Market Farming

[Aaron Rust <thehappies AT yahoo.com>]

Lynn,

I grow vegetables near Ithaca and we just had a
producer/distributor  meeting put on by local
extension people where they said that one of the
things they simply could not get enough was brown free
range eggs.  What scale is your laying flock?  If you
are smaller scale, try contacting Steven Holzbaur
(holzbaur AT htva.net)--he's somewhere in Chenango Co.,
NY I think.  If you are larger scale try Regional
Access (a larger scale distributor that specializes in
local food--must be organic for them though).  They
both were begging for more eggs.  They might be
focusing more on NY growers though, so I'm not sure
how warm their reception will be, but they may also be
able to point you to distributors who do work in your
area.  It can't hurt to contact them though.

I also looked at a map and it seems like State
College, PA would be another good place to look that
is about as far as Ithaca and it should be a town with
similar demographics.  Do you network with other local
producers in your area?  Who are they marketing
through?  Is your local extension office much help? 
You can try contacting the extension office in State
College too, I'm sure there is a lively local food
scene there that the extension people should be able
to put you in touch with.  But if you make the right
contacts, there is NO DOUBT you can get a decent price
for your eggs and you won't even have to go to a
market, you can just use the distributor and you'll
definitely get more than $1.50/dozen.  You might have
to even scale up a little to make it worth it for the
distributor to deal with you though.  

My experience is that you don't try to convince people
to buy your food and pay the price it's worth, you
just go find the people who are already convinced. 
You do whatever outreach and education you can along
the way, but your focus needs to be finding where the
demand is, not trying to create it out of nothing.
We've had the same experience with a worthless
farmer's market in our small rural town where people
come looking for below supermarket prices rather than
looking for quality food.  These people don't want
your food, so find people that do.  As the movement
grows, eventually they'll catch on, but you can't sit
there and beat them over the head with your eggs!

-Aaron
www.thehappyfarmer.net




      
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