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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] How do you determine market/wholesale price
  • Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:47:56 -0400

Yes, the New Farm farmers' market price site was great while it lasted. I think they had volunteer spotters doing some of the reporting. I don't know why they quit doing it, but a lack of enough reporters does sound like a very possible explanation.

I suspect much of the problem is that, to be really useful, the information all needs to be updated frequently; and, during market season, however simple you make it, many farmers just aren't going to get to this extra chore. Is there any way to get this done perhaps as a class project, set up so that a number of different schools could participate? It needs to be done in quite a few different places though, some of them rural as well as big cities, and in various parts of the country; prices in, say, Manhattan will have only limited relevance to even rural New York, let alone to, say, rural North Dakota or Texas where not only the pricing situation but the season will be different.

A thought -- maybe only farmers who contribute can access information? That would increase the posting of information; but would also be hard to work, as some markets start much earlier than others and growers may not yet know what their prices will be but will want to access information from earlier markets to try to decide this; also, how often would it be necessary to post in order to get new info? Some people have some new pricing info almost every week, as they do a lot of different crops; but others may grow only a few things and have prices set for the year on everything, so not be able to do frequent updates.

And it would still have to be *very* easy to post -- including from old computers using odd browsers.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale


On Mar 31, 2009, at 1:57 PM, John Hendrickson wrote:

This would be an excellent service. Rodale/NewFarm had just such a
system a few years ago that collected prices from various farmers
markets around the country. The system fell apart, however, and my
understanding is that growers did not have the wherewithall (i.e. time)
to follow through on the reporting.

John Paul Endicott wrote:
Thanks for all the great info on market prices! I'm working on
our farm's pricing as well as costs per unit. Would a national
and/or regional online pricing survey/list be of help to people.
I imagine a simple website where farmers can log on and input the
prices they are charging for different produce- there would be a
checklist for different variables like growing conditions, farmers
market, wholesale, heirloom, etc... the numbers could be
compiled and accessible via regional maps/forums. Would small
farms benefit from such a resource?




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