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market-farming - RE: farm website survey

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Subject: Market Farming

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Carl & Julie" <farmer AT mountainharvestorganic.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: farm website survey
  • Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 07:44:07 -0500



Liz Pike wrote:
> How long has your site been online?

a bit over 3 years

> Can you attribute new customers directly to the site?

Each year it seems we have at least one new CSA member who found us
through our site. Last year we had 2 new members which pay for the site
and our internet provider for the next two years. (Free web hosting
services are provided but normally come with pop-up ads that we did not
want to subject our visitors to. We are paying for our web hosting
services.)

In addition to new customers, our summer apprentice for the 2002 growing
season discovered us through our website and she was a huge asset to our
farming business.


> How do you utilize the site?

Our site gives customers a background of the history of our farm, why we
farm, what our farm offers and reasons one should choose to buy local.
We provide our CSA members with a recipe exchange. Members email us
recipes they have invented and we post them to our site. (The web
already has a huge number of recipes so I am not sure this feature will
continue to be useful in the future.) We had planned on posting our long
term projects but that has never become a priority.

It is a real benefit for our CSA members. We use it as a means to post
our packing list and seasonal newsletters. This past season, we
increased our production level, without increasing our labor
proportionally, so we did not have time to write newsletters. Our
customers love that the packing list was posted to the web because we
would email them with a link to the packing list an hour or two before
delivery. A few members used the packing slip as a way to know what
they would purchase from the grocery store and many would combine their
CSA pickup with grocery shopping.


> What changes would you make now if you could redesign it?

If I was to redesign our site I would make it more graphically
appealing. I still would like to have a section that links to current
issues related to farming and perhaps a list of recommended books for
customers who wish to educate their selves about both sustainable and
industrial agriculture.

When we were growing on a smaller scale we were able to prioritize
changes and updates to our website but it seems we have not found the
time in the last two years. We continue to tell ourselves that the
winter is an ideal time for prioritizing our site, however, we are too
busy with farm projects -- like building a barn! In addition, this
winter we both have off the farm jobs because we are still making land
payments, so I don't see anything changing about our site this year!!!


Best Regards,
Julie Mansfield
Hot Springs, NC, USA

http://www.MountainHarvestOrganic.com






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