a sure recipe for failure.

In Austin, the Austin Community College is the host for your local SBDC
Austin Community College
Small Business Development Center
Mr. Larry Lucero, Director (512) 223-7754
5930 Middle Fiskville Road FAX: (512) 223-7734
Austin, TX 78752

to find the SBDC in your area or to find out more about SBDCs in general, go to http://www.sba.gov/SBDC/ the buttons on the left side lead to your state listings.


This segues into another topic - farmers' market exclusivity. If you look at customer surveys in both conventional markets and farmers' markets, you will find that price is fourth, or lower, on the list of reasons why people frequent a given market. Quality, service, and location (convenience) are almost invariably ahead on the list.

My friend Vance Corum cites an airport billboard that reads, "Any fool can see where the competition is coming from. The trick is to outmanuever it." I truly never worried about competition from other growers in the markets I attended, I simply did the very best job I could at merchandising what I had to get customers to the stall then the best job I could at service so I could keep them.

Exclusivity happens more often when there is a strong BOD dominated by farmers who are still doing business they way they did 5 or 10 years ago. Markets that don't grow and change eventually die. If a market board does a business plan starting with values, they will not only allow other growers but welcome them.

Most markets have as a goal, the promotion of local agriculture. That comes from the values of community and loyalty, and a desire to protect local farms and the assets they provide. A stagnant market with flat or declining attendance is a poor strategy for supporting those farms. Better to give classes on merchandising, customer service, value-added products and services, crop planning, and season-extension to help these farmers be more successful.

One interesting note - farmers tend to see variety in the marketplace as many different crops grown by few farmers; consumers tend so see variety as many different farmers growing different crops.

Hope this helps,

Marcie







Marcie A. Rosenzweig
Full Circle
3377 Early Times Ln
Auburn, CA 95603-7900
(530) 885-9201





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