Filling in the Gaps: Eight Things to Recognize about Farm-Direct Marketing

Abstract

In many ways, farm-direct marketing channels are the simplest and most transparent part of the food system: products go straight from producers to consumers, and money travels back in the other direction.Often these exchanges take on a meaning that far transcends the simple financial transactions.On U-pick operations, consumers become farm laborers as they harvest their own food.In community supported agriculture (CSA), consumers and producers establish season-long contracts with the farmers having the final say on what gets included in the weekly food boxes.Farm stands and farmers' markets provide consumers with a sense of the people and production processes behind their food.Despite this aura of simplicity, it remains surprisingly difficult for producers, agricultural professionals, and policymakers to understand what is actually going on in the direct marketing subsector.These knowledge gaps hamper the development of new initiatives, technical assistance, and supportive public policies.In this short article, we present seven data-driven statements about direct marketing, including what is known and what else we need to know.We finish with a brief case study we recently conducted on one of the topicsdirect marketing of livestock products-as an illustration of the type of information we suggest should be gathered.